On Dreams

Category

Inside Out: What Emotion Drives You?

Continuing my tradition of being way behind on popular culture, I only recently saw Inside Out. I finally watched it because one of my friends, who has good taste, kept berating me until I did. I should probably listen to his advice more often, ’cause this movie was amazing. I can hear him clambering with more suggestions. Down boy, down! Stephen has to write sometime. I want to talk about two of the way emotions were treated in Inside Out changed my perception...

The formula for achieving your dream

In publishing my first book, I achieved part of my dream. In hitting break-even in only two months, I’m getting closer to the next step—becoming a full-time author who can support himself with his writing. But there’s a difference between these dreams. The first one, finishing my book and independently publishing it, was mostly a struggle with myself. The ongoing struggle of sales is against other forces, and they’re outside my control. But in achieving part of my dream, I’ve learned the formula, or at least...

I can’t believe it. This is really happening!

People are paying for my stories. They’re taking the money they earned doing hard work, probably work more important than mine, and giving it to me because they want to read my stories. Holy crap. This is really happening! I can’t believe it. When you decide to follow your dream, there’s a part of you that thinks you can’t possibly fail. There’s also another, larger part that’s convinced you’re totally doomed. When you actually ship your product or start selling your...

The brick walls

“The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” -Randy Pausch I came across this quote at Zen Pencils today, and it was just in time. I’ve been dealing with some hurdles in the publishing process. I wanted to be coming to...

Save it for your daydreams

I once was talking to a young writer—I say young, though he was probably around my age—who watched anime, just as I do. We were talking about the stories we were working on, and at one point, he began tell me about his grand designs. He wanted it to be an anime, done by this studio and with these seiyuu. He could see a live-action movie as well, and described how some of the special effects would look. He thought it could then make...

Work you love

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” -Confucius This is one of those bits of wisdom that does damage to many people. The conceit is that you must find a fun job–the kind of job you would do even if you weren’t getting paid–to obtain happiness. But what about the truck drivers, the retail clerks, and the janitors? Are they doomed? I prefer this: “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a...

Dream about success, but not too much

Sometimes I dream what it will be like to be an author. I dream of the freedom, the flexibility, and the total lack of a boss. I dream of waking up every morning with the main item on my to-do list being “write”, and with plenty of time to do it. I imagine what it will be like to introduce myself as an author, with no asterisk included. I think that imagining your future success is helpful. It’s a little...

You can’t do it all

Often, we try to do too much. We have jobs and dreams and all the different people in our lives, we have places we want to visit and things we want to do and marvelous experiences we want to have, and we don’t want to give up any of it. So we don’t; we try to do it all. You can’t. If you try to do it all, chances are you will fail at some of it, and quite often,...

You can’t compare your own success to others

I recently spent some time with my older brother, and I found myself reflecting on our varying levels of success. You see, by most people’s measures my older brother is a very successful man: a high paying job, a loving wife, kids who only drive him crazy most of the time, etc etc. I, on the other hand, am single and have a day job for which “high paying” would be an inaccurate descriptor. Even factoring in the years that separate...