May I Motivate Me a week before My 35th birthday(and possibly you as well)?

I’m usually annoyed when writing blogs spend their time writing posts about imposter’s syndrome or facing the blank white page or motivational posts such as the one below, but my birthday is this month and I’m gonna do it.

Cause in a way, I get it.

I get the frustration, I get the impatience, I get the whole getting older, unsure if it’s too late mentality. Believe me, I get it.

It seems on days that I’m most sure that my own personal writing goals are just around the corner, I wake up the next morning positive that it’s never going to happen.

And this feels unique to me at least.

Isn’t that the way most self-doubt works? You think OMG I MUST BE THE ONLY ONE, then you read one askreddit thread and you’re like…oh man maybe everyone has a voice in the back of their head that tells them they’re not good enough and that they wasted their teens, 20s and half of their 30s. SO far anyway.

But then it’s not actually that way, right? I know other people who didn’t sell a script until their mid-40s. Heck, I know one guy repped by my manager who didn’t sell his first spec until he was 56.

AND THESE SHOULD NOT BE NEW FUN DEADLINES EITHER BTW NIC.

You shouldn’t be researching authors, screenwriters, or other artists’ age and see how old they were when they made it big and then somehow compare yourself to their very specific life scenario.

Thank you, Steve. Well said.

There’s no such thing as an overnight success. Even someone who seems like they are. Look at Bo Burnham. The dude GRINDED on youtube for years, then wrote tons of material AND did lots of stand up AND THEN got a netflix special where he was THEN called an overnight sensation.

So keep grinding away. It might not be your time YET.

We have a saying at my church. It doesn’t work for everything, but it works for a lot of things:
“God answers our prayers in 1 of 3 ways: Yes, Not right now, OR I have something better planned.”
Personally, I kind of love that thought. I’m sure there are downright NO’S in there, but it doesn’t detract from the good thought.

Then again, maybe this is just because it’s been almost 10 days since I’ve looked at my own writing.

Maybe this bit of doubt stems from all the years of podcasts, interviews, DP30 conversations, hollywood roundtables and IAMAs where writers say a version of “you should write every day” and here I am not writing every day and now I’m filled with doubt. Questions like ‘do you even want it’ come to mind far more often than they don’t.

It CAN be a good place to be, utilizing that time away from a story to want to come roaring back. The new Virgin Galactic ship has me incredibly excited to jump right back into my novel editing, but I just haven’t found the time yet.

WHICH THEN LEADS to my other thought, a saying I often say which is “If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way and if it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.” What a good friend I am to myself.

I think it comes from years and years of telling myself that if I’m not kicking my own ass, then no one will do it for me. In life, one must often be their own personal trainer, screaming at them as they try to push themselves beyond where they were before. I need to be that for myself, you probably need to be that for yourself or how else can you expect to get stuff done?

…Right?

(DEEP BREATH)

So that’s a sample of what it’s like living in my own brain.

So what’s the point of all this really?

It’s just a reminder to myself that even though I’m in my mid-30s and success still feels far away, the journey is the destination. It’s not about getting to the top of the mountain.

Take it from somebody who is on the top of the mountain: