Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
As of October 12, 2017, my mom’s first book, “Defiant Souls” was available for purchase. This is now the second member of my family who has a booked published. And I am still waiting for Angela to finish her trilogy – ahem. Although I am happy for my mom, it depresses me in a way. It lends credence to my own laziness and how I am nowhere near where I wanted to be in life.
Everyone’s First Book
Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my mom and her accomplishment. I am extremely excited to get some free time and read through it. However, there is still a part of me that wants to dive into a pity party.
I am more angry at myself than anything. Sure I am a successful ghostwriter, but no one knows the work I produce – hence the ghostwriting part. Aside from my blogs, nothing really has my name on it. I love my job, but there are times when it would be pretty cool to look over at the bookshelf and see my name on the spine of something.
I don’t even care about the popularity or the royalties. Just accomplishing something more would be good enough for me.
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My Own Laziness
I talk a big game when it comes to trying to fire others up to be a success. Unfortunately, I fall short a lot of the time for myself. If I would have put in even half of the effort I preach about, I surely would have been published by now.
One of my biggest problems is comfort. It’s easy to hide from the world and be a ghostwriter who doesn’t really have a lot of heavy demands. I write the content, I get paid. Simple. But what if I am tired of being simple?
The bottom line is doing something about my laziness. I often try to conceal my issues by saying that I don’t have the time to write or that I am always busy. In some cases it’s true. But the majority of the time, I waste a lot of my time during the day.
Case in point, I knew mom was getting a book published last year. It was my goal to finish my novella, “VII” before then. You guessed it…that never happened. Although I have been working on it, the book is still unfinished – more than a year after I started it.
What Do I Really Want in Life?
Another issue I’ve been having as of late is dealing with a midlife crisis. My depression isn’t as bad as it was, but I am still having a hard time with age. In fact, I crashed in a spectacular way. And not even writing my first book would have saved me.
It all boils down to not knowing what I want to be when I grow up. I want to do so much, and it gets overwhelming at times. Lately, it seems everything I try backfires in a blazing heap of twisted metal and charred wood.
Who am I? What am I doing? Those are questions I wish I could answer with certainty. Instead, I put on a mask and try to pretend to fit in. I have very few friends, no social life outside of my cats and I work from home. If I was a woman with grey hair, it would be cliché.
To be honest, I’m not really sure what I am doing. I try to meet each day and start off great. Then I stumble and find myself sitting in my office not really knowing what to do next.
I can’t really say that I’m a failure at anything because you need to do something in order to fail at it. I don’t. And the things I try don’t seem to work as quickly as I’d like, so I move on to something else.
Discovering My Passion
First and foremost, I am a writer. Although I’m not a novelist, I’ve always had a penchant for typing in any form. Most of my jobs involved the keyboard whether it was a data transcriber or a ghostwriting blogger. I love writing…but it seems I don’t love it enough to finish my own ideas.
What am I passionate about? Not a lot. There isn’t much that gets me truly excited anymore. And I don’t know if that’s from being broken or if I have some kind of severe mental deficiency. Perhaps it’s a little bit of both. After all, I have been diagnosed with manic bipolar disorder – a long time ago.
I know that once I start writing a piece of fiction, I become quite enthralled in it. I’ll get into these moods where I can easily crack out several pages in a night and have to force myself to bed. But then what happens? The drive dissipates for no real reason other than I am a lazy individual.
Have you ever woke up in the morning and say to yourself, “What the hell is wrong with you?” It’s not a good way to start the day. Although this doesn’t happen nearly as much as it used to, there are times when I just don’t know what I am doing.
Looking For Change
Like I tell everyone I try to help, “Change isn’t going to just happen.” The problem is, I really don’t know what I want to change into. I have Buckaroo Bonzai syndrome in that I want to do it all and excel.
The first thing I should probably do is decide what is going to be a priority for me. How do I want to change? What I’m doing now surely isn’t working well for my mental state.
Wow…it’s amazing how something as simple as a first book from my mom can throw me into mental disarray. Maybe I am more broken than I thought.
Proud of My Mom
I am excited for Mom, but I am cloaked in my own misery. Maybe I can look to Mom as a positive focal point that it’s never too late to do something. Maybe my age really isn’t as much of a problem as I am making it out to be. Sigh…still have a long way to go.
And by the way, I do plan on writing a review for my mom’s first book, “Defiant Souls” as soon as I am done reading it. But so far, it seems to be quite popular among some of the critics I’ve seen online.
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