Getting Started

There’s nothing worse than getting started.

I’ve worked many jobs, and the worst part is always those first few days when you’re clumsy and useless and waiting for someone to tell you what to do.

With writing, there’s no one to tell you what to do. You just have to sit down and start.

I’ve been batting around the idea of starting a blog for months, and avoiding it because I couldn’t think of what to write for my first post. So here it is. My confession. I hate getting started.

Blank pages are beautiful but intimidating in their perfection. Sometimes I visualize what I want to see on the page, but what actually appears is messy and flawed. When the result doesn’t match my vision, my first instinct is to quit. As much as I want and try to be, I’m not one of those people who lives by the “If at first you don’t succeed…” adage. My brain has warped that to “If at first you don’t succeed, give up, because you were never meant to do it in the first place.” This won’t be the last time I talk about Bad Brain™ on this blog, but that subject deserves its own post, and will get it in due time. However, let me tell you something that I’ve learned to tell myself over the past few years – Bad Brain™ doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

You have to start. You have to fail. You have to restart and shut down and sometimes do a hard reset, but you have to start.

I published my first novel this year. Sometimes I am proud of it. Other times I cringe at the thought. But then I remind myself that my career as a writer had to start somewhere, and for me, sharing my work through self-publishing was an important first step. Was my first novel perfect? Nope. Do I believe from the bottom of my heart that I have better things coming? Yes.

I’m no Harper Lee. I can’t just bust out of the gate with a bestselling work of literary merit. It’d be nice, but it’s an impossible standard. So I’m starting at the beginning, and chronicling it here for anyone else who might be embarking on a long-held dream.

To anyone who’s holding off on beginning – this is your sign. Let’s start together.

Hesitantly yours,

Claire

 

“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” – Meister Eckhart