September Editorial: Live The Dream
In an exciting month for PHS Founder and Editor, Trish Wylie, she talks about never giving up, doing what you love, having the courage to start over and all the prep work required to live the dream!
Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life. Ha! If only that was true.
Fact is, doing what you love can be bloody hard work. Suggest to an author all they're doing is churning out books and, at the very least, you'll earn a death glare. Say that when they're fighting the good fight with a book from hell and a looming deadline, your body might never be found. Quite possibly because it's not all in one place.
Writing alone can be a tough enough test of your determination to succeed. But there's an helluva lot more involved with being an author these days.
You don't just have to create believable characters and worry about what readers consider a happily-ever-after, you also have to consider if being part of a critique or writer's group will help or hinder your progress. and if it's worthwhile recruiting a street team. Then, when the book is finished, you don't just have to edit it, proofread it and slap a cover on it before releasing it into the wild, you have to consider things like branding and tagging and metadata before you move on to the next one.
In the last few months, I've often put in eighteen hours a day. Might not look like I'm doing much while sat on my ass in front of a computer, surrounded by pretty desk accessories, drinking coffee. But when you're writing, editing and formatting one book, revising another, designing a website complete with a gazillion book links and spit-balling ideas with the PHS eds in a group chat so you can set things in motion up to a year in advance, trust me (regardless of how much fun the latter can be), it's WORK.
Dream it. Plan it. Do it.
That's the ethos I'm working with here. Technically speaking, I’ve already lived the dream. My first book was published fourteen years ago and launched the career I’d been dreaming about since my teens. Then, thanks to a combination of writer’s block, family troubles and depression, it all came crashing down around my ears.
Starting over, is scary. Particularly when you feel like everything you’ve worked for is gone. But it also gives you time to re-group and re-evaluate, consider what matters most to you and prioritize your time accordingly. You have to believe in yourself, find the courage to keep going, do your research, put in the work and most of all, never give up! The only thing standing in your way, is you.
So, what are you still doing here? Go on. Live the dream.
Trish has a new book coming out this month! Mostly Married can be pre-ordered from all the usual online retailers and its release coincides with the relaunch of her website on September 18th. To keep up to date with the latest news and help her celebrate, you can follow her on Facebook or Instagram.
