Shero Of My Own Story

After reading Justine Musk’s recent post on The Epic Feminine, I’ve been thinking about this idea of being a shero in your own life.  I have, of course, spent countless hours thinking about the hero’s journey as it applies to my characters.  Days thinking about their character arcs and how they need to change in order to be the person who can defeat the big bad (or whatever their conflict is).  I can’t say as I’ve ever given much thought to myself as any kind of shero or my life as a story.  Mostly I think of my life as kind of dull, made up of lots of mostly boring stuff that keeps me busy and not writing as much as I want.

It’s so, SO easy to get trapped in impatience because I’m not THERE yet.  I’m not doing what I want to do, and a lot of the time, I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels.  But this idea of being the shero of my own story kind of resonated with me.  She says:

It’s the journey that forces you to learn and stretch and grow and accumulate confidence and self-esteem as you meet one challenge after the other, as you learn from your so-called failures and adjust and adapt. So when you think about what you want, it’s just as important to think about who you want to become — the version of yourself you’re willing to suffer for in order to become.

So I started to ponder, well, if I were a shero in a book, where am I in the story?  I have my personal epic goal: Make a living as a writer so I can quit Evil Day Job.  God knows I’ve got the conflicts.  So where am I on the journey?  Probably my personal inciting incident was finishing graduate school and realizing that a PhD was never going to make me happy, that NOTHING was going to make me happy but writing and finally taking it seriously as a career.  FPP was self publishing and building that platform to get me recognized.  Pinch Point 1 was…well I have no idea.  I’m sure I had a setback that qualifies.  MP would obviously be being found by The Magnificent Laurie McLean.  And the shitstorm of the last two years of EDJ stress is quite obviously PP2.  Which means I’m…somewhere between PP2 and the reveal of the final piece of information I need at the SPP to enter the final stretch.

:eyes Universe and wonders what that piece of information IS:

Still, given my tendency toward the I WANT IT DONE AND I WANT IT NOOOOOW, seeing it mapped out like this is kind of comforting.  I’m not there yet because there’s still stuff to learn and do, I still have to grow and change (somehow or other–probably this involves something resembling learning the dreaded PATIENCE).  But I’m still on the path.

Do you ever think of yourself as the hero of your own story?

3 thoughts on “Shero Of My Own Story

  1. Heroes are flawed. At least the interesting ones are. Don’t beat yourself up because “…you’re not there yet.” You may never get there. However, don’t heroes get sidetracked on their journey? It’s okay. That’s what makes life so interesting. Enjoy the journey! 🙂

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