The One Agency: My thoughts on The Brit Writers Award Ceremony 2012 by Maia Walczak

Maia RKL Photography

Stop. Breathe. You’re Already A Success...

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending The Brit Writers' Awards' Ceremony 2012. During the beginning of the event I had my own little stall showcasing The Silent Books, which received such a lovely response, even better than I imagined! Thank you to Brit Writers for providing me with the wonderful opportunity to showcase my work, I’m so grateful!

Later on the dinner and ceremony began. It was such an inspirational and heart-warming evening where people from anywhere and everywhere, from so many different walks of life and of all ages joined together to celebrate the joy of writing and creativity. I feel like it’s rare to be surrounded by so much encouragement and positivity in this field, and I am forever so appreciative of the fact that this is exactly the aim of Brit Writers. I know that from the moment I started blogging for them and started reading the blog posts of all you Brit Writer bloggers, I have definitely been inspired to write more. There’s no doubt about that. It is incredible what the encouraging words of others can do for you, and when you have so many people encouraging you at the same time it is mind-blowingly inspirational!

For me, I think the most wonderful thing I took away from the event was the constant reminder we kept receiving that we are all already successes. We’ve all already come so far, whether we’re published or unpublished, signed or unsigned. It doesn’t take a lot for someone to dream up the idea of ‘one day writing a book’, for example, but it does take a lot to actually sit down and start writing it, and even more to not give up and to persevere. And finishing it is one of the biggest most incredible achievements of all.

I’ve recently been coming to the end of writing the first draft of my very first novel. It has been an incredibly long process filled with self hate, utter lack of belief in myself, insecurities, low self esteem, sore eyes from staring at a computer screen, a sore backside from sitting for endless hours at my desk, and A LOT of guilt about how much crap I eat when I write. Of course, at the same time, there’s been a lot of inspiration, motivation and excitement, so not all doom and gloom. But it was a struggle to get this far, and I still haven’t exactly finished it, and what’s worse is that when I do finally decide I’ve finished it (I don’t think that ever actually happens by the way, you just have to make the decision to force yourself to stop) I’ll have the daunting task of wondering what next. What on earth to do with it. How on earth to go about ‘getting it out there’. Because, in the end, I really do want to get it out there.

But. Stop. Stop for a second. As daunting and never ending as all this is. Stop. Breathe. Appreciate. I’ve written tens of thousands of words of a story that’s come out of my imagination. I don’t care if it’s awful, mediocre or amazing, because I think the perseverance in itself already counts as a massive achievement. Though I never admit it to myself.