The Making of The Dragon Destroyer: Week 5

I’m fighting. I’m fighting against myself. I’m fighting against my dreams.

I say I want to write, but when the time comes to sit and put words to the page, I resist the writing process. I find something else to do, some other way to entertain my brain and engage my imagination.

And I am frustrated with myself as a result.

This past week, I intended to write at least 500 words a day six days a week. I hit my daily goal twice, made it halfway to my goal once, and didn’t even get on the board the other three days. Grrrrrrrrr.

Why is carving out time to write so difficult? Because I haven’t decided that this is my life’s purpose. I want it to be, but logically, I still believe that my dream to make a living telling and selling stories is just that. A dream.

Thriving as an employee is much easier. It’s also much safer. It makes sense. I get trained. I put my training into action. I succeed. That formula I have followed over and over again throughout my adult life.

I know how to be a great employee and am confident I can excel at any job I am hired to do. My track record proves that pattern.

But when it comes to doing the work that I WANT to do, I struggle. I struggle to believe my writing is important. I struggle to believe my stories matter. I struggle to believe that I am capable of being the focused, persistent, passionate writer I long to become.

Last night, someone asked if my current job was just a job or something I could see myself doing for a long time. That question took me by surprise, and my gut instinct was telling.

My gut wanted me to answer, “It’s just a job! I’m not really an employee. I’m simply playing the part until I can make it as a writer.”

I censored myself before I could answer with raw honesty. Would anyone in the room believe such nonsense considering I’ve been chasing this dream for twenty years and only have a handful of books that bring in a small stream of royalties to show for my efforts? Would I believe such nonsense?

My edited response included a run down of other jobs within the company I currently work for that I could do down the line once I tired of my position as a claims adjuster. What my response did not include was my desire to be able to walk away from the auto insurance business entirely by the time I am 45 to be a full-time author entrepreneur. (That deadline is less than three years away.)

I didn’t want to openly admit that goal to anyone because I have a horrible history of botching deadlines. If I didn’t admit it, it wouldn’t be real. If it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t matter if I reached my goal or not.

Only it does matter. It matters to me. It matters to God. He is the One who has entrusted me with the ability to write and instilled within me the desire to turn my stories into books and my books into a business.

So the unabashedly honest answer is NO. NO, I don’t want to spend the rest of my working years as a claims adjuster. It’s interesting work for now and serves its purpose of keeping me financially stable while I write more books and build my business, but it’s not my end goal.

Spending my days telling adventurous stories and sharing them with you is my end goal.

That is what I will begin fighting FOR as of this moment.