You know what I mean by shipping? If you’re a fan of Seth Godin, you know shipping means putting yourself out there. Producing something and setting it on an accessible shelf for the world to explore.
See that #Day1 hashtag up in the title of this post? That’s Seth’s influence again. One of his people is hosting the “Your Turn Challenge.” It’s designed to get creators out of a rut by employing some camaraderie and social accountability.
And that’s what I need right now.
There have been some periods in my life when I got pretty good at shipping. The biggest productivity jolt was thanks to becoming a parent and not being able to face the cognitive dissonance of trying raising a girl to live her passion while not living my own. So I started doing that thing I’d always wanted to do: writing. That was 2009, when my daughter was two.
I just went through the archives of this blog and realized how much those early years of writing meant to me. I improved. I stumbled. I improved some more. I gained confidence. I started freelancing and making money from my words.
I got confident enough to tell myself that I wanted to write a book before I was forty. Just a few weeks after setting that goal, I busted out a crummy first draft of a chapter book for kids. That was in August of 2013.
Today, after many revisions and lots of feedback from my endless pool of talented friends (who are actually earth-bound angels, I’m convinced) I have a polished draft and an active agent search, that I hope will soon wrap up so I can begin the knee-knocking process of watching an agent try to sell my book. (Before I’m forty, fingers crossed!)
Oh, and I’m pregnant again. So shipping has been much, much slower as I deal with all the little u-turns and inconveniences that gestating can bring.
The wonderful news is there’s going to be yet another girl child. And I will show her that you can do what you love. You just need commitment and discipline and a bunch of people on Facebook and Twitter to call you out on your excuses.
I will keep shipping. For me and my girls.