Lately, in the van, Sam's been watching Chicken Run. Remember that movie? We're on a continuous loop with it (as is the way it goes with movies in the car...last month it was Mr. Popper. This month, Chicken Run.)
Not only does it make me think, "Wow, that Mel Gibson does a flawless American accent," but it also seems to be echoing the same line over and over. Mel's character is trying to teach the chickens how to fly, and he says, "it's going to take three things. Hard work. Perseverance. And hard work."
An old-man chicken squawks, "You said 'hard work' twice."
Mel: "That's because it's going to take twice as much work as perseverance."
Every time I hear it, I think, "huh. That's so true." So much of what we want to do comes down to the same thing: hard work.
Before you roll your eyes and click out of my blog, let me tell you a story. Years ago...many, many years now, I decided I'd try my hand at writing. I'd been working for a newspaper and had started writing scripts but wow, the idea of writing a novel just exhausted me.
It wasn't the writing I didn't want to do...it was the re-writing. The editing. The going back and re-reading my words and making them better. The handing it over to someone else so they could tell me what was wrong with it.
I decided instead I'd write a children's book. Because those are short and easy. Because I could wrap my brain around it.
I wrote the first draft of "Silly Lilly" and decided I had a future as a children's book author. I had an acquaintence who was an actual, real-live children's book author...and I asked her to critique it for me.
And she did.
Turns out, Silly Lilly wasn't very good. My main character had a few quirks, but I'm not silly by nature and didn't have kids yet, so she was kind of just like every other little kid...you can't name a kid "Silly Lilly" and then have her be just like every other little kid. It also turned out that while I was enamored with my first line, it also wasn't very good.
Oh, she had many positive things to say, but all I heard was "this pretty much sucks."
Kind of like amazon reviews. You can have lots of positive reviews but it's the one bad one that you agonize over. {I stopped reading my reviews a long time ago.}
Anyway. Here's what I know. I didn't want to do the work to revise that book. I thought about it a lot over the years...but I just didn't get around to it. I couldn't swallow the fact that it wasn't perfect the first time, and I let my pride get in the way.
Well, guess what? Last week, I was in Barnes and Noble and look what I found in the children's section:
I know there are several books with the same title...but when I saw this, staring me in the face, I thought, "It really is true. If you don't do it, someone else will..."
And that's what I know for sure. If you're afraid of the work, or if you simply put your dream on the shelf for too long, someone else will move forward with it. While I firmly believe that there's room for everyone in this creative world because the world needs our individual voices, I also believe that we talk ourselves out of really good ideas because we're afraid.
Of failure.
Of looking stupid.
Of being wrong.
Of doing the work.
There is no substitute for hard work. There just isn't.
Do the work. Dare to be great. Dare to fail gloriously. And honor that big dream in your heart.
