My daughter, Kelsi, and I spent some time at dinner looking up famous authors and their net worth. We started with some of our favorites:

• Elizabeth Gilbert — $25 Million
• Veronica Roth — $30 Million
• Nick Hornby — $22 Million
• John Green — $5 Million
• Nicholas Sparks — $30 Million

Then we decided to look up the net worth of some of the richest authors we knew of:

• J.K. Rowling — $1 Billion
• Paulo Coelho — $500 Million
• James Patterson — $430 Million
• Stephen King — $400 Million
• John Grisham — $275 Million
• Stephanie Meyer — $125 Million

I suggested to Kelsi these authors are no different than her or me. They took ideas in their heads and put them into a story. People bought their stories, loved them, then their stories were made into movies.

It all started with some simple idea that floated around in their heads until they wrote them down. Oh sure, they had to catch a break and have their first book fall on the right agent’s desk; but if they never finished their first book where would they be?

Along those lines, Kelsi said a quote that stood out to her in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert was: “Done is better than good.”  So we talked about getting our first books out of the way and moving on to what our Muse has for us next. Then I asked Kelsi:

“Why Not You?”

She has five chapters of her story, Finding Me, online with more than 2,300 views and a ton of positive comments. The first chapter alone generated over 1,500 views in just the first couple days.

As Kelsi continues to work on her first book (of many) and as I continue to work on mine, it’s important to remember that every author I mentioned earlier started with a first book. Which reminds me of another favorite quote from Elizabeth Gilbert:

“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner–continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you–is a fine art, in and of itself.”

Do you have any “fine jewels that are hidden within you” to share with the world? Could you be one of the success stories I mention in a future post?

 

Why Not You?

 

Peace my Friends!

 

~Travis