Great Expectations

Like most people, I entered the new year with high hopes and great expectations. Last year was a mixed bag of highs and lows. However, I ended 2023 feeling low and discouraged about my writing career.

Even after winning a writing award, I failed to secure a literary agent and questioned continuing my writing journey. I had high hopes for this year, a writing breakthrough or possibly an opportunity to relocate from the southeast. A new year is full of possibilities.

• Better health
• New opportunities
• Achieving writing goals

However, the new year hasn’t been easy for me. I have struggled to get motivated to do daily routines, much less keep in the discipline of writing. My creative juices aren’t flowing and I am struggling to be inspired to use my skills and be productive. So much for my great expectations for the new year.

Expectations

An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen in the future or a belief that someone should achieve something. After my accident, I had high expectations about how my recovery would go.

To be honest, I was ignorant of how serious brain injuries are and how hard the recovery process would be. My expectations weren’t realistic. I learned that the hard way the night I fell off the commode in my hospital room before I ever made it to a rehabilitation hospital.

I didn’t get the recovery I expected and I never returned to college as I planned. I had to learn to lower my expectations and develop new realistic goals. I had to learn to make do with the skills and abilities I had, instead of hoping for more.

Brain injury survivors struggle with unrealistic expectations, just like many writers have about their writing careers

“You don’t begin your writing career by writing a book. Start with shorter stuff. Blogs, articles, e-zine pieces. Learn the trade, the business, how to be edited, and work with editors.”

Jerry B Jenkins

Like brain injury survivors, writers need to build their writing muscles before they can take on big projects. Just because you know the basics of writing, doesn’t mean you’re ready for the big leagues of professional publication.

Unfortunately, many writers begin their writing careers with great expectations because they believe the myths about a writing career.

1. Overnight success is easy.
2. Virality.
3. It doesn’t take much time.
4. I can strike it rich
5. Writing is easy

Anyone who thinks writing is easy has never tried to write professionally. Writers wear many hats and often spend more time doing other things than writing. Very few writers make a good living off of just writing.

Most writers have side hustels or other sources of income. The reality is the writing life is not always glamorous or rewarding.

Reality

Reality often hits us hard and we have too high expectations. Reality hit me hard after my accident when I wasn’t able to feed myself. It took me time to realize that my limitations were.

After being depressed for a few weeks, I decided to set new goals that were doable with the realities of living with a disability. I had to learn the beauty of letting go and that made my reality a little easier.

I am disabled, but I am not dead. I am legally blind, not physically blind. I am still alive, just living with a different reality. In the brain injury community, the understanding is, “No two brain injuries are alike, each one is different and comes with its own reality.“

As writers, we need to understand success looks different for each of us also and we will find it in different ways.

• Pleasure of the craft
• Fame
• Meeting the needs of others
• Financial freedom

Publication is constantly changing. Regardless, there may come a time when we each need to lower our expectations!

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at MartinThomasJohnson.com  and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.