Hurdles
I was never good at hurdles in gym, but I could run a pretty mean 100 yard dash. I was not the athletic kid in school, but the happy nerd and geek. Mental hurdles were my thing. Unless I hated the teacher or found the textbook so dry, I couldn’t bother reading it. The latter was more common.
Life is full of hurdles. Some lead to challenges that expand your abilities while other are unexpected nuisances. The worst are the ones you make yourself because you plow head first into a project without all the tools and information you needed. I think I hit all three this week.
The challenge was to have a novel ready for my beta readers. I’ve been talking about it coming along all summer with probably a September or October read. As time progressed, I realized it would take me a month longer than expected for all the self-editing passes I wanted to do. I set the goal firmly in October when I knew I would need at least half of September to finish. This worked, and I had it setup for beta readers a few days before the end of September.
This challenge included hosting the beta read on my Story Origin account. The first book I had done through a read only Google doc with them emailing me back the answers to a questionnaire and other feedback. Not the best way of doing it, but it was my first book. It turned out pretty easy on Story Origin and I’ve received feedback from one that she loves the Story Origin way of doing it.
With that big hurdle completed, I moved on to deciding if I would enter a book still in uncompleted draft mode to a contest. It is on the rougher side. It was a draft with edits so my critique group could look at the deeper things of pacing, characterization, setting details, etc. I have an interesting story, but it needs a lot more framework and structure to help the reader get pulled into the story. The story starts too en media res to properly grab the reader and whisk them off on the journey. They can’t quite grasp what the characters are doing and why. At least, I know one of them likes the characters and there are other promising comments.
This book will not go into the contest. Instead, it will be released in serial fashion on my Substack, Tales of Karnum and Beyond, where readers can give feedback, a lot like beta readers, but at an alpha stage. If they are paid subscribers, they will win prizes and be able to read the entire manuscript. I’m setting this up and should have a dystopian serial I took off of Vella as the first series. Last of Dragons will follow along based on timing with Truth Bearer editing after the beta readers have at it.
I plowed into Last of Dragons too fast and did not analyze my story method well. I had pantsered it after all. It had no goal other than to put the story in my head on paper. On a good note, it is not a complete waste and I can turn this into a hurdle of learning challenge rather than a failure.
I also had the unexpected nuisance. My water quit working Monday night and I needed the drilling company to come out and check the well. I also had my first appointment with a new dental office that morning. Instead of having time to shop for a few things and have lunch with my husband afterward, we had to rush home. The crew could show up anywhere from noon to four that afternoon. My appointment was at 10 and it takes at least 40 minutes to get there. Needless to say, this caused some anxiety I had to confess to God.
It all worked out, even if our day went totally sideways from what we had planned. I even managed a bit of organizing for my writing in the last quarter of this year. Now to see if I can make it over the hurdles of the plan or if I put a mountain in the middle of it all. I am definitely an overachiever and competitor, so something can break here. If nothing else, I get something done and learn how to tweak my quarterly goals better for next year. I’m my boss in all of this and all deadlines are of my making.
The best advice is to learn your limits and trust God to help you through your anxieties to reach your dreams. Never step down from the challenge you are sure is on the path God is leading you on. Those challenges will help you grow when you hurdle them. He will lead you to people that will help you expand in ways you never thought of before. I would not be where I am as a debut author this year if I hadn’t stepped out and found a network of people when the opportunity arose. I have plenty to learn and far too many writing ideas to test the publishing industry with to give up now.
Take the time to assess where you are and where you want to go. Take it one hurdle at a time. You will learn where you should go. If you fall on a hurdle, pick yourself up and determine what you need to learn or if you veered off the path you should be on. Always keep God as your pilot on life’s journey.