Somewhere Between Aspiring Author and Complete Disaster

 Remember that old Disney song that goes something like – A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep…No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.

Well, maybe Disney needs to make a movie about Rip Van Winkle, the dude who took a 100-year nap, cause sometimes the dream seems to take that long.

I’m not exactly sure how Disney could put all this into a song, but here’s the more realistic version of the long road for those who dream of becoming an author…

Let’s start in your 20s. You’ve got great ideas. They’re hilarious. Everyone is going to love them.

But you think you have all the time in the world. Some nights you’re just not inspired to put pen to paper and chase the dream, so you put it off to binge-watch tv shows that are essentially brain bonbons about things like choosing a wedding dress or the antics of D-list celebrities who have lost their dignity. Later in life you’ll deny you watched any such thing. 

But the decade isn’t a complete waste. You do make some progress. You learn some things. You make some nominal attempts to get published and you get humbled.

Then your career picks up speed. Before you know it, your 20s are over.

At some point you get married. Then you have kids.

You gain some weight. You lose some weight. You gain some weight. Welcome to your 30s.

You spend your one free hour a day writing. You spend it working out. You spend it writing. You spend it working out. Uphill both ways.

Remember, you have kids now — so you pursue your dreams in the early mornings. Or late nights. Or literally during the two minutes you are brushing your teeth, scribbling some nonsense onto a paper towel. Spit and rinse.

One day you look around and you think, “Hey! I really got this whole life thing figured out! I’m not doing so bad!”

Three days later you find yourself thinking it’s really quite sweet of society to collectively pretend that you’re a functioning member.

Work gets harder.

You gain some weight.

You do your research and find out the whole publishing industry has changed since your twenties. You know nothing again.

You write something that is really quite good. You decide to submit it. Then you don’t and six months later you read it again and you cringe and no longer want to.

You join the PTA and that’s a mistake. You go from seven hours of sleep to six to five over the course of your 30s. You Google the effects of getting less than six hours of sleep a night and realize you’re at risk for dementia. But, you think, this is only temporary.

You get a new job and your boss tells you after a year or so that writing just really isn’t your thing. You question everything you ever knew about yourself. Then someone way way wayyyy above his head randomly compliments your writing and you realize your boss … well, what does he know anyway.

That job doesn’t work out for obvious reasons and you go back to your old job and try not to feel like you have your tail between your legs.

Feeling better, you start writing for the love of it again.

Your kids do something amazing and you feel like parent of the year. Your kids do something unpalatable and you wonder if they might someday be the downfall of civilization as we know it.

Also – you carry your gym clothes in an Aldi’s bag. You’re a monster.

Somewhere near, around, or well into your 40s you realize this isn’t working. You think – hey, maybe God knows what you should write.

And He does.

And maybe that doesn’t get published either, but you still needed to write it. And maybe if nobody “important” (aka a publisher or an agent or someone looking to randomly bankroll an unknown author) wants it, maybe you’ll publish it yourself. Because you’re quite sure this time that someone is going to love it.

You wrote the story for someone. Now it’s just a matter of finding out who.

This is your story.

Or maybe it’s not.

But it is mine. This is where I exist – somewhere between aspiring author and complete disaster.