Changing the Dream

 

Recently, I was working on revisions for a nonfiction book that I wrote last year. In one part of the book, I talked about how I was forced to “trash my dream” because, despite all of my efforts and time invested, it never came true. Then I had to take a step back and think about this. I started to wonder how that sort of thing would be perceived —not by readers, of course, since nobody buys my books. But maybe by my beta readers or even my publisher. What would their take be about that sort of thing? There were two things I tried to gauge in trying to predict how they might see it: Seeing it as a bad thing because we are told to never give up on our dreams and seeing it as a bad thing because my doing so gave the impression that it’s okay to give up on our dreams.

 

Well, I think it’s okay to give up on our dreams. I certainly gave myself permission to give up on mine!

 

And why did I even give up on my dream? Because I could no longer keep giving 100% in trying to make that dream come true. I worked hard for four years to make my dream come true and I guess I just ran out of steam. And I was looking at the results of all that work, and seeing how I got nothing out of it.

 

My dream was to be a successful novelist. By successful, I meant having my novel have a lot of sales, being reviewed everywhere, being in bookstores, and even being turned into a movie. Yes, I wanted THAT level of success for my novels. It was really, really important to me. But I never got those results. And after Novel #3 tanked just like the first two, I was convinced this was a lost cause.

 

Of course, I didn’t want to give up, but I had to. I realized that I was kicking a dead horse. My efforts to continue promoting the heck out of those books were fruitless.

 

I fell into a deep depression over this for a long time, and the fact that I was NOT a successful novelist escalated my already existing drinking problem. I cried and sulked about it. I talked to a therapist and hated myself for even DARING to think I could be a good novelist. Heck, even a selling novelist. Nobody wanted to buy my novels and they were left in limbo.

 

But then eventually, I got to realizing that sometimes, we just can’t make our dreams come true. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. It was not meant to be, I guess.

 

But I have a new dream now, and I am confident that it will come true, because the success of it coming true depends only on me. It does not depend on people. It does not depend on sales. It does NOT depend on whether people like me or not. It ALL depends on me and me alone. So I have faith that I will be able to make THIS particular dream come true. It WILL happen!

 

And what I learned from this is that it’s totally okay to change our dreams. In fact, it’s healthy! During the time I was being sad about my dream not coming true and being very upset about it, I wanted to die. I thought, why exist on this planet if I can’t be a successful novelist? Why exist if I can’t achieve my dream? It was really THAT important to me. I got to the point where I turned “successful novelist” into my whole identity and I was failing to meet that standard. But it’s just not that important to me anymore. It’s no longer a matter of life or death.

 

I have accepted that that dream did not come true. I accept now that it never will. If things change with my novels and they miraculously start selling, great! That’s nice. But it is no longer as important to me now as it was before.

 

And, yes, I have returned to writing books. I have also decided to even submit them. If they get accepted, great! If not, I’ll be okay, too. I’m too focused on a whole bunch of things going on in my life to get pulled down by one aspect not working so good.

 

And, yes, I will promote my books. I can no longer throw myself into promoting them as much as I used to, because I do have a job now and other responsibilities and other projects going on, but I know I would be short-changing myself if I did not promote my books. It is so important for authors to promote their books. I know my books don’t sell and nobody reads them, but I owe it to myself to promote my new work all the same. (And anybody who thinks that an author promoting her book is just trying to get attention really should be a little more open-minded and educate themselves about the concept of “book promotion.”)

 

So, basically, what I’m trying to say is that it’s okay to change our dream. And it’s not okay to get too attached to a dream. I got too worked up over it and allowed it to affect me too deeply. I should have let it go a lot earlier than I did and moved on to other things. These days, I write because it is my passion and I enjoy writing. But if my writing doesn’t sell, then so be it. I’m not going to hate myself for that or think I am a failure or think I am no good. Submitting our writing is always a gamble. Sales of our writing is always a gamble. I realize now that it’s better to just let go of things that don’t work out how I want them to and just move on. That will pretty much be the way I handle this sort of thing from now on, because life is too short to waste too much time crying over the things we cannot change. Let go and move on.