After thinking about what I wanted to write next, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to write about one of the main reasons I write, and why I’ve been pushing myself to learn about self publishing: it was a dream. Now that dream is coming true, and every day when I think about it I have moments of disbelief. Is this really happening? This can’t be happening. And then something happens that reaffirms that yes, this truly is real and it’s happening.

If I can do one thing as an author, and as a person, it is to inspire others to follow their dreams, whether it’s to become an author themselves, to be an artist, or even to be an athlete of some kind. We all need to have dreams. That is what gets us through the hard days and the days when we want to quit “adulting” altogether. I’ve had plenty of those days, and several in the last few weeks. Keeping my dream as a focus in my life has helped get me through those days.

My writing buddy. He makes sure I take my breaks.

Now one thing that I want to point out is that dreams are hard. They often take hard work and sacrifice to accomplish. I can’t tell you how many hours, days and weeks I’ve spent doing two things: working my day job and writing. I also can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve spent researching self publishing and marketing and then actually going out and using what I’ve learned. Dreams are HARD!!! But they wouldn’t be dreams worth having and see come true if they weren’t.

Well, my dream is about to come true. Soon I’ll be a published author, something I’ve wanted since I was thirteen.

When I was in college I attended a forum where a man (I can’t remember his name off hand) said something remarkable. He said, paraphrasing, that one day we’re all going to have our dreams come true. What are you going to do the day after?

We always need a dream, something to work toward. I guess that right now I need to find that next dream, whether it’s to complete my trilogy as a self published author or to be able to make a living off of writing; it’s up to me. But I need that next dream because when our wildest dreams come true, what are we going to work toward the next day?