Writers: Find Your Neverland.
It’s a sad truth that many of us have yet to experience ‘financial’ success when it comes to our craft. If you have, then pat yourself on the back for a job well done, but this post may not be for you.
There’s a trend going around the writer’s circle. This trend is the mindset that all is lost, and there is no hope for any one of us to succeed in our craft.
Says who?
Your Parents?
Your Spouse?
Your Friends?
So what! Many times we attribute ‘success’ as a big beefy paycheck for a job well done. If we don’t receive this immediate gratification, suddenly we are met with despair. It’s a fact of life that nothing good comes easy. That may be a big cliché, but it is truth incarnate. We should be searching for personal successes, and achieving small personal goals.
No one person was an overnight success. Perhaps one in a billion, but everyone had to start as a novice. Everyone had to learn how to do whatever it is that made them successful.
Just as many of the protagonists we enjoy writing about, WE have to face the challenges that meet us.
Take a look at the character Peter Banning, in Spielberg’s 1991 classic Hook. When we are challenged, we cannot simply whimper in the corner. As writers, we need to be the change we want to see. You may wish to sit around and complain that you haven’t ‘made it’ yet, and there are no jobs for writers around. But how can you know that if you don’t go job hunting? If you don’t consider the reality of having to move to another city or across the country? How will you know if you “can’t make it” if you never submit to any writing competitions?
We are called to act.
We must write.
We must at all costs.
Peter Banning had to work his ass off for 3 days in order to be the Pan he once was. Despite the seemingly impossible odds stacked against him, Peter manages to pull through. He had to! His children were in danger! Consider your craft your child. What would you do save your kid? The answer is: anything.
Find a crappy “McJob” if you have to. Flip burgers. Pay your bills. Do whatever it is you need to do, to sustain yourself, and assist your craft.
We need to be the Pan. We need to take flight, and leave our worries on the ground. Blow caution to the wind, and soar wherever it takes us. As writers, we must face the challenges that stand in front of us.
So many of us can help our own situations, if we take the moment to step into action. I’m not talking jumping off a high building. You have to take one step at a time, keeping our ultimate goal or destination in our hearts. There will be people who deter you, and you might use the excuse that you cannot write because you don’t have the time, or energy, or blah blah blah. Whatever it is that’s bothering you about your craft, you have take a step. You can’t sit on your butt, throw caution to the wind, and expect opportunity to soar through your window in need of a shadow.
We have to fly.
We have to fight.
We have to crow.
As writers, we are called to action.
Be the change you want to see in your life.
Think happy thoughts.
Set your goals to the second star to the right, until you find your “Neverland”.
