It’s August, and the feeling of fall is in the air around here. This week, I tried making my own pumpkin spice latte, since I’m too impatient to wait for the Starbucks. It didn’t turn out all that well, so I tried again a day later. It was even worse. Sometimes, I need to learn to just wait for the real thing.
Not that I’m much good at waiting. If there’s something to be done, I try to get in there first – the sooner we start, the sooner we finish, I think. But that means sometimes, I act a little too quick, a little too impulsively.
But in the case of building a writing career, I worry sometimes that I’ve waited too long. That I’m spinning my wheels as I listen to podcasts, read blogs, take courses and get overwhelmed at all the things people say you need to do to “make it” as an indie author. And then I just want to stop. I do stop. I stop writing, I stop editing, I tell myself it’s too hard, I can’t do it. There’s too many things and not enough time.
And that lasts for… maybe an hour. And then I’m back at it, thinking, plotting, planning. Writing dialog in my head while I’m running on my favourite trail or daydreaming book cover ideas while making supper. Because the truly amazing thing about being a writer is that my ideas wait for me. They wait for me to get through the shadow of self doubt. They’ve waited for me and they come back around again. Just like fall flavours and sweater weather and a decent pumpkin spice latte.