With my debut novel less than three months away from publication, I’ve been reminiscing a lot about my writing journey. Doing so, I came across this old blog post, which I wrote just as I began to draft the manuscript that became BURNING GLASS. BURNING GLASS was the fourth story I’d written in my hopes to become published, and I’d experienced lots of highs and lows leading up to that point. For this new manuscript, I decided to dig deep and to be unafraid, not only of the story I wanted to write, but of the goals I set for myself. These words were my battle mantra then, and they’re my battle mantra now. I hope they inspire you, too.

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I’ve recently decided to DREAM. Not a safe dream with boundaries I can control. Not the kind of dream with hazy edges and broad limits because I don’t want to tell the Universe what I specifically want…because what if I don’t get it? I have lower to fall if my hopes get too high, right?

I’ve heard lots of successful people tell other wannabe successful people, “Don’t have expectations.” Meaning work hard, do all you can, and expect nothing. Then you’re not disappointed, and if it happens, it happens, right?

Well, I’m declaring right here, right now, I have expectations. I’m going to believe I’m the writer, the mom, the person I want to be because that belief creates it. That belief infuses a sprinkling of fairy dust over everything I touch, every relationship I have, every good thing I do.

I won’t live lost in the future, in that miserable in-between of me staring in despair over what I don’t have, of only believing I’ll be happy when I get what I want. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about living in the present, knowing who I am–past, present, and future–and being who I am, reaching the full capacity of who I am, and glowing with it. I will BE. I will live. I will hope for the “impossible” without fear or the limits others might seek to place on me.

Perhaps it’s a bit of madness–Don Quixote’s “impossible dream.” I accept that. Because I know what miracles have happened in my life when I finally dared to take a bold step into the darkness, not just a tentative tiptoe.

I will give myself to all that I do. I will be true to myself. And I will encourage everyone who crosses my path that they can do the same.

To truly BE is to let go. Of fear. Of the idea of failure. It’s being grateful for what you have but knowing it’s okay to want more. It’s okay to want to embrace your life with every ounce of light within you and see how bright you can shine with what was given to you. If you think about it, it’s insulting to want any less.

So who’s going to dream with me?
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Kathryn Purdie’s love of storytelling began as a young girl when her dad told her about Boo Radley while they listened to the film score of To Kill a Mockingbird. Her own attempts at storytelling usually involved home video productions featuring her younger sister as a nerd or writing plays to perform with the neighborhood kids. In high school and college, she focused on acting, composing sappy poetry, singing folk ballads on her guitar, and completing at least ten pages in her journal every night. When she was in recovery from donating a kidney to her brother, inspiration fo