PLANTING SEEDS OF SELF-DOUBT

 

To all my current and future #DCSPeeps (DECIDE, COMMIT, SUCCEED), welcome to my new series in my continuing effort to inspire, amuse, and entertain you! Each Monday I will select a new word to analyze how it might apply to our writing lives and also give you a peek into my childhood growing up in the swamps of southern Louisiana, so kick back, put your feet up, and check out my story about TODAY'S WORD:

SELF-DOUBT

There's a hint of spring in the air and it reminds me of all the times my mother waited for spring to arrive. Seed catalog in hand, she would walk the perimeter of the latest house we were renting and plot all the ways she would turn one little yard into a massive veggie producing garden.


Every available inch would be cultivated and every vegetable imaginable would be planted. My mother never once seem to have SELF-DOUBT concerning her ability to provide for her children through the efforts of her own making. I often wished I could glide my way through my own life the way my mother managed to sail so confidently through hers.

I have dreamed of being an author most of my life. When I was 6 years old I started writing poetry. By age 11, I was winning local writing contests, and by the time I graduated high school I was working on my second volume of poems as well as writing essays and editorials for my high school paper as its editor. I was well on my way to fulfilling my dream of seeing my name on the cover of my own book one day.

Then SELF-DOUBT entered my life. In my early 20’s I allowed someone else to erode my belief that I was any good at this writing thing. And when those tentacles of SELF-DOUBT started to wrap itself around my spirit, it affected all aspects of my life. My relationships. My weight. My writing.

I put away my pen and stopped writing for over 25 years. I never realized how crippled I had become by SELF-DOUBT until one morning seven years ago when a shocking miracle happened and the passion for writing finally returned to me. Seven years later I continue to write…having managed to get published a few times and even seen my name on the cover of my first children’s book…and I’ve learned the secret to stopping SELF-DOUBT in its tracks!

As long as you keep moving…keep reaching for the stars…and never give up on YOU, then those ugly tentacles of SELF-DOUBT no longer have the power to destroy your spirit!

Now go out and conquer your own SELF-DOUBT, DCSPeeps, while having an awesome day because you deserve it!

 

Children's book author, Donna L Martin, has been writing since she was eight years old. She is a 4th Degree Black Belt in TaeKwonDo by day and a 'ninja' writer of children’s picture books, middle grade chapter books and young adult novels by night. Donna is a BOOK NOOK REVIEWS host providing the latest book reviews on all genres of children’s books. She is also a book reviewer for Harper Collins, and a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators. Donna is a lover of dark chocolate, good stories, and an adoptive mom to 20-pound guard kitty in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

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