Dreams

I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately: about how important it is to have them, but also doing what it takes to make them come true.

When I started writing more over the past few years—short stories, Wee Wisdom in the Coloradoan, Mind+Body Magazine, UC Health Insider, this blog, my novel—my own dreams have become reality. I've always enjoyed expressing myself creatively, and becoming a writer has given me that outlet. I'm thankful to have been given a chance by people in the field who believed (and continue to believe) in me and my abilities, and the support of my fantastic wife and kids. The catalyst in making it all happen, I realize, was having the dream in the first place. But it takes a lot of work to make them happen.

Most of my waking hours are spent thinking about writing in some way, from fiction to articles to journaling and beyond. I know my kids see it. When they see me running to scribble something they just said, they know it'll probably appear in a column. They watch me take every spare moment to work on some project I've got going on, and I know they see my passion.

My writing has been rejected way more times than it has been accepted. I continue to receive "thanks but no thanks" letters for short stories I've submitted to literary journals, probably totaling somewhere in the 40-50 neighborhood. I have a file of about 25 rejections from the first time I queried literary agents on my novel (I now understand the rationale, four years later) and I will certainly receive more on this go around. I read countless essays and blogs from those in the literary field outlining just how hard it is to get anything published. A project I'm working on now—a non-fiction book proposal—is, while fun, sucking the energy out of me with how much is involved, and how unlikely those in the industry will tell me it is for someone to buy into it. I can see why people give up.

But to quote MLK, I have a dream. And despite the rejections and unbelievable challenges associated with getting published, I am living it, everyday. Of that, I need to keep reminding myself. Because it's easy to forget.