I’ve been around writers for a long time. I’ve met literally thousands of folks who have a desire to become published authors. Interestingly, I’ve met few who actually do. When I was new to the world of authors, I passed it off as extreme competition. After all, there are only so many books that pub houses can send to press in any budget year. Not many manuscripts will be published compared to all the writers out there creating them.

Closer investigation revealed that wasn’t the case with most writers. I discovered many of these writers never actually wrote. They didn’t go through the process of constructing a story, building a plot, sitting with butt in a chair and hammering out word count, rewriting and editing.

In short, many dream, few do.

Sometimes—like with anything—it’s more fun to sit over a cuppa joe and talk about being a writer than it is to actually be one. Ever plan a vacation and have more fun talking about the great time you’re going to have? Remember how exhausting, frustrating and perhaps even disappointing the trip itself turned out to be? Yeah, don’t want to think about it, right?

But here’s the thing.  After it was all said, done and spent, I’ll bet you sat around telling and retelling the story of that “wonderful” vacation after the fact, didn’t you? And the memory of it was became much more compelling than the actual event. In fact, you had your friends wishing they could go on that perfect vacation you came back from. You changed your reality of that vacation and it became much better than when you experienced it.

If you can seize this truth and apply it to the hard work of actually writing, you will shine as a star. You’ll gain passion for your story. You’ll go through the sometimes agonizing steps of being an author, sometimes just so you can sit around regaling the coffee girls with your stories of plotting and negotiating contracts.

Many dream, few do. And guess what? The choice is entirely up to you. Each and every day, you have the choice of whether you’re going to settle to be a dreamer only, or become a doer of the dream you have.

Will you do the dream? I hope you do.

Are you doing the dream today? Or is something blocking you? Share it here!