My Brave Summer Continues

I’ve said it before: I don’t see myself as a very brave person. I don’t mountain climb. I don’t bungee jump. You couldn’t pay me to jump out of an airplane, no matter what kind of equipment I had strapped to my back. I am in awe of people who do those things.

I’m in even more awe of the truly brave, those who’ve faced titanic life challenges—illnesses, job losses, deaths of loved ones—and stood up and kept going and somehow didn’t break under the strain.

Yet, I’ve found myself having to be brave in my writing life lately. I discovered I had a choice: either bravery or sadness. So, last week, I made a vow to be brave. For awhile. Since being brave forever felt a bit too daunting, I vowed to be brave for the summer. This week, I’ve been thinking about how to do that, about what a brave summer looks like. Today, I discovered one way to be brave.

Over 50? Get my free ebooklet, Calling Up the Writer Within: A Short Guide to Writing at 50 & Beyond

I was driving home from leaving my husband off at work, when I began to think about my writing (not surprising since I think about writing in one form or another virtually all the time). My thinking went like this:

I’ve had an awful lot of disappointments lately. Ugh! That hurts! I wish I had a bestselling novel published. Or just a medium-selling novel.

I’ve been writing for so many years.So much work!

I have maybe twenty years of creative life ahead of me. Twenty more years of hard work. And no guarantee that I will be as successful as I dream of becoming.

What am I going to feel like in twenty years if my writing career doesn’t go as far as I hope it will? What if I never publish another book? How can I face it? The despair!

By this time, I was miserable. I’d managed to think myself into a huge blue funk.

Then, I did two simple things that shifted my mood completely.

Get my free weekly strategies for writers.

First, I stopped thinking about the last twenty years and the next twenty years and started thinking about today. This morning. This afternoon. Right now.

Second, I stopped thinking about what was going to happen and started thinking about what I was going to do—the only thing I actually have control over. I can’t make success happen, despite what positive-thinking gurus may claim. I can’t hope my way into the publishing contract of my dreams or a movie deal on my next book. But I can make sure to write as well and often as possible, to get my work into the world, to not give up.

Together, these two shifts in focus reduced to a single question: What am I going to do today?

As I exited I-35, my plan was clear:

a) Arrive home.

b) Make tea.

c) Write.

My anxiety was gone. I was, I realized, being brave.

Bravery seems like a mysterious thing—a quality some people are born with and others develop through sheer grit and bald necessity. But it isn’t really so complicated. It can be just a matter of shifting your focus, turning the lens to what you can do in the present moment.

Try it. What are you going to do for your writing life? Not over the next year or ten years. But today. Right now. #mybravesummer