Yesterday morning, I received an email with my edited manuscript. I was all prepared to dive into the edits and see how I could improve my writing before sending it back to the publisher for one more round of final edits.
Then, I read the email. The small press I had to decided to go with is shutting down as of January 1, 2025 and will not be publishing Catching Dreams.
Sometimes, I think I’m only worth the amount of XYZ I produce. I’m only worth my word count or the amount in my checking account. Sometimes, I think if I’m not producing art or making words appear on the page, I’m worthless.
But as I was sketching in my sketchbook recently, I rediscovered a phrase that resonated with me: “The creative requires as much care as the creation.”
All of a sudden, it feels clear. I’m supposed to take breaks. I’m allowed to have time away from writing and creating and doing. I can’t be a machine. I’m only human and that’s what makes me so beautiful.
It’s not about constant production. It’s about living life and having experiences and enjoying my life. So I need to forget about constant output and just enjoy the world around me. No longer am I going to entertain the guilt that has been a passenger to everything I do, instead, I’m going to focus on enjoying the journey.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my art and my writing. I have found sketch pads and notebooks where I have ripped out nearly every single page because I was expecting perfection out of myself. What a lofty goal – perfection ten out of ten times? It was ludicrous. I realized I stopped enjoying the process when I was so focused on the outcome.
It took me some time, and a lot of journaling, to revitalize my love for writing and art as a process. I spent today working on a painting where I told myself, no matter what, I was going to keep it and not throw it away. I accidentally spilled a blotch of purple paint on the corner and my first thought was that I needed to fix it, but instead, I just lived with it. And you know what? All Hell didn’t break loose. I survived, and the painting survived too.
I used to have a friend who said, “It’s not in spite of our flaws that we’re wonderful, it’s because of them.” And that’s the attitude I’m bringing into the new year. I’m enjoying my imperfections, whether it’s in my poetry, fiction, or art. I stopped creating for so long because I was expecting too much out of myself.
Now, I’m back to simply enjoying the process – no matter what the outcome may be.
My poem about my grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s is being published in an anthology, Forgotten Fragments of Time, to raise money and awareness about the disease, and I just found out a small press has accepted Catching Dreams, my debut novel!
They want to publish my book. My baby. The one that has been formulating in my mind since I was twelve and having vivid dreams about my grandpa after he died. The book that all began because I kept asking myself, “What if?”
They want to publish it. I never thought I’d be a traditionally published author, but here I am with a contract coming my way.
Isabelle Palerma 