It happened again.
“You did it!” she said.
Why did people keep telling me that?
“Because you did,” she insisted, undeterred. “You did sell books. I see you selling books. You did it.”
She wasn’t posturing as someone able to see the future, at least not in a literal sense. Neither were those before her. Rather, to the best I could tell, they were speaking to something ostensibly evident from the outside, but that I myself couldn’t see, stuck inside my own head.
From my perspective, the road before me lay strewn with obstacles and uncertainty. Fundamental, far-reaching changes to the novel. Figuring out how to make my voice heard among the countless droves of others on social media, a world I had long avoided and knew almost nothing about. Somehow finding readers not only interested in my work, but willing to pay for it. Eventually.
Yet people kept congratulating me. Even strangers. Even though I hadn’t sold a single book.
“You’ve done it!”
“We’re so excited for you!”
“You’re living the dream!”
I appreciated the encouragement and support. Often it came at just the right time, and it helped keep me going. Like when the email from my editor filled me with crippling self-doubt. When the photo for a Facebook post promoting one of my short stories was favorited 70 times, but the story itself only got three clicks. When a glance at my bank balance unleashed a wave of anxiety, and I couldn't help but think of my suit and tie hanging in the closet.
Again and again it felt as though my reality were out of synch with the people around me. Hardly the first time that had happened, but this time was different. This time it seemed everyone was privy to a future in which my endeavor to live my life as a writer had met with success.
Everyone, that is, except me.
It was baffling. All the more so because it kept happening. How could people — friends, family, and even total strangers — speak with such confidence about my having “done it”? As though the royalty checks were already streaming in? What did they see that I didn’t?
Perhaps it was simply the natural response to watching someone pursue their dreams. Whether or not I was ultimately successful in a conventional sense didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was facing my fears and taking the risks. I was going for it. Maybe that was what people really meant when they said I had done it. I had taken the leap. On the other hand, maybe they were acknowledging the tangible steps I had also taken. Launching my website, getting an editor, and publishing my first stories had not been minor undertakings.
I still don’t have the answer. And I still won’t feel that I’ve done it until l’ve actually published my novel. Even better if I sell one or two.
In the meantime, I’m grateful to the people who have given me their votes of confidence.
And hoping they're able to see the future, after all.