Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Valley of Dreams...

Today, I'm just going to be real with you.  No glossy photos.  No smiley, happy, bouncy Emily today.  Right now, my life is crazy and messy.  If I want to be real with my lovely readers - and I do - then my blog has to reflect my life, messy and all.

One of my biggest dreams is to be published.  As many of you know, I've been working on self-publishing my novella Sixteen.  This month, my friend and editor Rachelle Rea and I are working on editing.  With my focus on this book, I decided to look at everything I need to do between now and the launch date (the day my book comes out) and make a timeline for me.

I ended up going to bed very late and very discouraged.


There's so much to do - editing, formatting, figuring out legal stuff like taxes, technical things like learning the publishing features on the platforms I want to use, marketing and blog tour to-dos... I'm in way over my head here.  Those writers who stick with traditional publishing, with their agents and the publishing house taking care of so much of this stuff or at least explaining it to them, look like the smart ones from where I am right now.

My publishing journey mirrors my real life right now, too.  My bedroom is a mess and half of it is inaccessible as I figure out where in the world to put all my stuff in this new house.  Several things with church and school - like typing puppet scripts or six AP-level tests I didn't realize I was supposed to have done - are taking so much of my time.  And issues with a friend that have been simmering since last summer are coming up to the surface again and just making more waves that I really don't need.

So what do we do when our dreams and goals, the things we've longed to do and have been planning for so long, suddenly pull us under?  What do we do when we feel like we're drowning with commitments?  When we have more to-dos than time?  When we find ourselves backing out on so many people that were counting on us, because it is physically impossible for us to follow through on everything we thought we'd have time for?

I don't know, my lovely readers.  I just don't know.


I'm participating in Melanie's Monthly One Word Linkup Party.  Join us!


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