Dear Daniel,
I spent my birthday quietly, thanks
everyone for the birthday wishes! Promoted a few of my friends' work and had an
interesting discussion with Stephen Zimmer. He asked me if I didn't want the
success and the fame why was I working and going at it so hard. I told him I
wanted to be protected. It made me think. From what? Success? Failure?
Disappointment? Well I do want the success and I have always been ambitious.
The truth is, I have always been a
driven person. Even as a kid. I wanted to be the best at what I did. But with
the writing contests I could never unlock the mystery to winning the
competition. Winning I’ve found to be two parts writing from the heart. One
half part finding the right reader. And one half part dumb luck. And all of it
born from busting your ass on a daily basis.
Still you can go your whole life and
never win a damn thing and go without signing a single solitary contract.
I find I’m still as obsessed as ever
where it comes to winning. But somewhere along the way I lost the mentality
that I was an ‘imposter’. I think it happened somewhere along the 13 books that
are now out and the myriad of contracts I’ve signed and the self-publishing
ventures I’ve made.
None of this came to me gift wrapped in
a box with a box on it. It started when I was kid and the bibulous desire to
write and create was stirred in me by the acts of reading, watching television,
and going to the movies. I thought I want to do that. At five years of age. Now
that would take a while to crystallize into any form of validation of my
writing. But the desire was there. I was given wonderful teachers who
introduced me to the Success program where we had a notebook and once a week we
were given a prompt and we would write stories about them.
I wanted success. But I found only emotional
truth brought any kind of success. I kind of stumbled onto this when I was 13
when I wrote a short story about the French Underground and the survival of
people living in the woods. This was way before I ever knew about the Bielski
Brothers and the movie Defiance. I’m 39 years old now it’s been awhile since I
wrote the story. But inside of it was the story of survival, and a love story.
(I had a boyfriend at the time.) The name of the book was A Candle In the
Darkness. I won my school’s competition for it and received a medal at a county
wide awards ceremony.
Validation. Emotional truth and people
responded to it.
But it was a lesson I had to hear and
learn again several times over. But this last time. When I started the blog, by
the time I had graduated therapy I had learned the lesson. But talking to
Stephen tonight made me think about why I was so nervous, so scared of going to
Film-Com.
I’m just as afraid of success as I am of
failure. I’ve gotten some blowback recently that I won’t go into here from
people that I love and adore and I don’t want to lose them because I’m ‘livin’
above my raising’.
I forfeited a booklaunch. Stephen if you’re
reading this please attach book launch back to screening of Letters to Daniel.
But please try to slide in the one thing we were talking about.
I do want the fame and the glory, but I
always write because the stories in me drive me to write them. I don’t control
them. They most definitely control me LOL. I want to be financially set. I don’t
want to have to struggle anymore. I want the power to meet my heroes on equal
footing.
I work really fucking hard at what I do.
And for people to dismiss that or take it personally really bothers me. The
list goes like this:
1.
Writing
2.
Chyna
3.
Missy
4.
Pam
5.
Parents
6.
Siblings
7.
Debbie
& Frank
Everything else is secondary. I’m
starting to be known on the scene here locally. Now just to find a way to make
that spread out. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Thank you Stephen for setting
me straight tonight. Film-Com here I come!
Sincerely,
Amy McCorkle
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