Dream Big and Live Large

For a while, I had those words at the top of my daily planner. Then my planner got full of other things-- tasks for work, dental appointments, birthday reminders, etc. -- and I deleted those words in the interest of space. That and I had read them so often they had lost their meaning, falling into bad cliché territory. Turns out, I should have left them where they were because I have certainly not been taking my own advice.
I have been struggling with my writing lately. I have a good reason. As I already announced here, I'm pregnant, so in terms of my thought processes, all roads lead to baby shoes and curtains for the nursery. But if I was honest with myself, truly honest with myself-- which I try never to be-- I knew there was something more, something specific to my writing, and I think I've figured out what it is. I have been lowballing my dream.
I have a completed, polished manuscript, and it's damn good if I do say so myself, which obviously, I do, but because I was afraid to dream big, I have been willing to sell out my dream and my manuscript for published mediocrity rather than hold out for that high profile agent or the big contract. Success scares me, you see. As much as I strive for it and work toward it, the idea of actually getting it terrifies me. Maybe it's a fear of the unknown. Maybe it's a fear of change. I really don't know. What I do know is that I had become willing to settle. Settling and quitting are the only things that can absolutely, 100% keep you from reaching your goals or getting your dream.
I came to believe one had to put out a book a year in order to be successful. There are some writers who can turn out quality work annually, but I am not one of them. I write slowly, but the end product is quality. In recalling my favorite authors, they aren't the prolific ones, they are the ones who take a while to do their thing, but in the end their thing is magical. They are the authors whose websites I check to see when their next release is projected to hit the shelves. They are the ones whose books I absolutely must have, the ones that I set aside entire weekends to read-- phone unplugged except to order out for pizza. J.K. Rowling, Diana Gabaldon, and Robert Jordan spring immediately to mind. I never walk through my local BN and say, "Oh look, Diana Gabaldon has another book out." No, I know when her books are coming out. Usually I've been counting the days.
And this, I have come to realize, is the writer I want to be. Such are the stories I want to tell. It's going to mean doing some serious work on an actual career plan (shiver) and research to find just the right agents to query, but it's my dream. It's my dream and it's worth the effort to make it big.