I wonder

I wonder... is it really possible to become a bestselling author?

I've been thinking about that for the last hour or so... that's kind of a dream of mine. However, there is a huge possibility that it will never happen.

Why? Well, 1) I'm lazy 2) there's a lot of competition out there and 3) because... I'm afraid that I don't know what I'm doing and everyone will read my book and think that I'm a complete idiot.

That third reason probably scares me more than anything.

Even so, I'm still going to risk looking like a fool and try and get my spy novel written and hopefully published.

Honestly, I would love to make my living being a novelist and a freelance writer. I'm fine with my day job for now, but I would really like to make writing my one and only profession one day. But it's going to be hard. Freelance work is always scarce, and you have to hustle to get it. And just because you write a novel, doesn't mean that anyone besides family and friends will read it and it will become a bestseller. Hell, there are no guarantees that your family will even read it! I'm still trying to get my mom to read Freakonomics, and I bought that book for her SEVEN years ago, lol.

Writing (or anything in the arts, for that matter) is a tough profession to make a decent living in doing. It's interesting how I've only really wanted to partake in professions where I would have to hustle or get lucky to succeed in (talent matters too, don't get me wrong)... at first, I wanted to be a professional athlete as a kid (I dreeeeamed of being a gymnast... sadly, I was too tall, and then I wanted to play major league baseball.... sadly, I was a girl). Then I wanted to be an actor (my mom talked me out of it). At one point in time, I wanted to be a psychologist, which would have been reasonable, but I got deterred by the schooling (10 years of schooling... I couldn't handle the thought). And now I want to be a novelist... couldn't I have just settled for wanting to be an accountant? Me and my pipe dream artistic aspirations... damn.

For now, I'm dreaming of what could possibly be one day. I may never make it as a successful novelist, and that's kind of scary. But I guess there is no harm in trying, right? I don't think I can be an analyst forever. And I'm striking out hard in the tech writing field, due to no experience. My career prospects have reached a brick wall in the gov't contracting arena, you could say. It seems like there is no time like the present to just take a leap of faith and pursue failing at something that couldn't be any worse than what I'm failing at right now (I'm not exactly failing, I'm just kind of cruising on a linear path, which is ok for now, I guess).

I'm ready to suck it up and work at it. At least if I fail, at least I can say I tried. And trying is better than not doing anything at all.

PS - I didn't hit 10,000 words for National Novel writing month, but I did get over 4,500. Not bad, but I could do better. Back to work!