My Fear

I just recently came back from a wonderful vacation at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Now it was definitely fun, but I also learned an important lesson.

This lesson came to me when I got to have the full "Harry Potter" experience where a wand chose me. (If you've read the books or seen the movies, you'll know what I'm talking about.)

The only thing I could think about after all that was, I wanted my future fans to feel that same kind of excitement toward my book as the "Harry Potter" books. But that euphoric feeling I had began to fade away and was soon replaced by fear and doubt.

I'm going to let you in on another secret. My biggest fear isn't one you would normally think. I can handle spiders, snakes are cool, and clowns...well...they aren't so bad. But my real fear is having to take a typical 9-5 job for the rest of my life and just write as a hobby.

This fear, over the last few days, has been at the forefront of my mind. But then I started to re-evaluate my life up to now and how relevant this fear was.

I then began to realize that I may have to take a 9-5 job at some point. But that doesn't mean I can't still try and get my work out to the world--it just might take a bit longer. I mean, look at J.K. Rowling, it took her a while to get recognized. She wasn't a sensation overnight. The fear of failure is very real for an independent author. But I know that if I let that fear control me, then I won't get much farther toward my dreams.

           "Success is not final. Failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

                                                        -Winston Churchill-