The Thief of Dreams

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with
the blog post but I like it and it's the
Royal Wedding today so...

She's gone quiet on us again boys, but does her blogging silence mean she has finally given up on writing? 

...of course not, darling.

A writing/life update will be coming to you in the next few weeks, I just thought it was about time that I posted a little piece I wrote well over a year ago that I did in the hope of being published on a popular writing blog ... which naturally closed down before I could actually send it to them. It is as relevant to my journey now as it was when I first wrote it so I thought why the hell not post it here instead...

To me, there is nothing more terrifying than the moments where you feel like giving up on your dreams. The times where your self-belief goes on strike and all you are left with is the crippling doubt and fear that you are doing the wrong thing. If someone were to try and steal something from you, your desire and sheer force of will to hold onto what they were attempting to take would kick in and make everything else go out of the window. So why when it comes to our self-belief, are we able to willingly let our dreams be taken from us? And from the most feared of thieves out there; ourselves.

I should probably introduce myself, for I am the guilty thief of many of my most cherished dreams – killing ambition in its tracks through fear I’d just end up failing, or packing it all in when I’d start to hear the small but insistent voice in my head telling me I am no good. Now, as a woman nearing thirty, I have a whole list of crimes to my name, and all the thief has left me with is regret.

About four years ago I started writing and even from the very beginning I knew, without a doubt, I had found the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life – it just felt completely right … but did that stop the thief of dreams from trying to rob me once more? Of course not.

In the last four years of my relatively short writing journey I have learned many invaluable lessons that have helped me grow as a writer but recently, I realised, the most important lesson I’ve come to understand is three small but powerful words: don’t give up.

I am currently in the process of marketing a book series I’ve self-published via Amazon and truly believe it has an audience out there somewhere ... but trying to find them on the other hand, especially when the competition is so fierce, is daunting. So far, what little feedback I’ve had on my series has been fantastic, but there are still moments where I feel like everything I am doing is fruitless and times where it seems pointless to even bother, leading me to inevitably question if I am any good in the first place.

So far, the thief has tried everything it can to make me quit, knowing my weaknesses and exploiting them but so far, I have clung onto my little dream of being a writer for dear life and have long since passed the moments in the past where I would have just given up. I am now the Kevin McCallister of thief dodging.

But after everything we have been through together, I think the thief is happy for me, even brushing away a tear from its balaclava-clad cheek.

I have nothing to fall back on – I don’t have a degree and I’d be at the bottom of any career ladder, tripping clumsily over the first step, but you know what? If all I come away with is a hefty amount of self-belief and the will to persevere then that will be the most fulfilling, worthwhile experience of my life. I finally feel like I am getting there because I believe I am.

I have always been helplessly drawn to the extremes – I can either be a dreamer or my toughest critic and I succeed and fail in my estimation at least a thousand times a day.

But would I change it?

I wouldn't dream of it.

Until next time,
Cara x