The scariest part of making a dream come true: Doing it. I have held the notion of being a writer as my secret dream occupation for many years now. The romance of the novelist exercising their defects and personal demons through prose is inescapable. The travel writer toting around a notebook, leather messenger bag and a spare pair of khakis has always tickled me in the wistful place.
The other day I was looking at my personal growth and coming up with new goals. So far my personal growth has been mainly focused on overcoming fears and cultivating habits that will lead to a better life. I have also done some serious self examining. I have looked into my flaws and recognized them for what they are. I have made plans to move past them. I have focused on honing and refining what it means to be me. As of right now, I have done very little broadening of what it means to be more or extending my hopes and dreams into a more realistic sphere. That changed today.
I made the decision to start on a path that could, with much hard work and commitment, lead me something that resembles the wordsmith existence for which I have longed. This is terrifying. I have a plan, I have a check list. I have ideas. I signed up with a couple freelance web article aggregators to test my ability to sell my words. I have ideas for a couple articles that I think could generate traffic. I talked with my sister about collaborating on producing a short film. I came up with a sketch of an idea for the short film. The prep work is drawing to a close. This means I am reaching the precipice of the “put up or shut up” phase of my dream. Yep! I’m skeered!
Cross your fingers that my resolve wins out over laziness. If I fail because I simply lack the talent to support my life this way (or augment my life this way for that matter) then that is fine. If I fail because I lack the discipline to put my talent to work, well then I might as well hang myself with a broken shoelace.
