Going Public

Out there in the wilderness, I made a couple of decisions. Commitments, really. One commitment is to post in this blog every day for one year. The other is to write a book by September 15. Both goals scare me to death, which is perfect.

One of my accidental tag lines is: "If the goal doesn't scare you shitless, it's not big enough." It's a phrase I coined at some point in the Ironman days. And I think it stands.

See, the ideal life-changing goal is one that is so big you have to change your own life just to have a HOPE of achieving it. Who knows what other life-changing effects the reaching of this goal might have. But in order to even have a shot at it, you have to change your behaviour, beliefs, eating and sleeping habits, etc. I'm not talking about losing 10 pounds by swimsuit season here. I'm talking about goals that you aren't even sure you are capable of, but that you know, if you rise to the challenge you will become the kind of person for whom anything is possible.

Goals in this category are the Everest-type goals. Career changes. First marathons. Second marriages. Babies. Getting published. Getting a gallery. Making a million. Goals that seem almost too big, but you want them so bad, you'll stop at nothing.

My two commitments are part of a goal like this. And I wasn't sure if I was ready to go public with this, but here goes: I want my full-time job to be my own creative work. And really, when you get right down to it, I want to be a bestselling author. Period. Point blank. There it is.

Eeek! I'm not sure if I should be telling you that. I know this guy who is like a modern pirate in the more romantic, swashbucklingest sense of that word. He swears the way to get what you want is to write down your goal, look at it every day and don't tell a soul.

I'm not much of a 'Don't Tell a Soul' type. I'm coming to terms with that. Hopefully this one doesn't bite me in the ass. But really, can I write a blog about living your dreams, when I don't tell you what my dream is? Most boring and vague blog ever. And hey, maybe it will help! Maybe one of you knows someone who knows a fabulous publisher who falls in love with my writing and away we'll go!

But that's kind of putting the cart before the horse. Again. Still. Right now, these are my tasks: blog every day and write the book by Sept. 15.

The blogging every day bit is about developing the ritual of writing - what kind of changes do I need to make in my own life in order to write every single day? It's also about amassing a serious body of work in the 'Living Your Dreams' category. And secretly, building a deliciously passionate community of readers and dream-hungry maniacs like myself, because that kind of energy will help me achieve my goal. And hopefully it will help some of you achieve your goals. And then we'll all appear on Oprah and live happily ever after.

The book by September 15th is about getting this writing career of mine really going. September 15th is not an arbitrary deadline. It is the first day of my memoir course at the Banff Centre. The book I am writing is a memoir of living a dream (aka Paris). Having a first draft completed by the time I walk through those doors means I will be improving an already hopefully brilliant manuscript and readying it for publication. It will also mean that the facilitators (aka Professional Contacts) will get a good sense of my brilliance and diligence to my craft and will then say something along the lines of, "Melanie, you are a genius. You must meet my agent/publisher/editor/mother."

So those are my big announcements. I'm making the commitment to my Big Dream. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. Taking the blue pill (or red one, I can never remember which). I am effing GOING FOR IT. Is basically what I'm saying. Who's with me?