Six Impossible Things

You know it’s a happy day in the blogosphere, when two of your CPs are having a gif-off. With my lack of gif experience I’m feeling woefully inadequate so I’ll stick to what I do know and show you HAPPY DANCING LOLCATS

Why you ask? Because today it’s my wonderfully talented CP Gina‘s birthday! And what’s more than that, she just got the best birthday present ever! An agent! Her gorgeous, heartbreaking, romantic, lush, did I mention heartbreaking?, brilliant manuscript (that totally managed to make me love contemporary romance, howdidthathappen) got snapped up last week! So hope over to her blog, congratulate her, and stick around. Because she’s absolutely going to be the next Sarah Dessen, y’all!

And there’s even more awesomeness going around! Two days ago there was agent news for my fantastic beta Beth too! She ripped my MS to shreds, I tore through hers, and we still talk so obviously something went right! But seriously, she’s insanely talented writer and I can’t wait for CALL ME GRIM to hit the shelves one day!

And in case you haven’t noticed because you spent the last couple of days… researching penguins on the south pole, this little thing called The Writer’s Voice is happening too! Approximately a gazillion people commented on my entry and for that you all deserve all the cupcakes! Seriously, all your awesomeness filled my heart! But what’s more–the writerly peeps around me are a very talented bunch indeed! Because between the three of them, my CPs are going to give the agents an awfully hard time!

Leigh Ann’s ONE will for ever be one of the most wonderful manuscripts I’ve ever read. It’s so hopeful it makes you believe anything is possible and Merrin is a fantastic, FANTASTIC MC. Of course, Elias ain’t half bad either, but Merrin is just perfect. She’ll steal your heart and make it soar.

Jamie’s TIME BOUND is BEAUTIFUL. There’s no other word for it. It has everything, Japanese culture, dragons, IZUKO (<333), history, magic… It’s one of those stories I can just read again and again, because I love everything about it!

And Jenny’s THE ALTERAE is happily waiting for me on my Kindle right now and OH MY GOODNESS the writing is gorgeous! I sneakpeeked and I already know the premise is right up there with the writing, but talk about atmosphere… chills!

And you know what? With these spectacular people and the rest of my brilliant CPs and betas I just could go on, because I love them all to shreds. But for now I’ll be dancing, cheerleading, and counting myself very lucky indeed to be part of such a wonderful team

Not long after my last post, I talked to one of my CPs about taking time. Taking time to write, taking time to think about writing, and taking time to *not* write. And while talking about it, I realized I was actually telling myself to do the same. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I just needed some time away before getting in that last bit of polishing on my ms. (Not to mention, plot one of my new projects! *excited*)

But weirdly enough, that last one–especially if you WANT to write but are struggling with a story–can be so incredibly hard. Not to mention scary. After all, what if those days you take means someone else got there first? What if you’ve waited too long and someone else has written your story? What if you’ve missed the next big trend, simply because it took you another five minutes to think about that minor plot point?

Fear and common sense rarely go hand in hand.

Still, there are so many things out there that scare us. What if my story sucks? What if we will never be good enough? What if my voice can never compare to all those amazing voices out there? What if I put that comma there? What if I misspelled that one word?

What if I fail?

On my last post I got a lot of comments about how brave it was to start over, what an inspiration. And it made me wonder–I never really thought about it that way.

Because the thing is this: failure is not an option.

I’m not just saying that out of some sort of gung-ho sense of empowerment. I’m saying that because I know how hard it can be to put virtual pen to virtual paper and start writing those words, no matter how many questions pound at our brains. I’m saying that because I know how soul crushing it can be when someone doesn’t like the stories you poured your heart into, completely. I’m saying that because, purely statistically, the odds are against us.

And yet.

We continue to put pen to paper. We continue to pour our heart and soul into it. We continue to try and try and try. We make mistakes, get up, and try. We can get *this* close to ultimate joy and complete despair. And yet we continue writing.

It isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to the point where we’d sometimes rather hurl our computer across the room.

And yet.

We write.

So if you’re reading this while struggling with a story, a sentence, an idea: don’t be scared. All those nagging doubts about the outside world you can’t influence have nothing to do with you. If your pen gravitates toward paper, if you can’t NOT think about stories, you are already being brave.

And in the end, you can’t fail.

<3