Comfort Zone Challenge - Day 12

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." 
Eleanor Roosevelt 

When I was a junior in high school, I took a creative writing class.  After just the first few days, I knew I had found my people.  The small class was filled with others like me, that thrilled in stringing together a line of beautiful words.  I looked forward to this class every day.  I wrote my heart out, and got lost in metaphor and allegory.  When later that year, my Haiku about Fall leaves got published in my high school's literary magazine, I was ecstatic, and my love for writing grew.

I continued to write a little after high school, but soon found new dreams that competed with writing for my time and attention.  Always, somewhere in the back of my mind, lay dormant my wish of being a writer. 

One day, years later, married and raising two little girls, something awakened my long-held dream of writing.  As a new mom, I was in love with children's literature, and wanted to contribute to that genre.  I wrote a book.  I wrote two of them, actually, and after much research on the particulars, submitted my manuscripts to several publishers.  I had big dreams!  These stories had taken enormous amounts of effort and thought and time.  I wanted to be a published writer with all my heart, but for all my efforts, each manuscript was returned with an impersonal rejection form letter.  

I had done my research.  I knew the odds of a first time author getting published were slim.  They are in fact, very slim.  The bleak reality of a writers shot at publication is found in an article entitled, "The Odds of Bieng Published",  on writerstype.com:

Hypothetically, an agent might receive 15,000 querry letters in a year. Of the 15,000 novels in question, only a few dozen might be accepted and forwarded to a publisher, with only 15 or so to be accepted by a publisher for printing. Thus, in this example, an author has only a 1 in 1,000 chance of being published.  

The sobering reality of my odds eventually led me to lay aside my dreams of publishing for a while.  The beautiful thing about dreams however, is that it's not easy to crush them entirely.  They seems to be resilient, and find ways of popping back up at the right times.

In the last few years, I've started writing with more force again.  I've loved every creative moment spent writing, and still I dream of publishing.  Submitting my writing again, and all of the effort it would take, knowing full well that it is entirely likely that I won't get published, is however, way outside of my comfort zone.  

I am determined to see it through and stay the slow, steady, course of finishing my manuscript,  and submitting it to be published.

It's good to have a dream, even one where the odds of attaining it are 1 in 1,000.

In the words of one of my most loved writers:

“...Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed"
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Today's a new day, let's make it purposeful!
Kara