Seeing Beyond the Traps

Hey guys, for those of you that have me on Facebook, Twitter and/or Tumblr, you might have seen my post about how no publisher or literary agency in Canada wants to take on my book. When I got that last rejection letter on Thursday, I started to shutdown.  I felt lost and numb. I didn't know what else to do. It is not my story that people have problems with; it's the way I draw. However, I cannot draw any other way, I have a disability, and I'm doing the best I can. My illustrations are definitely not on the same level as the art in an Alan Moore novel, but they're not horribly primitive either. They are pretty decent, though that isn't good enough...but there it is; my Achilles' Heel. Every time I get close to achieving my goals, the notion that I'm not good enough because of my particular physical limitations entraps me, and keeps me from accomplishing what I set out to do.

This limiting belief got in the way of me modelling, acting, screenwriting, dating, moving out, and even graduating from high school. I graduated eventually, however, it was extremely tough. The mind is a very powerful thing. Our perceptions can quite literally make or break us, and since I truly believed that my CP made me less than adequate, my reality conformed to that idea. It was shaped by it, but even though I knew about manifestation/the law of attraction, I still felt powerless to change my situation. Up until Thursday, it was really very frustrating that I could only get so close to my goals, but I now see that my belief was wrong. I now see the trap that I subconsciously built for myself.

Anyways, long story short; a friend of mine helped me find a way to publish my novel without a publishing company, traditional or otherwise. A) I’m going to rent a post office box. B) I’m going to fill out a form to register myself as a publisher, so I can get my ISBN numbers. C) Then I’ll use Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service to get my novel out there. I figure that if I publish Starkeeper as an ebook first, it still will have the chance to be successful, even if no traditional publishing house picks it up. I looked into self publishing last month, but I thought that it wasn’t for me because there are parts that I can’t do on my own. However, my friend said she would help me.

Making my graphic novel has really been a journey, and has reminded me that there are always ways to achieve our goals. We just have to learn to see beyond the traps we build for ourselves.