Time to stop spinning because I'm getting Dizzy...

The fiction is put aside once again and I am writing another real and honest post for you today.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone out there cares about my thoughts written here in this public extension of my private diary. But then that is and always has been my greatest weaknesses – a lack of self-confidence.

Just over a year ago I was putting together an application for a writing award, with an idea of turning my first blog Unravelling-Edges into a book, chronicling the thoughts and feelings I experienced during my first year of being a widow. 

I wasn’t successful with the application so that made a grand total of two rejections in two years.

This year the deadline for applications came and went and I never even considered putting my name forward.

I’d almost moved on too far from those early days of grief that were so raw and debilitating and I was eagerly searching for something new.

And so I started my NaNoWriMo project, turning the book of Esther in a young adult novel.

I’m full of grand ideas and daydreams but something always seems to stop me mid flow. It’s as if I lift up my head and look around I realise how scary this all is. 

How can I possibly write a novel or a whole book about grief? Surely there are better writers out there far more capable?

Then there’s the biggest stumbling block of all – I don’t actually know the right people, I don’t have the right contacts for this to succeed!

And that’s when I cry because that is Andrew talking in my head,  the Andrew who perhaps believed in my abilities but gently crushed my dreams with reality so I wouldn’t get hurt later on.

The other day I re-posted this from last year Dreams – Old andNew. I added it to my Facebook page and got this comment back from my bridesmaid who I first met when we did a voluntary year together.

Don't give up on your dreams.

Found my frontline t-shirt in loft yesterday, you wrote,

“hope we're still friends when I am a famous novelist

and you are just a housewife with four kids!”

The “just” in the last sentence was tongue in cheek, at least I really hope that’s how I meant it but the truth is my friend is a mother of four, it was always her ambition, although now she is pursuing other dreams too.

But what I had genuinely forgotten was that even back then I had a desire to write. That was completely overshadowed when I got married and had the boys. Family life took up all of my time and energy,

It’s taken me a long time and a tragedy to really start believing in my talents again and put fingers to keyboard.

How did I forget my dreams? They got pushed so far away they were almost out of reach.

I found this video yesterday of Jenn Bostic’s new song “Not Yet”

I especially love the young dancer in the video, she reminds me of a much younger version of me. Once I had dreams to dance too and there is something about the flick of her hair as she twirls and that yearning expression. 

The video shows “ordinary” people pursuing their passions and this along with the comment from my bridesmaid gave me the shove I needed to do something…

Last night I found and tweaked three flash fiction pieces to send into the Nation Flash Fiction Day website, this morning I found an email saying they have accepted one story and it will appear in tomorrow’s Flash Flood of stories throughout the day.

And next weekend I am going to show my writing to a proper published author – see I actually do know the right people after all – I am going to get an opinion from someone who knows stuff!

It's time to knock on a few doors again in between the writing, re-writing and editing because I really need to believe in myself enough to get a project finished for once!

Stop pretending I don’t care

Comparisons won’t get me

They won’t get me anywhere.

We’re all diamonds in the rough

It doesn’t matter what you think

I’m good enough

No matter what it takes

I’m going to make it

Yes I’m going to find a way

Think I’ll give up and forget

Not me

Not yet!