I’ve seen this quote attributed to Sir Winston Churchill and Napoleon Hill. Whichever the case, it’s a great quote and one that people with big dreams should examine closely. Because to have a big dream isn’t enough. Very few who have ever succeeded have reached their goals solely on luck, and this couldn’t be truer for authors—even those who are considered one-hit wonders had to work very hard to have their one success. Writing even just one book is a labor, preferably one born from love. All published writers have to sit down, day in and day out, to lay their ideas on the page, to shape them and bring them to life through sweat, tears and blood (metaphorically, I should hope.)
So, aspiring authors, you must work hard. You must give it your all. And when you do, when you take the time and make it a purpose to write every day, every week, every month, until you can say you’ve written all year, and you create something magical by breathing life into characters and whole new worlds, it is then that you succeed, that you become an author and quit simply aspiring.
When I began my journey, I was a closet writer. No one but my closest friends knew I had this dream. I used to think: “Heck, English isn’t even my first language. People will laugh, if I tell them I want to be an English author.” But I kept at it, because I dared to dream.
Days passed and I wrote.
Months passed and I wrote.
Years passed and I wrote.
Books were born and I fell in love with my characters, with the worlds I created, with the fact that I became an author and wasn’t afraid to say it out loud anymore.
So yeah, dream big! All the time. But know that success won’t suddenly come knocking on your door one day just because you want it to. No. You have to wake up every morning and work hard at it. And, after some time, you will actually see it coming from a distance. It will be blurry at first, then it will come into focus until you can almost taste it. Then one day, when preparation meets opportunity, it will stand in front of you and it will be magnificent and hardly a surprise.
Write on.