Monday, January 27, 2014

B is for Betting on Myself (finally)

I am a writer. There, I've said it. Not, "I want to be a writer" or "I'm going to be a writer" anymore. I AM a writer. I spend so much time planning on doing that I never actually do. I tell myself that I'm not as good as others so I don't even try. I have so many ideas bugging me, so many stories waiting to be told. I am doing those ideas a disservice by fearing, doubting, and procrastinating. My life has been a long series of putting off my dreams for just one more thing to do before I take the risk and trust my art. As soon as I move, as soon as I finish school, as soon as I find a better job...

Last summer, a friend and I had a brainstorming session about a series of Pagan eBooks we want to write. Between health issues and holidays in retail our list still sits untouched. I created an outline for a Pagan cozy mystery for NaNoWriMo 2013. I even started the first chapter. Then I started what will possible be a Pagan science fiction story. I have a general idea where I want that story to go. It, like all of my other ideas, sits all sad and neglected. I have a very hard time letting go of insecurities. I'm getting older and starting to worry that where I am is where I'll always be.

I work retail, selling used books. I've worked for almost 19 years selling other's stories. It's something I'm very good at. Always have been. But it no longer makes me happy. And it leaves me so tired and sad at the end of the day, sapped of the energy to create. While I know a retail establishment is supposed to worry about profits, some of them used to care how they treated their employees. We were considered a valuable resource, an asset to company. Now we're just cogs in the moneygrubbing machine. And completely interchangeable. Individual knowledge of a subject has been replaced by keyword searches in a database. I won't even go into how the attitudes of the customers has changed. It wasn't until I started working on this post that I realized exactly why I stay even though the job is not what it used to be. It is simply because I am so good at the job. It was the one thing at which I felt absolutely confident I could succeed. It was my "sure thing" to always have a paycheck. As a Taurus I got comfortable in my rut. Now I spend my time fearing I'll never get out.

I've consulted my Tarot deck, my pendulum, and done spells for guidance. Then ignored the answers when they seemed too scary. My deities have all let me know that I need to take the risk, to trust that if I follow my heart as well as my head that the means to pay the bills will come. I hear it. I do. Then I freak out at the idea of not being able to feed my kitties. So I stay at the miserable retail job. Not anymore. One last "as soon as" and I'll take the jump. It is time to bet on my heart instead of my finances. I put my hands in my fictional Pagan graphic designer living in a small town (and in the broomcloset) in Texas. Sophie's stories need telling.

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