Today is the Big Launch Event ™. Ilene and I have been looking forward to it all year. We’ll get to hang out with a bunch of people we know and love, celebrate our accomplishments, and consume too much caffeine.
Writing this weird little book has changed my life. I’ve learned so much over the past two years, and I’m still learning new things every day. I will be as long as this is my chosen profession.
This morning, I’m feeling three big things:
1. Relief. It’s done. I did it. I set out to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’ve accomplished it. I can’t believe it. It still seems miraculous. I hope this feeling never goes away.
2. Humility. It’s a deeply flawed work, and I can already see a thousand-plus-one ways it could have been improved. Every serious creator experiences this. That rush of pride at finishing, mellowing into the knowledge that it could have been better. Clearer. Tighter. Whatever.
3. The good news is that I don’t feel any regret because of #2. Only determination. Despite this being the hardest thing I’ve ever done creatively, I am ready to do it again – and to apply everything I’ve learned while writing and publishing this book to the next one.
Y’all, I have never claimed to be some creative genius. I’m just a crazy person who, despite having no real qualifications, loves to do things that feel impossible. I wantonly listen to my creative urges and follow them with wild abandon. I’m not afraid of failing, even publicly. That’s it.
If I have any higher purpose to speak of, I hope it comes through as an inspired dare: go out there and do the thing. Life is short. We could die anytime. There are no guarantees. So do that project with all your heart, to the best of your ability. Leave it out there for the world to do with what it will, and then keep going, as far and as fast as you can until your time here is over.
Don’t waste a single, precious second that could be spent creating in whatever form and fashion speaks to you. Because that *is* why we’re here. Your life is not a competition with anyone else’s, and creativity is an unlimited and renewable resource that belongs to all of us.
Do it. For yourself.
My sincere thanks to everyone who showed kindness, support, and enthusiasm as I battled with myself while writing this novel. I literally could not have done it without you.