The road to becoming a published author is not an easy one. It takes patients, creativity, and practice. As far as I know, most writers/authors don’t start out phenomenal. I’ve been practicing since I wrote my first poem in the seventh grade. So if it is a practiced skill, how do I know it’s my “calling”? I’ve always said, “whatever it is that I choose for a living, I will become successful” and “it won’t feel like work”. I’ve tried many things in my short time on this earth and everything felt, well, BLAH. I worked because I had to, not because I wanted to. Throughout my working career, writing was always there for me. I continued to write and noticed that I could get a reaction from those who has read my work. Most of the reactions were, “wow, that’s pretty good”, however as I grew older the reactions were grew more complex in a good way.
I feel as though I have a natural gift for writing. I didn’t have to work hard to get better (though I did have to work at it), it just happened. I look at it like singing. Some people are just able to sing well, others train to sing well. It is both as skill and a talent. Even though some are naturally good at singing, they still train to control that gift/talent. Although the creativity in writing is something that came naturally to me, I didn’t know how to structure a story or all the different ways to write poetry. It was something I had to learn and practice.
The patience is an area that is very difficult. I, like many others, know I have amazing stories that I would like to share, that I know people wold enjoy. The process in creating those stories can take time. After it’s complete, sharing those stories with people is a long and slow journey. If all all of the writers/authors in the world who are trying to make a name for themselves along with the ones who are already successful by the traditional definition, had to wait in several lines for publishing companies and self publishing, it would probably take years or a decades to get through that line once. There is so much content that people are creating daily from every genre and/or niche, it’s hard to gain traffic. Thus patience is needed.
It’s hard to be different and scary to think one could inadvertently plagiarize unintentionally. Luckily we have imaginations and some expand to great lengths. Personal experiences are like snow flakes. Combining those two things will produce original work. I love what I do. Writing gives me hope, gives me purpose, gives me strength, gives me life. If all of those things are true, how could it not be my calling? No matter how long it takes, I will see success because I believe in myself and won’t give up.
What is your passion or “calling”? How did you know? Comment below.
Gala Serks 