Optimism will take you far!
I always wanted to write…even when I was an eight year old reading Noddy by Enid Blyton! I graduated to Hardy Boys,Nancy Drew…then Agatha Christie and Sidney Sheldon…matured to reading classics and contemporary literature….the urge to write remained.
Over the years, I wrote a little…random thoughts….a few poems…but till a year back,I was basically just procrastinating!
I thought I would write when I had the time…a utopian dream when you are married,have a child and a full time job.
My eldest brother loves writing too( and yes,I look up to my brothers a lot,which you must have made out by now if you have read my previous posts). In the middle of last year he told me of a short story competition by Indireads. He was sending an entry and urged me to write for it too. I gave it a thought and then just dropped the idea,thinking I would not be able to write one good enough for a competition. When he sent his and asked me if I had done the same, I said no.
He pushed me to at least try and write. There were just a couple of days to the deadline. I don’t know what it is with me and deadlines…forget finishing,I can’t start anything before the penultimate day. A day before the deadline ended,realisation dawned upon me that it was stupid of me to let the opportunity pass by and I sat down to write. It was difficult,not knowing where to begin. The words came slowly and then fluently. That day I did nothing but write and was quite satisfied with the end result(much to my surprise!). The bliss of writing a complete work was a satisfaction in itself.
I thought I was over-rating myself by writing for the first time and sending the story to a competition but I also knew that if it had not been for the contest,I would have blissfully procrastinated further.
Much to my joy and astonishment,my story was among the finalists and I got whooping majority of votes by online readers(that didn’t count though).
The joy of seeing your name as an author anywhere is exhilarating! For the very first time,I felt optimistic about a future in writing. It gave me a new zeal to write.
I have written a few short stories,started this blog which is getting a wonderful response and even plan to write the first draft of my novel this year. I do not know what all I will be able to achieve but I know now for sure that it is definitely worth trying.
Now I look back and think if I had shied away from submitting a story,thinking it to be ‘not good enough’ , I would still be only day-dreaming about writing!
source-quotesvalley |
It is important to be optimistic in life,especialliy if an opportunity knocks at your door. We seldom realise what all we may achieve because we are too busy in underestimating ourselves.
This is my #Lookup story.What is yours?