Sorry Charlie, You're No Good

I'm watching an old movie from the 1980's - "Peggy Sue Got Married" with Nicholas Cage and Kathleen Turner. Nicholas Cage has come a long way as an actor. I loved him in "Knowing" last weekend. Anyway, that's not the point of today's post. If you've seen the movie, you know Charlie (Cage's character) is obsessed with music and becoming a famous musician like Dion. (Not my cat Dion, the other one - the one my kids have no clue who he is. - that's a whole other blog post) There's a part that's about to be shown - where Charlie auditions for an agent and the agent tells him "Sorry, Charlie. You're not good enough to make it in the music business." Then Charlie gets depressed, gives up his music, and is unhappy for the rest of his life. Whoa! What kind of way is that to be? Unfortunately, I had an agent tell me also, "You're never going to make it in this (writing) business." Hell no! I didn't like it, either. No better than Charlie. I was depressed, too. But should we give up because someone doesn't like us or our books or our voice? For those who love American Idol like me, how many times has Simon told someone they weren't doing well enough and then they go on to become stars in the music biz? (Think Jennifer Hudson from season 3 of American Idol - now super star) No! We shouldn't give up on our dreams so easily. We need to believe in ourselves, to keep learning, keep plugging along. I'm also a realist and I crave security so if you've ready even a couple of my posts you know I hold a full-time day job which I'm not about to give up until I have a couple cool million in the bank (or more). But neither am I going to give up on my dream. I do, however, believe in doing it the safe way and working at it while keeping a paycheck I can count on. Why would someone listen to one or two people, especially about something so important? First and foremost, you have to believe in yourself. You have to fight for yourself. No one else will fight nearly as hard for you as you will for yourself. It can be hard and tiring and time consuming. But I'm not sorry. Writing books is my dream. Being published is my dream. Building a writing career is highly important to me. So no, I'm not going to give up. I'll never give up as long as I have breath and can still type or speak into one of those Dragon Speak things. You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)