inspiration – Page 4 – Author Elena Carter

Are You Proud Of Yourself?

“You should be proud of yourself,” my husband said. “You wrote a book.”

It was nice to hear. It meant a lot. He went on to tell me how much I have achieved and how proud he was of me.

I keep thinking about his words. Something was bothering me. And I realized what it was.

I understand that I should be proud of myself. I wrote a book. Me. By myself. In English, which isn’t even my native language. While raising a baby. And a teenager (nope, it’s not easier, I’m sure parents of teenagers will understand.)

I wrote a whole novel.

Why do I not feel proud?

I mean, I do feel good about it. I love my story. I know that after this final round of edits that I’m doing now it will shine even brighter. I can’t wait to share it with the world. I do believe that it’s going to be a great book.

But where’s that overwhelming feeling of joy and pride? Where’s the “Wow, I’m so awesome, I did it” moment?

It’s not there. There’s a whole lot of other things though. There’s “I probably could’ve done it better”; there’s “Okay, so you wrote a book, good, now get to the publishing and marketing side of things, too much to learn and do, no time to lose”; there’s “I need to write more, only where do I find the time, look, other authors are writing and releasing several books a year”. And there’s a bunch of other disturbing thoughts and worries. I’m steaming ahead in an attempt to catch up, to make up for the time I “lost” (I know it’s a misperception, but it happens when you’re dreaming of writing all your life but only start doing it when you’re 41).

And I guess I’m in too much of a rush to pause, look back at what I’ve achieved, and feel the pride. The key word here is feel. Not just understand, acknowledge or think of it as a fact. It’s important to attach some emotion to it.

Like a kid bringing home an award or a trophy from school, beaming with happiness.

That kind of proud.

I tried to remember the last time I felt anything like that. I couldn’t.

I know the feeling, though, because I feel proud of other people.

Earlier today my niece called me with some great news about her work. It’s something that she learned quite recently, and she made incredible progress in a short period of time. And now she has people who want to learn it from her. She was so thrilled to get a request from a student; her voice was filled with so much genuine happiness and pride – I could hear it although we’re thousands of miles apart and I couldn’t see her face. And I felt that pride and happiness for her. You know, that somewhat ticklish feeling of warmth in your chest, like you have your own little sun there caressing your heart with its rays.

I feel proud of my kids for their successes, big or small. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming it makes me want to cry.

I feel proud of my husband for all his accomplishments and achievements.

Why am I not that generous with pride when it comes to myself? Why do I get a “well done” and a virtual pat on the back from myself (okay, maybe a little treat sometimes too), but not the genuine feeling of pride?

Why do I find time to write long to-do lists and set tons of reminders, but don’t find time to write a list of things that I’m proud of?

Because first of all, I need to allow myself to be proud of my own achievements.

I’ll imagine there’s a ‘Settings’ menu somewhere inside my mind, and all I need to do is open that menu, find the “Appreciate yourself and feel proud” option, and hit ‘Allow’. Done.

And then I’ll write down a list of things that I’m proud of. Most probably, it won’t be that easy at the start. But I’ll still try.

And when I succeed (because of course I will succeed), I will look at the list of my achievements and I will take each and every thing on it and infuse it with a feeling. A feeling of pride and happiness. A feeling of joy, fulfillment and gratification.

I want to sit there with my eyes closed and a huge smile on my face, thinking about how amazing and cool I am.

I want you to do the same. (Well, with your own achievements though. But feel free to think that I’m amazing too, I won’t mind.)

Go change your inner settings and make that list. What have you done (recently or years ago, it doesn’t matter) that makes you feel happy and proud?

I’ll start.

I wrote a book.

Your turn.

Finding Strength In Your Weakness

LIfe is tough. Let’s admit it.

Each and every one of us is fighting battles of our own, and going through certain struggles that in most cases are not even visible to people around us. First of all, because we don’t like to share them. I mean, who wants to admit their weaknesses? Besides, we live in the time when it’s so important (and easy) to build a pretty-looking image of ourselves and our lives on social media. Right? We don’t post pictures of our messy houses or a sink full of dishes, we don’t post selfies featuring puffy eyes and messy hair after a sleepless night.

We don’t go around telling strangers (not even friends and family in most cases) that we are going through depression, anxiety, that we are facing our deepest fears in our nightmares or maybe they’re haunting us in those few quiet moments that we get to ourselves.

We want to be strong.

We need to be strong.

We need to achieve goals, to meet deadlines, to tick boxes on our to-do lists, we need to be kind, positive, supportive, optimistic, full of inner light and neverending wisdom that we use to help others.

We need to focus on the positive.

We need to count our blessings.

We need to beware of sharing our weaknesses so that people don’t use them against us.

We need to be perfect humans.

Except we’re not. None of us. Even the most productive, successful, rich, enlightened, beautiful, handsome, smart, talented human beings are not perfect. For one reason only: they are merely humans.

Flawed and weak. Annoyed and annoying. Silly and inexperienced. In the middle of learning or not even willing to learn. Insecure or arrogant. Cheerful or frustrated.

We all have one thing in common – we’re all making small steps along this path called life, sometimes blindfolded, sometimes with our hands tied behind our backs, sometimes stumbling while walking barefeet and sometimes driving a brand new Ferrari or maybe even equipped with a night vision device.

We still rarely know where we’re headed, and how exactly we can get there.

And it’s okay.

It’s okay to fall, if you get up afterwards. And you know what, it doesn’t even have to be straight away, really. If you just wanna curl into a ball and lie there for a while, it’s also okay.

It’s okay to cry, if you smile later. Not one of those fake “I’m-pretending-to-be-okay-when-I’m-dying-inside” smiles. A genuine smile that comes after your tears have cleansed your soul, and the world around you becomes colorful again (because it does, it always does) and you see a dog chasing its tail or hear a child laughing.

Stop pretending to be a superhuman and just be yourself. Your beautifully imperfect, flawed,vulnerable, fragile … wait, here it comes, that terrible insulting word … WEAK self.

Just don’t forget that you are surrounded by the same kind. All of them masking their struggles, swallowing their tears, faking their smiles. Ordinary human beings.

And as soon as you accept and embrace your weaknesses, you’ll find your strength. It won’t stay forever. You will most definitely lose it again at some point. But if it stays with you even for a while, for a small part of the way, if it gets you off your knees and puts you behind the wheel of a Ferrari – it’s worth it.

The Magic of Storytelling

I miss my story and my characters.

“Follow the Hummingbird” is entering the final editing stage. I’m still receiving feedback from beta-readers, and it’s such a bitter-sweet feeling — I know I will go back to that world and tweak some things, but I miss the writing process. I miss creating those worlds. I miss characters reaching out to me and telling me what the next chapter would be about and where it would take place.

It’s all been written now, they’re all there, they exist, they’ve gone on their journeys, they’ve had their adventures, they’ve laughed, they’ve cried, they’ve struggled. Well, actually, I believe that they continue doing all that somewhere, in some realm where all our story ideas and fictional characters come alive.

It’s just that I miss creating them…

That’s why I enjoy feedback from my betas so much — when they talk about my characters or discuss certain scenes from the book, I dive back into that world happily.

That’s also why I started working on a new project, although ”Follow the Hummingbird” is not fully completed and has yet to be published.

Because I miss the writing process. And because the new characters are reaching out to me and asking me to tell their stories.

Considering that I am still working on my novel and it’s on my mind all the time, it kind of feels like cheating. I have to admit, I even get my characters’ names confused — in the story I wrote recently, I called my character Tina a couple times, using the name of the main character in my novel.

But it feels so good to write, and I figured that I’ll sort these issues out when I edit, and for now I’ll just focus on the writing.

The new project I’m working on is a collection of short stories called “The Town.” All the stories in it are happening in the same town, but they involve different characters and are not interrelated. The only thing they have in common is that they take place in the same town and the events that are happening in these stories are anything but ordinary.

In fact, I am going to include a couple of them in the mini-book that I’m putting together now. It’s a small collection of short stories called “Planting Seashells,” and I will be giving it away for free to my subscribers. I’ll add two stories from “The Town” as a sneak peek of my new project.

When I complete the mini-book, I’ll add a sign-up form here, so that you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter and receive the free mini-book. I’ll post about it additionally, so if you don’t want to miss it, you might want to consider subscribing to my blog updates. Or follow my posts/stories on Instagram.

I’m very excited about this new project. I know I’ll have so much fun writing all those different stories about all those different characters. I also know I will have to put it aside for a while when I’m doing the final round of edits of “Follow the Hummingbird,” which will be happening in about 2-3 weeks from now. But as soon as my little ’hummingbird’ flies out of the nest into the big world, I’m heading straight back to “The Town.”

When I’m there, I’ll find a cozy cafe with the best coffee in The Town, take a seat, look around, talk to its residents, and start writing down the stories they tell me.

I can’t wait.

This is the best part of being a writer. It’s pretty much like traveling through time and space, if you think about it. You get to go places that nobody knew existed, you get to meet all kinds of people and learn their deepest secrets. You get to be a demiurge and create worlds. All that without the need to actually leave your house… (one of the few possible ways to travel nowadays, right?)

And then you get to see what other people think of the worlds you created. What they think of your characters. Some will understand them and see them the way you do, some will see them in a very different way. Somebody will dream of your worlds. Somebody will miss your characters after they finish reading the book – just like you’ll miss them when you finish writing it.

It’s such a strange, unnerving, exciting and beautiful experience — to be sharing your stories with the world.