A Matter of Ambition

Welcome, honourable few.

I'd like to talk today on the matter of ambition (clearly stated in the title). I'm often asked people, invariably non-writers, as to what do I plan to do with the future of my writing.

A majority of the time they expect me to have the ambition to go on to riches and fame, of seeing my name in lights as the author of some grand novel or series. I was once told by a colleague of mine to "remember them when I became the next J.K Rowling."

We writers are a vainglorious bunch and I am no exception in that regard. I, like most writers, have day dreamed about what it would be like to not only be able to make a living but to be so widely popular and so in demand that wealth and admiration would follow. We all want the adulation, we all want to be recognised and most of all we want the respect of our peers.

Over the course of the last six months, I've had time to assess the circumstances of my life and see really where I want to be in the next year or so.

My life as a working man and loving husband has and always will be my first priority. The time I spend with my darling Sammy is precious to me and is so vital to my sanity that it is truly a necessity of daily life. The daily grind is always eased when I come home to her and the joy of my homelife and indeed my work is so much more fulfilling for having her to some home to.

The last half year has been such an intolerable grind for the both of us that a lot of the joy I found in writing became very sour. For years I had been reaching for that goal to secure an agent, get published and make a decent living/shot at this writing malarky, my ambitions are not so grand as all of that nowadays.

J.K. rowling said when Harry Potter became a hit that she did not intend riches or fame, that she mearly wished to write the story she wanted to tell and then pass along through history in relative anonymity - I personally think that this is not a dishonourable goal to have. With today's avenues of self publishing open to the world of unpublished authors, there are more ways to fulfill ones literary goals.

The Stargazer series was and is the story I want to tell and for a longtime I forgot who I was really writing for. I wasn't just writing for myself but for an audience of one and that was Sammy. Sammy is as much a fan of the same genre of literature/films as I am and it's for her that these books are really being written.

It's not about riches and fame, it's about writing a story that not only you would read but the people who share your love of the genre/story itself would read as well and this story is not just for my wife but for a fellow fan as well.

I never know how to finish these blogs, this is of course a new experience for me so please bear with as iron out the details of how to write a blog. So I'm going to end with a quote from one of my favourite authors.

“The only way to find out if you're immortal is to make it to the end of time and look around to see if you're still alive. Until you've done that, all you know is that you haven't died yet.” ― John Patrick Lowrie, Dancing With Eternity