September was not a good month for me, and October has been more up and down than most. If you’ve been paying attention you likely already know this. My poetry tends to reflect my current mood. So if you’ve been keeping up with that, you’ve been following along with me on an emotional rollercoaster. They say that life informs art. In times like these it’s never been more clear to me. At the risk of sounding arrogant or like a hypocrite, one thing I have to keep reminding myself is to listen to my own advice.

In recent months I’ve been stressing the importance of staying focused and putting in the work. On fine-tuning your process and making continual improvement. On staying confident, on filtering out the noise. But I’m one to talk… More often than not these days, I’m allowing myself to get distracted, causing me to lose focus. I find myself lacking motivation and losing interest; not sticking to my work schedule. I don’t wake up early, excited to get to work. I don’t go to sleep making a checklist of things I need to work on or fix. I don’t think about my writing much in my off-time. I don’t cycle through different ideas in my head. I no longer brainstorm lists of topics I want to cover.

Not like I used to. Something’s changed and my passion doesn’t feel like passion anymore. At times it feels more like work, and that sucks the fun out of it. I know the talent is there and I’m still confident in my abilities. But I’m no longer so certain that this is what I want to do—is this still my future? In the past I’ve given up because the going got tough. And there were times when I gave up because I had bought into my doubts. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here per se, but it doesn’t make it any less unsettling. I’ve put so much time and effort into this—I’ve poured my heart and soul into it—do I really want to give up after I’ve already come this far? After searching for more than twenty-five years I finally found something that I was good at and that I enjoyed doing. It was fun and fulfilling, worthwhile, and I want to say that it still is (although it hasn’t always felt that way of late). So why am I starting to feel this way again? Why does it feel so empty? I’m stronger than this!

I’ll readily admit that reality did not quite meet my expectations (I’ve mentioned this several times already). I had exited the workforce with delusions of grandeur. I had thought that I would hit the ground running, and after a year or so of steady work boom my manuscript would be finished. And that’s it, voila I’d be a published author. A certified rockstar. Of course it was never ever going to happen that way. It was nowhere close to the realm of possibility. As I’ve said before, I had a bit of a rude awakening. But it came at the right time. I needed to be knocked down a few pegs in order for me to see how far I still needed to go. It was a well-timed ego check because I was already talking like an all-time great when I hadn’t put in the work. Somewhere along the way I had lost sight of my humility, which could’ve been detrimental. Luckily for me, providence was on my side.

I can only imagine what would’ve happened if I had made it far enough in my journey where I started to rack up rejection letters. Who knows what that would’ve done to my confidence. Would I have realized that more work was needed and persevered? Or would I have doubled down in my hubris? Gotten it into my head that my worth was being undervalued, that my greatness wasn’t being appreciated? Or would I have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t cut out for this life? I have a feeling that regardless of how I felt I probably would’ve stopped writing altogether, and that’s the worst thing I could do. Besides, it would’ve been embarrassing to have gotten that far thinking that I was a great writer when vast improvement was needed, in actuality. So, I’m grateful for the growing pains. I’m grateful that I’ll never have to find out what could’ve happened. I’m grateful for the proper timing.

Growing pains are always tough at first. But they helped me to elevate my game, showed me what needed to be done, grounded me in reality. Without them I’m not the man or the writer that I am today. More importantly though, they helped me to temper my expectations, helped me redefine my goals. No one will tell you this, but these are things that often change along the way. One thing I knew going in was that I was gonna do things the right way—I wasn’t gonna make the same mistakes I had made when I was younger. I wasn’t going to skip steps. I wasn’t going to look ahead to the end result without first solidifying my process. I wasn’t going to dream of becoming an author, and just hope that it happened. I was going to take the steps necessary to succeed. To stop talking about writing and start actually writing. I didn’t necessarily know what I needed to do to achieve my dreams, but I was going to do my best to find out. And once I did so, I was going to do everything in my power to make it happen.

I think I’ve been doing a fairly good job of that over the past year. I was putting my head down and focusing on my craft for a while. Getting better the more I wrote. Tuning out the noise. Putting on the blinders. But over time it’s become harder for me to do that. The more time I spend on my manuscript the more complicated the story gets (which isn’t a bad thing). I have a grand vision for what I’m trying to do, and I won’t settle for anything less than greatness. What can I say? I’m a perfectionist. However, sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way of my creativity. Acts as a damper, feels like a wet blanket. How many times do I need to rewrite a sentence or switch words around before I’m happy with it? How many different iterations of a chapter am I going to have? When is enough enough? Sometimes I nitpick so hard that it slows down my writing process. So naturally, I’ve spent a good amount of time lamenting my speed.

If I could write faster you know that I would. I’m willing to try anything, but so far very little has worked. No writer is looking to slow down their process. We need to earn a living too! Without a finished product, I have nothing to show the world. Lord knows I’m not going to jump the gun here. 1. Finish the manuscript. 2. Edit and revise until my eyes bleed. 3. Edit some more. 4. Send it out to agents/publishers. 5. Get back on my horse and work on book two. Those are the steps I need to take, in that order. There is no way around that. I can’t sell a book to an agent based on a promise or a premise. I either give them a finished product or I leave them alone. If I send something that’s a work in progress or unpolished I will be ignored. That’s just how it goes. Agents are busy people too. This is how the industry works. These are the rules. You either follow them or you find something else to do with your time. 

Get it? Got it? Good. Ya know, no pressure. In a past life I would’ve wilted already. I would’ve used these as reasons not to try. “It’s too difficult… It’s gonna take blood, sweat, and tears… But what if I get rejected once, twice, thrice? What if I never finish it? What if I’m not good enough?” All that is bullshit. Excuse making. Giving up before you’ve even tried. You’re in essence saying that you have no confidence in yourself. So tell me, why should anyone else have confidence in you? I’m sorry, but that’s inexcusable to me. I’ve been through that before—putting the cart before the horse—and it’s an utter waste of time. Your focus would be better spent on controlling what you can control i.e. bettering your craft and putting in the work. The best things in life require effort. They require all of your time and energy. You can’t expect good things in life if you’re half assing everything.

That being said, I have my work cut out for me. There’s still a lot I need to do before I can let my novel see the light of day. I haven’t let that deter me for the most part, but it does sometimes feel overwhelming. What can I say? I’m only human. While I don’t pay much attention to what others expect of me, it doesn’t mean that I’m free from expectation entirely. The weight of my own expectations weigh down heavily on me. More than not wanting to disappoint others, I don’t want to disappoint myself. I couldn’t give two shits what people say my life should look like. But I’ll be damned if my life doesn’t look like how I want it to look simply because I gave up. If I did all in my power and things still didn’t work out, that’s a different story. At least I tried. 

That’s something I have to keep reminding myself: see this through to the end. No matter what it takes, no matter how long, no matter the uncertainty. But sometimes I can’t help feeling antsy. It’s already taken me longer than I expected, so a question I keep asking myself is, “how much longer will it take?” No one knows the answer for sure. You can’t rush greatness. I have to keep chipping away. Some days I’ll feel more creative than others. Some days I might write faster. That doesn’t really matter, as long as I keep working each and every day. I hold myself to a high standard, and I must keep moving towards it. Progress is the name of the game. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Every artist has their doubts. Every artist will get into their own head at times. There will be times when your process is disrupted. It’s generally forgivable when the disruption is self-induced. You’re pissed at yourself for a minute, but you get over it and move on. You keep on pushing. You eventually find your way out of your rut, because you have to. Your drive and ambition comes from within.

What I can’t forgive is when someone else disrupts my writing schedule, and is unapologetic about it. Of course, I must be lenient. For most non-creatives, the life of an artist is hard to understand. There’s usually no tangible proof of progress until we’re done. I fully acknowledge that our expectations for our work does not always line up with outside expectation, nor is it always readily apparent what they even are. However, our leniency has a limit. We will not let outsiders belittle us because we haven’t met their expectations. We will not let outsiders tell us that our process isn’t working—that’s for us and us alone to determine. And we will not let outsiders discourage us from pursuing our goals. Again, easier said than done. We know what we need to do and we know what we need to focus on. We understand that art is subjective, and thus we will receive positive feedback as well as negative. That’s a given. As I’ve said before, we need to learn to tune out the noise, because all of it distracts us from bettering our craft. 

For the most part, blocking this stuff out hasn’t been difficult for me. I can usually brush off the criticism. I’ve improved my writing ability to a point where I’m confident that it’s high quality and I feel like it’s relatively clean and polished. Having a writing community to lean on will do that for you. I have a group of like-minded individuals that will tell me what’s working and what isn’t. What needs improvement. What should be changed. On top of that I have a good gauge of how I hold up compared to other writers. If I know where my strengths lie, and if I know what I need to do, it should be smooth and easy sailing right? 

Wrong… Sometimes life has other things in mind. That’s become apparent to me in the last two months. In the summer, although my writing process had slowed, I still felt good about it. I was still tinkering away and doing good work. Making notable progress in my story and in my writing technique. Yes, it was slower than I wanted, but the standard was being met and that was what mattered. The speed of the process was only an inkling in the back of my mind—not something that stole away my attention. It did bother me a little but it didn’t stop me from writing. At least not at first. I was still 100% emotionally invested in my work. But over time, an outside circumstance (which I’ll decline to get into) started to sap me of my emotional investment. And once that happened, the path ahead wasn’t as straightforward. There were more ups & downs, more twists & turns.

I started to get into my head more. Started to second guess the quality of my work. To question if this was what was meant for me. If in fact my slow process was too slow. I had reached troubled waters. Deep down I knew I would be able to push through. But that didn’t silence the doubts, not all the way. I’d like to believe that I’m mentally tough, but it doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes the negativity circulates through my brain and causes me to spiral. If I’m focused, I can usually stop myself from letting that happen. When I’m not focused is when trouble starts. 

And sure enough, when I wasn’t looking, life threw another obstacle at me. But I learned a valuable lesson from it: not all of the people that are closest to you are truly for you or on your side. Family members and dear friends can still hurt you. They can still upset or anger you. They can still be misguided or bring you down. They can still be toxic or overbearing. They can still not give you what you need. Unfortunately, this was another thing I learned the hard way. Someone close to me made a snide comment about the slowness of my process, which only served to fuel my doubts. It’s one thing when the voices are coming from within, but a different thing entirely when an outsider reinforces the things you try your hardest not to believe.

People like this are not people that you need in your life. In order to live life to the fullest you need to establish firm boundaries. Don’t let anybody step over them and mistreat you. Don’t let anyone gaslight you and trivialize your worth. Don’t let anyone sap you of your confidence. Doesn’t matter if they’re family—toxic is toxic. Some people use it as a means of excusing their bad behavior. “I can talk down to you because you’re my sister.” “I can make you feel like shit because you’re my son.” “‘You’re not gonna amount to anything,’ and I can say that because you’re my cousin.” 

You remember what they told us in elementary school? “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Too often people lose sight of that. It’s really a shame that people that should know better don’t. But what can we do? Not everyone loves us and cares for us in the ways that we need. Oftentimes our needs only matter in relation to them. Sometimes no matter how many different ways we tell someone what it is that we need, we can tell that they’re not listening. You said your peace and you made it clear that you will no longer tolerate disrespect. So it’s time to move on. We’re putting our heads down and getting to work. We’re settling into our growth mindset, either you grow with us or we leave you behind.