For a very long time, I struggled. I knew where I wanted to be, I just couldn't, for the life of me, get myself there. Instead, I stayed stuck in a perpetual state of longing, a mixture of procrastination and frustration. All around me, I saw people moving forwards with their lives, doing what they wanted to do, creating the life they desired. Basically, getting on with life, while I stayed stuck, wondering how they did it.
For an even longer time, I called myself a writer, but I wasn't actually writing. Instead, I just said I was when in actual fact I had an unfinished book that I'd put down and never picked up, I pitched ideas to publications I didn't really have an interest in and I applied for writing jobs that sounded great but I had no desire to actually do.
For a longer time than I remember, I was too lazy to do anything about it. And then, something changed. I started to focus on what I wanted and I got rid of anything that was stopping me from achieving it. Firstly, I quit my job as a journalist. This was both crazy and scary, but I knew I had to free up my time to write words that actually inspired me, not be stuck behind a desk writing news stories that drained me. I loved writing features, not news. And I wanted to work for myself, not someone else. So I stopped trying to write stuff that did nothing for me and started writing stuff that did.
Off the back of this, I wrote a feature for a publication I love, who now approach me for ideas and who I write for on a freelance basis. I also sent a book proposal to an American publisher who, after hearing nothing for six months, got in touch to say they wanted to help me publish it. After working with them for the best part of a year, they now have two books in a market review and I will find out this summer whether they will be published.
Things were really beginning to shift, I was thriving and I started to see why. I was doing what I loved. I was writing what I wanted to write, using my energy to focus on achieving what I wanted - to be a published, full-time writer.
Then, after putting it down for two years, I picked up my novel. I promised myself I would write no less than 1,000 words a day until I reached 80,000. I have now written 75,000 and aim to finish the first draft by next week. I'm going to get an agent (I already have one interested) and I'm going to get it published. Sounds pretty confident, doesn't it? That's because I am. I have no doubt whatsoever that this will happen. I have every faith in me, my books, and my destiny.
In life we have a choice; a choice to create the life we want. All too often we walk someone else's road and wonder why we get lost, why we keep going around and around the same roundabout. When all along our road is right there, running parallel to us, waiting for us to hop on for the ride of our lives.
For a very long time, I struggled. But now I see; the only person in my way was me.