More Than Words by Nikki

A good friend of mine says this to her kids this all the time. If you do something you are proud of and no one gives you a high five, what do you do? In response her kids say “HIGH FIVE YOURSELF”. Best advice ever.

Why not celebrate our victories even if the rest of the world is too busy to notice what you have going on?

I am at a point in life where I really want to do something I am passionate about. Something for me. Something that can generate income for my family that I can do that doesn’t cause me to miss out on these incredible kids I am over here raising. So I started freelance writing. I got on upwork and applied for so many different gigs I am starting to lose count. Unfortunately, if you have never worked on upwork its really hard to convince people to hire you on upwork. Bit of a catch 22.

I keep applying, and every time I submit a proposal I high five myself. Every submitted proposal brings me that much closer to someone taking a chance on an unknown writer.

The other day after submitting another 20 proposals with zero responses, I had two choices. Get frustrated or or focus on another strategy. I chose option number 2. I’m taking a page out of my friend’s playbook. If no one wants to hire me right now I am going to hire myself.

I sat down and started writing my review on the Christmas Story Christmas. The movie was an inspiration on a lot of levels. Our everyday hero Ralphie was over there trying to write the great American novel while facing rejection after rejection. I know he’s a fictional character but it was an obvious parallel to my own story so I took it and ran with it.

Its been a couple of days and this is where I am at. Writing consistently. Blogging and working on a novel I started 15 years ago. Proud of every single word I write. Excited to share what I am creating with the world. When its finished it won’t matter if one person or a million people love it, I will have completed something that matters to me and I’ll be sure to high five myself.