300 Words a Day - #26: Allow Your Dream to Leave the Nest

When we find the courage, the motivation and the inspiration to go for something, we need to protect these attributes from outer and inner influences.

It’s so easy to let them slip through our fingers, and when that happens there’s a danger of us turning our backs on our dreams and aspirations for good. 

When I was a postman, I delivered to a lady who knew I had just published my first book, due to an article that appeared in the local newspaper. 

She confessed to me she had written a book of her own. A novel. 

I was surprised. By this time I knew her pretty well, as I did most of my customers, and never once had she told me she was writing a book.

“Have you tried to get it published?” I asked.

She shook her head, almost with a childlike innocence.

“I daren’t,” she said. “It’s finished, but it’s just in the drawer, next to my bed.”

This whole wanting to keep our creative expression to ourself was new to me. When I was making music, I would send off demo CD after demo CD, hoping that a record label, one day, would bite the bait. 

“What worries you the most?” I asked her.

“Them not liking it. And if they tell me it’s a load of rubbish then… well… it’s just safer in my drawer.” She laughed uncomfortably.

By them she meant literary agents. 

I admit, it can be daunting sending off a manuscript.

Our piece of work, whatever it may be, is like our baby. We want to protect it.

But like an overprotective parent we can end up not allowing our children to experience the world, to have a life of their own.

Send them on their way with a smile and wave.

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Full-time Artist

Having just got back after a month long trip around Europe, I find myself feeling like another chapter in my life is starting.

Like all change, it's daunting, but I have nothing else to do apart from embrace the fear that arises and use it to motivate me.

I think a major reason for feeling the way I do is because I no longer have a stable job. My safety net has been pulled from under my feet. The last time that happened was when I finished college in 2001, but even then I had a part-time job, so I wasn't entirely "netless".

When I think about what I've given up it's not a great deal, to be honest. It was a job I had been wanting to replace for a long time. I had been in it for a decade when I finally left, so change was afoot.

So now I've left the job, what has it been replaced with?

That which I was doing all along: writing.

All I have to do is acquire a new perception of myself as a full-time writer. But that's harder to do than it sounds. It involves rewiring the brain to think and perceive differently.

In the space of five years I've written five books, published three of them, and had several articles printed in magazines. I say this, not to brag, but to highlight the fact that throughout all of this I still didn't see myself as a writer.

My good friend Peter O'Toole quit his job several years ago to become a full-time illustrator. Since then he has worked with The Telegraph, Clarks and Adidas, to name but a few.

On our trip to Europe we stopped by the UK for ten days to see family and friends. Pete was one of those friends, as our six week breakfast meeting was some nine months overdue.

As always we got talking about being artists and he said something that really hit my dilemma on the head, "Once you make a commitment to yourself to become a full-time artist, writer, or whatever, doors start to open up for you. I don't know why, they just do. When I quit my job to become an illustrator I didn't have any work lined up. I had no money coming in at all, but I made up my mind there and then that enough was enough; it was time to dedicate myself to doing what I was passionate about. Do you know what happened? I got two jobs that were way out of my league. I really shouldn't have been offered them, but I took them and reaped the financial rewards on completion. It wasn't just getting the money that felt great, it was the fact that my confidence had been given a boost and I knew that there was a real chance of making it work."

So now it's time.

Enough is enough.

How many more books do I have to write in order to see myself as a writer!?

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My mate, Pete