What Do You Want

2011 
What will you do with it? Who will you be at the end of it? What is the #1 thing you want to make happen this year?
 
All questions that have been floating through my mind today and over the past few weeks as I finished up the second round of revisions to Ascendant and sent them off to Wonderful Agent. She is going to begin submitting sometime in January and I'm not afraid to tell you...I'm a little bit afraid. 

Is this the book that will make me official? Stay tuned, answers will be coming.


I have always been a "Go out and get what you want" kind of girl, but it was only about a year ago that I got really serious about WHAT exactly it was that I wanted. Up until a year ago, what I wanted was always blanketed by pragmatism, practicality, and a good dollop of pessimism. 

I had never, up until a year ago, ever flat out stated, with any degree of confidence, that what I WANTED was to write...for a living. It was a scary thing to say out loud, like making a promise your not sure you can keep. A promise you don't yet believe you can keep. 

After all, I was in the process of finishing up a graduate degree that had put me and my family into an ungodly amount of financial debt--how dare I even think I maybe didn't want to pursue that career! How dare I say I actually wanted to write books! How was that ever going to pay off? You know, that ungodly amount of financial aid? Do you know how hard it is to get published? Have you spent any time reading about the statistical improbability of ever getting your stuff, should you actually finish something, onto a bookshelf outside of your own home?  It takes a ton of time to write a book...aren't there other things (like laundry) that you should be using this time for?


But, a year ago, I did get serious with myself. I realized that I had to try and not only that, I had to do it. I'm still doing it.


What do you want? Have you asked yourself that question and given yourself a real answer. Not the answer that is couched in Well..., or If only..., or even I wish... I'm talking about the answer that is an emphatic I will ______ ______ ______! 


I can't see the future and I don't know for sure if Ascendant will find a home in the world of big publishing. But I do know, even if it doesn't, I will get there...eventually.