No one can hold you back except for yourself

So it’s 12:53am and I’m still awake. Which kinda sucks seeing as I do have to get up and go to work (the day job) tomorrow. So I took another half a tablet of melatonin and took a long hot shower. I was thinking while I was in the shower. I was thinking to about a year ago when I had started heavily writing again and was trying to find my way as a writer again. I decided I wanted to go to a writer’s conference only I didn’t know where the nearest one was or how expensive it would be. So I googled Oregon and writers conference and that is how I found the Willamette Writers ( A wonderful organization). I was talking to a good friend of mine about it, his name is Fred. He offered to pay for me to go to the conference and I could pay him back. Which he did and I am doing. That evening one of things he said to me as stuck with me and I remember it over and over again. I had been talking about my dream of being published and he looked at me and said, “Really the only thing holding you back is you.” I blinked at him several times, momentarily speechless. He was absolutely right. So that moment came back to me tonight. You see I have received several rejections and have been a little (yes only a little) down about it. But I figured my match was out there somewhere and it’s only a matter of time. I realized though, no one can hold me back. Not an agent who says no. Not an editor who doesn’t like me. Not a critic who hates my work. No one can hold me back except for myself. I don’t see any rejection as failure. If I were to quit now, that would be failure and that’s not something I am going to do. So if you are like me and still searching for your perfect match out in agent/editor land, don’t give up. No one can hold you back except for yourself.

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