Monday Motivation: You can do it.

You can do it!

I don’t often use this blog purely for motivation, but I wanted to share an encouraging story from my recent writing experience with you.

I was thinking back on the moment I decided to leap into writing fiction last year, and how grateful I am that I took the leap and gave it a go (as mentioned in my last post). If you’re considering publishing your work, starting a blog, or sharing your thoughts online, I want to encourage you to do it. Success is totally possible – you just need to decide what success is for you.

The best thing you can do is set your goals realistically wherever you’re writing. When I first hit ‘publish’ on Amazon, I wondered if anyone would take notice of my work. I had pretty moderate success up front, so a few months down the line, I decided that I’d rather have people reading my work than wait for some miraculous media coverage to drive heaps of people to buy my book. Based on that, I decided success would be a bunch of people downloading my book for free. After setting Mrs Milliard’s Mech to perma-free on Amazon I’ve achieved that goal, and it’s really built up my confidence to keep writing. In no way am I claiming that I’ve arrived; there are so many things I want to achieve in my writing. But by setting an achievable goal, I was able to get on my journey and keep my motivation up.

I know that a lot of people who read my blog are writers seeking to get noticed or make their way in the self-publishing world – and that’s a tough space to be in! I love the feeling of having my work out there, but I’ve had to put in a lot of work to build a platform that gets my work in front of people. Many days I still battle with doubts and discouragement. I want to leave you with this thought, though: Every story that we find memorable involves adversity. When you think back on the classic villains, obstacles, and challenges that dot the stories you love, it becomes obvious that without a challenge, there wouldn’t be a triumph. So what’s the challenge you’re looking at in your writing today?

Whatever it is, you can overcome it.

You can do it.