My next book, A Laughing Matter of Pain, will be published in the fall of 2018! The cover reveal is coming, also celebrating three years of writing original works for me!
Category: inspiration
What’s Holding You Back from Your Dreams?
Everyone has dreams, and I don’t mean the kind you have at night when your mind slips into an unconscious state.
When you’re asked what your dreams are, what do you say? Do you freeze up, unable to articulate your dreams because you claim you aren’t sure? I’m not a betting person, but I’m willing to bet the uncertainty that plagues you is fear.
Maybe you won’t even name your dreams or dare to dream because of fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, low self-esteem, a negative self-image, and caring too much that others think or say (which is mostly in your mind, anyway) are all factors of not daring to dream in the first place.
I have been following a vlogger on YouTube for years now who I think is beautiful (inside and out), talented, adorable in her antics, inspiring, and a fighter. She admits often that the persona she portrays to the world in her videos is much more confident than she really is.
I used to be shy, but now I am able to talk and usually joke around with just about anyone. I can laugh about life when I’m in a group, even the things that bother me. Put me alone with my thoughts, and I am not that outgoing, confident person.
I get what this vlogger is saying. We can put on a smile on the stage. As I wrote in one of my novels, a smile can cover a lot of pain. Laugh enough and it doesn’t hurt so much, right? Yeah, something like that.
I look at this lovely young woman who I know only through the Internet and marvel. She has enormous support, but with any sort of fame come those who are all too happy to belittle, threaten, and hurt. Funny how 99 people can compliment you, but it only takes that one person to tear you down. What do we focus on? The negative.
Like this vlogger I follow and think the world of, many people suffer inwardly. She admits to turning down several opportunities because she doesn’t feel worthy. She has wonderful dreams, but her low self-confidence gets in the way. That is what holds her back from her dreams. She knows that.
For years, I said I wanted to be a published author. That was my dream, at least one of them. Yet for years, I did very little to make my dreams a reality. I had ideas for my first novel (based off my late grandma’s life, who I loved dearly). You can read more about the inspiration behind my first book here.
I managed a few pithy chapters. I read my grandma’s diary and a few pages she had written about her life while growing up. I jotted down several notes. This was between October 2006 and January 2009. I then left the book sitting on my hard drive. I hadn’t forgotten about it, but whenever I thought about sitting down at the keyboard and writing, I faltered. Overwhelmed at the prospect of writing an original story, I let fear dictate my actions and reasons.
Fear wasn’t the only culprit. It was easy to find excuses, a hundred other things that needed my daily attention. Many of those things were legitimate, like caring for my young kids and the house, but I believe if you really want something, you will do whatever you need (within reason) to attain it.
If I wanted to work out more, I would get to the gym more often. If I wanted to eat healthier, I wouldn’t buy chocolate or go through the McDonald’s drive thru. If I wanted to save more money, I would stop buying unnecessary items.
Sure, I want these things, but how much do I want them? Not enough, apparently.
I came to the hard realization that even though part of me wanted better or more, I must not have wanted those things badly enough.
I have written about having no regrets in a previous blog post. This one ties into that. Both topics involve fear of failure.
I believe the only way to fail is to do nothing.
In March 2015, I finally make a life-altering decision: I would write every day on my original story, even if I never published it, even if no one ever read it. Tired of traipsing through the lands of other authors and their characters in the world of fan fiction for 20 years, I knew that if I was to take myself as a writer seriously, I NEEDED to write every day, even if only for ten minutes.
Ten minutes. That’s all I told myself. It was a realistic goal.
To reach your dreams, you must set realistic, attainable, often short-term goals. Setting the goal of writing a whole book could have been too much. It was for me for years. As I said, overwhelming. I had already committed to exercising at least three days a week and had been doing it for three years at that point. If I could do that, I could write for ten minutes a day. Besides, I loved writing. I believe and have always believed that writing is in my blood, my fourth child (I have three actual ones), and was one of my purposes in life.
Your life purpose is what drives your desire to have dreams, but getting there is the intimidating and often difficult part. Goals at the stepping stones, every inch of pavement poured to create the road you travel from purpose to dreams. Day by day, little goal by little goal, you get there.
I finished my first draft of my first novel ten months after seriously sitting down to write it. I published it seven months after that. Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I now have published a second novel, completed two more, and am nearing completion on my fifth.
Besides all this? I have joined a writers group at my local library, which you can read more about here. I have made invaluable friendships with several of these wonderful people who are like-minded. They are writers. They understand my raison-d’etre. I get them.
I have days when I question my ability to write, but they are fleeting. Our days are numbered in a fleeting life, so why do anything other than go for your dreams? If I hadn’t overcome my fears, I would have never gotten where I am today. I wouldn’t have shared my stories. I wouldn’t be spending time doing what I love daily. I wouldn’t have met so many lovely friends.
Speaking of friends, a long-time and dear friend of mine has written extensively on the topics of life purpose, goals, and dreams on her blog. I highly recommend you check her blog out if you would like to seriously pursue these topics further.
It’s funny that I had this blog idea for months and how its placement at the beginning of February coincided with my friend’s recent blog posts about the same topics. Fortuitous? Meant to be? I would like to think so.
Keeping dreaming, my friends, but if you’re serious about making your dreams a reality, you have to do the work. Pave your road with goals, not good intentions. Build your life with action, not ideas.
As any good writer knows, a story is driven by action. Ideas are good and all, but a good idea doesn’t necessarily make for a good story. You have one life. Make it a good story, even a great one.
Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog every Friday, including book reviews.
My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.
My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $3.99 here.
No Regrets in Life
You’ve heard it said before: have no regrets.
You’ve probably also found yourself alone with your maddening thoughts, maddening both as in crazy and provoking anger. Your lovely mind has this magical ability to conjure out of nowhere every past fault, failure, and fracture. But such thoughts do have a hiding place. They lurk in the deepest recesses of your mind. You know, those places you put memories you wish you could forget.
But you don’t. Or can’t. Or maybe the masochistic face of you doesn’t want to.
Misery loves company, after all.
I can remember getting ready for work when I was in my 20s. Ah, such was the decade where I was caught between responsible adult and kid. My husband was already at work. I had the house to myself and a tendency to not want to get up in mornings. I hated mornings. While mornings and I still aren’t buds, we can tolerate each other now, but I digress.
I was often tired and cranky while getting ready for work because I stayed up too late. I guess you could say I regretted staying up late come morning–ha! But seriously, because of my already compromised state of mind, I would find myself ruminating on certain people in my life, both past and present, who I felt had let me down. I’d grow increasingly mad, to the point sometimes that I wondered why I had wasted precious hours, days, and years of my life with some of these fine folks. I’d have regrets for even knowing them, for letting them get to me, and for letting they still live rent-free in my mind.
Although it wasn’t really rent-free. I wasted countless energy and time over past hurts, over regrets, over things that couldn’t be changed.
I could go further–regrets over things I didn’t do, should have said, or a path I took. Could have. Should have. Would have.
Now, I’m not going to lie and say that I never go to those ugly places, those closets filled with boxes labeled “regret.”
If anything now, I regret having regrets–ha!
I’m not entirely sure how, or when, or even why, but somewhere along the road of my 30s, I came to understand a deeper truth: I can’t change the past or my circumstances, but I can change how I look at them.
I have no control over other people or what goes on in the world. The forces of nature are beyond me. The thoughts and actions of other individuals are the result of their free will.
At the end of the day or my life, the only thing I should have to regret, if anything, is my outlook on life. I have a choice every day to make: be bitter or be content. Contentment, I believe, goes beyond momentary happiness. Feelings are as fleeting as leaves blowing by on a windy day. To have inner peace, a resolve to keep going, to say I’m going to stand and not fall, that is true contentment.
Instead of looking at a failed relationship as a waste of your time and being angry at the other person and yourself, look at it as an opportunity to learn something. I believe everyone who comes in and out of your life can teach you something, even if it’s what not to do.
These are the words I etch on my heart and stamp on my brain. I hope they go deeper and imprint on my soul, that eternal part that is who I really am. I hope, at the end of the day and my life, that I have no regrets because of choosing to rise above.
There is no new wisdom in these words, but just a simple reminder I think we all need from time to time. Friend, if you’re filled with regrets, make a choice right now to let those ugly boxes of junk go. Fill your mental storage with memories boxes of love.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. Nothing worthwhile is easy, I believe.
Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog every Friday, including book reviews.
My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.
My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $3.99 here.
Do you love Christmas enough to celebrate it year round?
A good and dear friend of mine has a blog entitled Yuletide Blessings, which aims to do so. Discussions and blog posts are about traditions, recipes, crafts, books, and more. Please visit the link below to read her review of a Christmas-themed novel and view the website further. My thoughts on Christmas books are also below:
I tend to read Richard Paul Evans’s annual Christmas novels. He has been pretty regular about putting one out every year for several years now. While I have read other novels centered about this time of year, his dominate my reading repertoire. I would have to say that most of his books and other Christmas novels I’ve read rely more on the timeline of Christmas. The decorations are up, the baking is happening, the shopping is going on, the parties are in full-swing, but that is the extent of the holiday backdrop. As for Christmas as a setting, the only real story I’ve read (and many times, mind you) that follows this is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Maybe it’s because that story has survived the test of time and has become a staple in holiday history and meaning, but that whole story revolves around the deeper meaning of Christmas and keeping it in our hearts year round, so much so that it changes a man’s life. Few stories have that effect, I feel.
Why Perseverance Matters
It’s a new year. While the topic of this blog may have the feel of a resolution, I believe we can choose to start a new habit anytime.
But really, what better time to speak about perseverance? The gym is packed with people who will fade away before the month is over. I will still be trekking away on the elliptical at least three days a week like I have for six years. People will try the latest diet fad. I will just continue to eat modestly and mostly healthy and not calorie-count or deny myself a glass of wine or a bit of chocolate. I will keep plugging away at my writing, doing it every day for at least thirty minutes like I have for three years.
Sound magical?
It’s not. I promise you, I am not some sort of disciplined guru. I suck at time management. I try to squeeze too much into a short period of time and grow upset when I fail to accomplish everything I set out to do in a day. I am always ten minutes late, despite my good intentions otherwise. I slack in making myself look decent most days, choosing the easy I-am-a stay-at-home-mom look of yoga pants, a T-shirt, no makeup, and hair in a ponytail.
So I ride the struggle bus, too, folks. I get overwhelmed by committing to too much and then go into hibernation mode. Hint: This just happened this month.
But I am back to blogging weekly. Yep, I took a break from it during the insane month of Christmas, um, December. Part of perseverance, I believe, is balance–knowing when too much is too much, when enough is enough.
To many of us, we will picture persevering as plowing on through the storm, despite all odds, that somehow giving up or giving in is cheating, taking the easy way out, or being a wimp. Now, let me ask you something: Do you honestly think it’s taking the easy way out to admit you are overwhelmed and need help, need to take a breather, to relax and then get back on the bandwagon? I don’t think it’s being cowardly to be sensible. Keeping the balance and perspective keeps a person on the path of perseverance.
Anyone who has been in a committed relationship long enough knows that perseverance takes a lot of time, effort, willingness, and energy. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. People who are married for fifty years didn’t have sunshine and rainbows every day, but they learned to appreciate the sunshine after the rain.
So, I ask you: What’s holding you back from embracing perseverance for the companion it is? Fear? Failure? You can only fail by not trying in the first place. You can find a thousand ridiculous things to fear every day and forget to live. Life is not meant to be a race or an emergency. It’s meant to be enjoyed.
We reap that joy fully by persevering through life. If you want to try something new, if you want to lose weight, if you want to write a book, if you want to travel more, then DO IT! Laziness is no excuse for stopping you. Failures or setbacks will happen, but you need to see them as stepping stones paving your way, not stumbling blocks.
I didn’t establish my gym routine or writing routine by sitting on my sorry ass. (Sorry–no, not really.) I worked at it every day, little by little.
I leave you with a quote by the less-than-formidable president Calvin Coolidge:
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Happy New Year, folks. Make it a goodie. Persevere.
Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog every Friday, including book reviews.
My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.
My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $3.99 here.
The Year in Review…and Looking Forward
In 2017, I…
- finished two manuscripts (third and fourth)
- began working on my fifth manuscript
- edited my second manuscript with the help of my writers group
- published my second book
- attended a writers conference
- got feedback from an agent on 10 pages of my writing
- wrote my first short story in a new genre for me: horror
- educated myself on branding and marketing
- began blogging weekly
- created a weekly plan for my website of posting a poem, a blog, and an excerpt from one of my stories
- created accounts across social media for author branding
- followed other bloggers
- created my author site (www.cynthiahilston.com)
- used buffer.com for active posting on my social media sites
- became friends with several people from my writers group
- contributed guest posts to Writer’s Path
- entered a few online writing contests
- began reviewing indie author’s books on my blog
- read 52 books
In 2018, I plan to…
- finish my fifth manuscript in January
- focus on marketing and branding for a while
- promote my published books
- edit my third manuscript
- publish my third book
- begin editing my fourth manuscript
- begin writing my sixth (and possibly seventh) book
- work on more short stories
- enter more online contests
- continue to actively engage on social media
- continue to make guest posts
- continue to find new bloggers to follow
- continue book-blogging
- enrich my friendship with fellow writers and authors
- keep reading
Happy New Year! Here’s to a productive 2018! Thanks for your support in 2017.
Pay It Forward…A Reminder
‘Tis the season…
To be jolly?
To go into debt?
To give.
Because God first gave to us His son, Jesus.
In the midst of the craziness of shopping, stressing, overspending, and stressing some more, it’s easy to lose sight of what matters. Whether you’re Christian or not, whatever reason you celebrate Christmas–whether religious, secular, or both–I believe that this season can bring out the very best in people.
Goodwill toward men, indeed.
I went into this holiday season trying to not overspend on gifts. Having three young kids, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying them things they just don’t need, especially when they’re inundated with commercials for the latest hot toys. What five-year-old doesn’t tell their mom at least once an hour, “I want that, Mom?”
It’s a trap.
Seriously.
No joke.
I kid you not.
Kid. Ha, I was talking about kids and wanting stuff. Anyway, pardon my bad sense of humor. I digress…
I fell into the same money pit this year by spending too much on my family, and I was torn between wanting to give, give, give and wanting to take some of the things back. In the end, a mom’s desire to see her kids’ excitement on Christmas morning when it came time to open the gifts won out.
However, I am vowing to go about this insanity differently next year. I want to donate or give to charity the same amount that I spend in gifts on my family. That’s not an original idea, but I heard it somewhere, and it stuck with me. I’m up for the challenge, and I’m not all talk. (Update: This was written in 2016. Now it’s 2017, and I am happy to say I lived up to this challenge of giving equally to charity what I spent on gifts.)
See, when I put my mind and heart to something, I can accomplish it. Case in point: Almost two years ago, I sat down and said I was serious about writing an original story. I would write at least fifteen minutes a day. If I missed a day, okay, but I wouldn’t let more than two days pass without writing. Ten months later, I had my first draft completed. That was almost a year ago. Now, I have the first draft of a second novel completed that’s currently being read and edited by a writers group at the library. I have self-published my first novel after going through the arduous process of querying a hundred literary agents and getting many rejections, but I kept at it. I am well into writing my third novel. I have the first chapter written of my fourth and have an idea for a fifth. (2017 update: I have finished drafts of novels three and four. I am well into my fifth. I self-published novel number two. I have ideas for six and seven.)
So, if I can write and be dedicated to it, I can be more generous next Christmas. I can give more to those who really are in need and give less to my own family, who already has plenty of things. We don’t need more stuff.
You might think, “Okay, that’s all well and good to make plans about what you’re going to do next year, but what are you doing about it right now?”
I do regularly give to charity. I sponsor two children through Children International, but for me, that wasn’t enough this Christmas. I became aware of a family in need. The father had just lost his job, and having a kid to support, you can understand why I wanted to help out. Also, this family is close to heart, so if there was something I could do to help them, it would be all the more important to me.
I didn’t have the means to personally give them much as far as money goes, so I organized a Go Fund Me campaign and rallied my friends and family for several days to give to this family. It was a beautiful thing to see the response. Many gave, and it’s not a matter of how much you give, but giving what you can. In the end, I was so happy to be able to give them a sizable amount of money to help them pay their bills and put food on the table, and while I was a part of that, I cannot and do not take full credit. So many people stepped up, and I love that.
Another friend told me about the local Elk’s Club wanting to give a large box of food and gifts to local families in need, and she thought of the family I was supporting. Needless to say, I got in touch with the Elk’s Club, and they were so generous and kind to deliver such a box to this family. (2017 update: This family is doing well this Christmas, although her sister lost a child and doesn’t have the money to pay for much of a Christmas for her other kids because of funeral costs. Not only did the family I helped last year help this devastated family, but I was also moved to send them some gifts. There is always someone in need who you can bless.)
In the midst of all this, I have my own troubles, but to help others lifts the burden of my problems. I firmly believe that reaching out and helping others is one of the best ways to help yourself. Everyone benefits. There is nothing lost, for, you see, love has no end. It’s funny how the more love you give, the more love grows. The more love you receive.
So, I did my little part in paying it forward. I had no expectation of getting anything in return from those I helped, so you can imagine how moved I was to be on the receiving end of the generosity of others who felt they wished to help my family. I never asked for it, nor expected it.
A Christmas card arrived from my church a couple of weeks ago with a hundred dollars in gift cards to a grocery store! The card was simply signed “From your friends at church.” I have recently expressed my heartache to some friends at church about the struggles my autistic son and my family are going through, so I can only guess that someone did this kind deed because of that. I cannot be sure.
As if that weren’t enough, on Christmas Eve, my husband and I dressed to play Mary and Joseph and were waiting in a classroom for our entrance into the sanctuary when a friend approached me and handed me an envelope. “It’s not really a Christmas gift,” she said, “but a couple of us from our ChristCare group (a Bible study group of sorts) wanted to help you out.” I smiled, thanked her, and tucked the envelope in my purse. Hours later, after the service was over, the kids were in bed, and the presents were under the tree, I opened the envelope to find three hundred dollars inside and a note that said, “For your son’s therapies.” Tears streamed down my face for the second time this Christmas season because of the kindness of others.
So, as another year winds down, I am thankful. It started around Thanksgiving with the extra intention of choosing kindness. As Christmas came upon us, I made the extra effort to pay it forward in terms of generosity, just one form of kindness. And it certainly came back around to touch me.
If you don’t believe that what goes around comes around, maybe you’ll think my story is just that–a nice little story. To me and many others, it’s more. Much more. May we all go into the New Year with a sense of wanting to reach outside ourselves, and you’ll see. It will come back to you.
Merry Christmas!
Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog every Friday, including book reviews, which will resume in January 2018!
My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.
My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $3.99 here.
