This first Saturday of 2018, I am returning to my series: Weapons in my Armoury. If you are new to this series, an explanation can be found in the last paragraph here.
My weapon this week is that of believing in yourself.
Throughout our lives, there will be nay-sayers. Those people who, for whatever reason, are just waiting for you to fail. If they see you stumble, they believe it is time to quit, cut your losses and run.
It is during those times, that we have to trust and believe in ourselves. This life as a writer is not an easy road to walk, it is a marathon, not a sprint.
Fundamentally what does one have to believe?
No matter how difficult the task, one can learn and grow and ultimately succeed.
That is really at the heart of anyone’s journey, not just a writer’s. But that is the broad, big picture. But sometimes, the broad, big picture can be vague and lead to ambiguity along the way.
Over the last few weeks, I have been going through a course on being more productive. One of the things I have learned is to break everything down into to smaller and smaller pieces. For example, I have roughly five hundred pages of manuscript that I am revising. It is daunting. And for the last few months, I’ve been stuck and overwhelmed, and as a result, accomplished nothing in the revision task.
But, I am learning to break it down. I am revising one page at a time. If all I get done is one page a day, eventually all the pages will get done. So for now, I am focusing on that one page a day. So far, that one page is working out to be about ten pages a week. That is three pages more than anticipated, and ten pages more than I accomplished over the last few months of last year. This is encouraging and only builds my confidence.
I can do this!!!
So, let me break down that broad, big and bold statement of belief.
What do I believe?
I believe I have stories in me clamouring to get out.
I believe I have it in me to tell a great story.
I believe I can hone my writing craft to the point where I can cut through all the rough drafts ( and believe me they are rough) to tell the story in the best possible way.
I believe I can build my business as a writer, by learning from those who have gone before and keep trying until I find what works for me and my process.
I believe that there will be failures, but I also believe that I will learn from those failures and come out better for it.
I believe that I will have an audience, because, an audience is made up of one person, then another person, and so on. If the stories I want to tell entertain me then they can certainly entertain others.
I believe I will be successful.
Believe me, when I say, I am a Writer!