most authors dont fail

Most authors don't fail. They just wait until somebody invites them in. And I say that as someone who is still catching herself doing it. I sometimes still wait until I feel like I'm good enough or I'm ready or someone else confirms I belong at the next level. That showed up for me recently in pickleball. Someone I play with from time to time asked me to play in a tournament. He's much better than I am. And my immediate reaction was, oh, no, no, I am not good enough. And then he told me the level we'd have to play at because of his rating. And I thought, oh, dear, definitely not. I have never played at that level and do not feel ready. But he said, well, listen, I've played with you. I think you're good enough, and if we practice, I think you can get there. Just think about it and let me know. I wanted to go back and say, maybe next year, let me get ready. But instead I said yes. We didn't win that first tournament, but we won some games. And more importantly, I realized something important. I actually could play on that court in that level. Once someone else believed I could play at that level, I started seeing myself differently. I. I trained differently, I showed up differently. And guess what? We've started winning. We haven't gotten a gold in a big tournament yet, but we've gotten gold in a smaller one and a silver in a bigger one. And it's really quite similar to publishing and authors, because so many authors are stuck not because they lack talent. They're stuck because they're waiting for someone to choose them instead of just choosing themselves. Leveling up doesn't start when someone says, yes, we want to publish you. It starts when you decide that you are going to play at a different level.