When I was pursuing acting full time, I put myself out in the world every week auditioning for a room of strangers and bearing my soul as best I could to snag their attention and a job. I took risks, made choices, and walked into the room hoping for the best, being as prepared as I could be. I went in asking them for a chance knowing I probably wouldn’t hear a yes or a no; I’d leave not knowing and pray it didn’t gnaw at my chest for days afterwards.

I haven’t put myself out there in a long time. I’ve experienced a decent amount of rejection and trauma in recent years and while I thought that was the reason I haven’t taken a leap in a while. I recently have determined it isn’t the only catalyst. I think there are a few reasons why.

I Worry I Am Doing It Wrong

I wrote previously about worrying that combining my actor and writer website was wrong. I think that about a lot of writer things. I am inexperienced in the world of building a career as a writer. I submit to things here and there but never aggressively and I’ve gotten discouraged from rejection which is silly because if I only submit to three places and get rejected three times, I’m not giving myself very good odds. I could be far more aggressive with submissions and widen my outreach.

In terms of my novel, I worry I am doing it all wrong. Am I taking too long? When do I query an agent? How do I query? What the fuck is a query? Someone teach me how to fucking pitch a project without talking for 25 minutes. Because of all these thoughts banging in my head, I hesitate taking action. I know the answers to a few of these questions but I still pause, frozen, overthinking. What if this isn’t the right way to do this? What if they laugh at me? What if they put me in a pile of idiots who think they should be writers like they do pictures of shoplifters at Walmart?

Yes, my brain is that weird and anxious.

The Effort Will Never Pay Off

This is a big one. I’ve had this experience with acting where I spent a shit ton of money and time and effort and I still didn’t get as far as I wanted at times. That’s the nature of the creative business and lifestyle. You give your entire heart and soul and all your time and it results in you being in the same place you were when you started, probably a bit more poor.

I’m Too Lazy and Lack Drive

I am lazy a lot of the time. I wanted to have this draft done and I don’t have it done. I read stories and interviews with writers about how they HAD to write their books so they got up and wrote from 6AM to 8AM or every Friday night or on their lunch breaks (which I am doing now) and got their shit done. I am horrendous at getting up without snoozing my alarm 45 times and I do feel I need to write this book but I also feel I need to enjoy a lazy Sunday sometimes. Am I not determined enough? Am I lacking the drive it will take to get there? All these writers were successful after dedicating their lives to their projects. Am I just not built the way they are? I know I have ideas whizzing through my head all day for my novel and at night before I go to sleep. I know I did eat, sleep, and breathe acting once and I got ahead and worked consistently. But do I have that in me now, years later, with this other passion?

Putting It Off Is Not Putting It Out There

I’ve been saying a lot of “When this is done, I will BLANK” or “I need to wait until I research this more” or “I can’t do anything until this is finished”. In my head, I consider these thoughts productive and that I have goals I plan to achieve. However, this is not the same as doing them. Sure, there are factors that come with writing or acting that take time. Memorizing lines or finishing a novel to actually submit for consideration to an agent or publisher are crucial things to accomplish before doing the above actions. I need do that to do this and I haven’t done that yet so I’m not, in fact, accomplishing any goals excepting knowing the tasks I need to complete. There are many of them I could do without having finished them entirely. There are a lot of options of putting myself out there instead of continuing to put it off. It isn’t the same thing. It isn’t helpful and will never work.

We watched the new Dark Crystal series on Netflix this past week. As the series progressed, I gasped several times when I saw portions of my own novel were presented in the story. Fantasy has common themes, of course, but I watching concepts I had developed used in different ways and it was both reassuring and concerning. I said to my husband that I didn’t think I could continue to write my novel with some of these similarities. This was highly dramatic as the ideas shifted and changed from what my novel is and I had started it over a year ago so I am not actually copying anything aside from classic fantasy tropes that are in every story. But then my husband suggested something I would have never considered nor do I think I would ever actually do.

“You should submit to the Henson Company.”

“What?”

“To write. Since your ideas are similar and good, they might be interested. You could tell them about your novel and send some of it.”

“It’s not done. I’m not a screenwriter. I don’t even know where I’d send it".” (I am really good at excuses, huh?)

Working for the Henson Company would quite literally be a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to work for them in any capacity. I’d even mop the floors to be inside that workshop. Do I think I stand a chance? Not in a million years. But then we watched the documentary about the creation of the show and the writers who developed this series had submitted an idea for a Labyrinth sequel. That didn’t pan out but were offered Dark Crystal instead. Many of the newer puppeteers told the same story about how they grew up with the Muppets and wanted to learn how to be a Muppeteer and they did and now they are.

Putting it off isn’t putting yourself out there. I don’t know what I will say to the Henson Company or what I will send. I have no experience in this world and never would expect to even be remotely considered to work in television. Yet here is a show that is a prequel of a movie that sparked my creativity and love for fantasy from a company that I adore created by a man I call one of my heroes. I am writing a novel with similar ideas and themes and my brain works the way these writers’ brains do. Why the hell do I have to lose?

Putting yourself out there means considering the impossible. This is absolutely impossible and I expect nothing from it. I feel dumb even sharing this to be quite honest. I am merely using it as an example of something I normally avoid or make enough excuses for that it disappears as an option entirely. So this time I’m gonna do it anyway.

I have other ideas like this on my list. I know too many stories of people who did exactly the above and now work for their dream companies. You never know until you actually put yourself out there. You truly never know.