"Just keep swimming," as Dory from Finding Nemo puts it so nicely. This is my mantra whenever I'm stuck on something and don't know where to go next. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a magnificent talk on trucking through the hard times to get to the better times. He quotes Winston Churchill a lot which reminded me of my soccer team in high school. "Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be," Winston Churchill. I didn't even know this was a quote from this amazing man. On my high school soccer team, our mantra was exactly this quote with more on the end of it. "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be. For without victory, there is no survival." When our team would look spent, we would chant this as the cheerleaders waiting to get on the field to help our team perk back up. It always worked. It rallied us together as a team. People and other teams thought it was weird we had such a quote, but it certainly brought us together as sisters in soccer.
As I look into what I want to be, a published author, I see that this or even a screen-play writer is something to really pursue because of the lifestyle it allows me to have within the home. I can work from home, I won't need to be gone from home all the time, and I can do most of my correspondence online through emails and phone calls. However, when I look at the victory I can have as a published author, I see that light and I'm scared to go to it. To go further past the initial first draft is scary. I have tried having friends I trust read my very first novel and get feedback that doesn't help me at all. I think they are trying to be nice when it came to helping me see what needed to be rewritten. Then when I go back through and reread their notes, I realize, I am frightened to move forward. I am excited to try again and write another full novel, edit it, then try and publish it. I need to follow what Sister Holland said, "The only limitations you have are those you set on yourself." This is so true when I see where the road to becoming a published author can lead me. I am the one holding myself back. My husband keeps asking me how the writing is going. All I keep saying is, "The ideas are there, but I'm having a hard time implementing them." Some of this is truth, and most of it is fear. I am limiting myself to the thoughts of "I can't get published", "I only have good ideas", "Just do something else with your life that can guarantee payment". I have to stop these thoughts. I have to go at it with a mind ready for victory.
Elder Holland quotes Churchill here as well, "...unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall." I will have victory this year for National Novel Writing Month, and I will conquer this fear of moving forward after writing my initial first draft.
I WILL HAVE VICTORY! I WILL CONQUER!
I think I will go put this all over my house now. It will be my new mantra, and it will be something to help me move forward through all my entrepreneurial goals.
However Long and Hard the Road by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
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