Take a deep breath, close your eyes and.... jump!

[owned_by_a_cat]

Essentially England, my English history and food website, is five years old today, so please forgive me if I'm feeling a little introspective.  I still recall sitting at my desk during lunchbreak, staring at the screen that said "Click SUBMIT to register your domain."  And I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and clicked. 

Nothing awful happened. Not then, not later when I started to comprehend the mammoth project I had so blithely committed to.  For the last five years, the England site has been a sideline to two engineering jobs, a p/t teaching job, a house move and the start of a new business.  It's the size of very two long novels, attracts half a million visitors a year and pays a large chunk of our mortgage.

More importantly, though, it's given me confidence as a writer. I've actually written more fiction in the last 5 years than I did in the 10 years before that. And I've even (shock horror!) shown it to other people!  And writing for a large part of my living - and dealing with the resulting comments, complaints, suggestions etc. - has given me resilience and a slightly (ever so slightly!) less perfectionist attitude.

So I thought that today is a good day to take another deep breath, close my eyes again and take another jump.
I don't do New Year's Resolutions - I mean, why wait? - but a friend told me that if you want to stop smoking or lose weight you should tell all your friends so they can sabotage your efforts keep you on target. It's supposed to work, so I thought I might give it a try.

**Deep breath, close eyes ...**

In 2013, I will locate some courage, ignore the part of my brain that upbraids me for arrogance in thinking anything I write could possibly be good enough, and submit at least two short stories to a publisher. 
(And hopefully you won't have to contact me in 364 days to ask if I've done it....)

There. Nothing awful's happened. Yet.

Comments

[ichibanseiken.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on Essentially England! And, your goal for next year is awesome. If you're not careful, you'll find yourself with yet another job :-) I know I did!

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

You know who's going to be my inspiration!

And the dreamboat reason, rarely acknowledged, for starting EE was that I wanted to be able to negotiate a 4-day week and have one day a week for writing fiction. Writing it, not publishing necessarily...

[tylashke.livejournal.com]

All the best with the writing. You'll definitely have people who'll be willing to read through your stuff, support you if you're not confident enough and give you ideas on how to improve it. =)

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly what makes everyone here on LJ so awesome...
:-)

[sardonicista.livejournal.com]

First off, congratulations on taking the leap. The success is a happy by-product, but in my way of thinking, the only things we're really in control of is our attitude and effort, and taking that first step is a huge deal.

Second, I am excited to hear that you'll be working towards submitting a few stories for publication. Your writing is wonderful in all of the venues I've seen it in thusfar, and sharing your work for profit is even better. =)

We'll stick to sabotaging each other's diets, eh?

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Leaping is fun - at least somewhere - it's the landing I'm concerned about. Why try to validate time spent on one's dearest hobby? Not sure, really, but I'm trying not to let that stop me.

Happy to help sabotage your diet whenever you feel the need, though.;-) I love cooking too much to go near a diet. I just cook something else or go for a walk.

[nochick-fics.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. Sounds like you've come a long way!

Here's to going even further next year!

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think it's all the support here on LJ that makes me start to think I can do this, too...

[kahewai.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Good luck with you new goal! I bet that you'll do great! :D

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the confidence (which I don't yet have.) ;-) Hope that will come. Helps if I can perk myself up by reading some of the awesome fiction on here....

[writerx75.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your website being so successful, and congratulations on your writing resolution! I look forward to reading what you come up with.

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I'll promise to do my best, storywise. Fortunately, ideas are not hard to come up with - just need to get them written.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well that's nothing if not an inspiring story, you know, and how brilliant that you're able to write for at least part of your living (so far... *g*)

Here's to another five years of doing things that are brilliantly successful - and enjoyable, by the sounds of it! (I've only had a wee wander around Essential England so far, but it looks like a great website.)

[owned-by-a-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out the site! Writing the history part is great fun - so much weirder in places than any plot I could ever come up with. Just wish the food part of the site wasn't so hard on my waistline! ;-)

But I'm definitely looking forward to another five years - and more writing for a living - so many thanks for the good wishes. They're much appreciated.