If Not Now, When?

As December is fast approaching, so is the end to my third semester of college, not to mention another holiday season. Usually, it is January when people begin making new goals, and forgetting about them (of which I am also a culprit), but I have had an enlightening month, and I am ready to pursue the goals that I’ve had in my resolutions for several years.

Every year, I tell myself that I will send out my book to a writing agent, and every year, I postpone it because I do not think it is quite good enough. Well, I have been doing pretty well with my editing goals for the last few months, and during my winter break, I plan to heavily edit my novella–and maybe even pick a title one of these days. After a lengthy edit, even if I am not quite happy with it, come January, I will start sending it to writing agents.

I have been dreaming about being an author since I was ten years old, and I think my serious pursuit for publication is long overdue.

I have submitted to one writing agent before, to which I did not receive a response, but this is a new book, a new chapter in my life, pun intended. I guess I have been thinking that I need to wait until I have completely perfected my writing to submit it. In a way, that has been my safety blanket; sometimes I think that my writing is not worthy of publication, and with a few more years, it may finally be “perfect”, but I know that I cannot keep waiting. This is my time to pursue publication. So, I am just going to do it, whether I am ready or not.

In addition to this goal, I am also planning to write more short stories. The only way to get better at anything is to practice, so I will gain experience by doing just that. I am very excited to take my first real Creative Writing class next semester, but outside of class, I want more experience in writing short stories, especially since I have a difficult time keeping things short.

I am not sure what goals I want to make in regards to said short stories, as far as how many I should write in the upcoming year, but I want to submit to more contests and publication sites as to gain more experience. That is something I will also make a priority. I submitted to two contests last week, so    hopefully this will be my start to an updated and heart-fulfilling portfolio.

As my classes come to an end, I am reminded of my goals in the field of anthropology, that even though I do not have any classes specifically geared towards human kindness, especially when classes challenge my faith in that kindness, I am constantly learning every day about what makes us human, and in the end, that is my overall goal.

When the news floods me with depressing information, I take to the internet to find resources I could use in my endeavor to prove that kindness is a natural human trait. I have found a surprising number of books written on this subject, and as soon as I can afford to add them to my private library, I plan on doing just that.

Reading articles online are good resources, too, but they just do not give me as much information as I want in my personal research. I found this article the other day, and as I read it, I realized just how much research still needs to be done. Even though this is not an anthropology site, I think that there must be more evidence of human kindness buried in genetics, and I cannot wait to take more classes and find correlations.

I am ready to write the book about human kindness, but I still need the research. The past month has opened my eyes to just how much time and energy that will require, but I am prepared to do that.

Human kindness is so important, and it has the power to change the world. I believe that with all of my heart.

And right now, I think we all need that in our lives.

So, I am going to keep myself busy over break by further researching human kindness in the ways I can right now, writing more short stories and submitting them to contests, and finishing the final edits of the novella so I can send it to a writing agent.

Because if not now, when?

Also, I want to give a big “Thank you!” to my friend, Brontë Bauer (bronte.bauer99@gmail.com), for taking some new author/writing-related pictures for me! I am excited to start using them!