Friday, April 8, 2011
{"Like" Me}
I’ve been depressed lately. I know right now I have a good reason to be, I’ve been homebound for a few weeks due to a recent surgery, I’m unable to lift my youngest daughter and take care of my family’s most basic needs. And I’m going through huge hormonal changes due to the type of surgery I had. I’ve been so blue that I haven’t really been online a lot; I’ve been in survival mode, seriously just trying to heal so I can get back to my life. There is another reason I’ve been blue though, and it’s very hard for me to admit…I made the mistake of checking my book sales and well, let’s just say that my hiatus from the internet due to my depression has clearly impacted how many people are buying my book.I’m not sure how I even got here. My dream started as a child, I always wanted to be a writer for National Geographic, however, I quickly learned that to get a degree in journalism you have to be able to actually spell, which, I cannot. So as that dream died I found another dream, I wanted to write novels, I had started one ages ago that still to this day has never been finished. I’ve published one children’s novel and am almost finished writing the second book in the series, but I’m stuck and I’m not sure how to get out of it.
Here is my problem, I had tons of great feedback from the first book and then one day I received not so good feedback. It wasn’t mean or anything and I know the person was trying to be helpful, but since then I’ve had a block. How is it that one comment out of almost a hundred can ruin my mojo? Does this happen to everyone? Is it just me? Is it the fact that I’m a people pleaser? Seriously how has one semi- negative sentence impacted my life’s dream? Why have I allowed it to?
I wonder when I began measuring my success by how many people “liked” me on Facebook. I wonder when I started to allow this to dictate how and when and how well I write. It really bothers me that I’ve given away my power to a website and to other people’s opinions.
There was a time that I wrote because I loved it. I wrote knowing no one would ever read it, and it made me so happy. Recently though I’ve noticed that I’m writing for a different reason, not just to sell books, but to be “liked.” This just doesn’t sit well with me, I thought this part of my personality died after high school, at least I had hoped that it had.
Perhaps that is part of the problem, with Facebook, we are not only given an amazing reach to everyone on the planet, but also to everyone from our past that maybe we really just wanted to forget, to bury with the parts of ourselves that we grew out of. I went from not talking to anyone from my high school for almost ten years, to suddenly having almost everyone I’ve ever met riding in my pants pocket via my phone. Don’t get me wrong it’s great to be connected to everyone, but suddenly I noticed I’m becoming someone I’m not in order to be “liked.”
I had made a deal with myself months ago that I could only get on Facebook on the days that I spent time writing, I had a deadline for my second novel that has come and gone and I’m still finishing it up. The agreement with myself worked, I didn’t get online for days, sometimes weeks, because I had writer’s block. But sadly as I said earlier it seemed to have a direct impact on book sales, as using social media is a huge way of free advertising for a first time author. So now I’m not sure what to do; I want to sell books, but more importantly I want to write them. I should say I want to WANT to write them. I want to be connected to people, but I don’t want to be owned by whether or not people “like” me.
Most days I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, I mean seriously can I really write an entire fifty book series for children? It just seems almost insurmountable. At this point it would be so easy to just give up and go back to being only a stay at home mom. I could quit the whole writing game, I could go back to doing chores during naptime rather than forcing myself to sit and try to write something that hopefully no one will respond negatively to. I could, I could so easily give up.
Being a woman today is kinda rough, really the whole woman’s movement, yes it is wonderful, but now we not only have careers and families and McMansions to tend to, but also these annoying goals! (I say that tongue in cheek, of course.) I’m not sure how to balance them all, I’m not sure how to cross them off my list, but maybe that’s my problem. Instead of crossing goals off my list- maybe I just need to enjoy my journey. Maybe I just write because I love to write, and maybe the next time someone gives me less than thrilling feedback I actually just take the advice rather than being paralyzed by it. Maybe.
So starting today my new goal is this, not to finish my next book just to “finish” it and get it on the shelf. Not to be “liked” on Facebook, or to sell a million copies, but to love what I do. And to show my daughters that having a dream is a wonderful thing, having goals isn’t just to make money or to become famous, it’s literally finding the missing pieces of my personal puzzle, those things, those moments, that only myself and God are in control of, that complete me.
And maybe just maybe along the way I might inspire someone else to follow their own dreams, hopefully even my own daughters…because let’s face it, no matter how many “likes” we get on Facebook or followers on Twitter, if we aren’t inspiring our own children, we may as well give up.
My oldest daughter and I have a deal that during naptime she does school work and I write, today she presented me with something I’ll treasure as long as I live. It’s five pages of preschool lined paper with drawings and letters scrawled on every inch, bound together with what appears to be a million staples. As she presented it to me, her smile was enormous…
“Look Mommy, I wrote a book, just like you!”
Now that’s better than a million “likes” any day.
{Tell us if there has been a time when you let being "liked" dictate how you live your life...if you're brave enough that is. One lucky commenter will win Shauna's book!}
Don't Forget to {Go Blue} for autism awareness month.. Check out these amazing mother warriors and do your part to spread awareness about autism this month!
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