How to achieve your dreams!

picture source:https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-standing-on-cliff-1134190/

Hello people of Hive! My name is Shila Williams, and I am a 16 year old girl who’s just finished writing a children’s book!

The book is named Imagination. It is the story of kids who use their imagination to be anything they please.

Imagination front page! .png

This is a big milestone for me, as it is my first book ever. It was drawn, written and published completely by me, and this was no easy feat to achieve. I had to go through some real grit to get this book published and am still going through grit to market it, but I’m just here to tell you all a big piece of advice that helped me achieve this book, so that you all can achieve too!

Here is the major thing I did that led me to publish my book!

I Didn’t Give Up… well I did, but I got back to it!

See, back in 2019 when this book was just a school project my mother gave to me, I had just drawn the whole book out on printing paper with a faint idea of turning it into a real book one day. The key words in that previous sentence was ONE DAY. Never let something be one day! Have an idea of when you’re actually going to do it!

Later my father pushed me to finish the book before my 16th birthday. This encouraged me greatly, as I wanted to have a book to my name before I was 16, so I had a deadline! For two weeks, sun up to sun down I was working on digitally drawing the book illustrations and typing up the script as an online document! It took a lot of work, but I got it done and soon was ready to publish in only a few weeks!

Finally, I got to Amazon Kindle direct publishing, the site that I was going to publish my book on. I was so close to a published book, but not quite there yet.

While getting the book set up and previewing how it would look once it was published, I found that a few of the pages had words in the wrong place and the ‘About Me’ page was a mess. At first my Dad was there with me, trying to help me solve these issues, but we didn’t know how to fix things and after some time he got up and told me I’d just have to figure this one out. To find a way to get the formatting done so I could publish today, and no ‘putting it off.’ After about 30 minutes of trial and error I finally found a way to correct my manuscript, and I was able to fix up the errors, which took hours. Being at the computer for so long trying to fix these errors was making me snappy and full of anger. During that time there were many moments when I just wanted to quit. To get up and say well, the formatting frustrating me, I should be able to take a break or put this off ‘till tomorrow. Despite this I kept on going until the book was formatted right and sent out to be reviewed by Amazon so it could be published.

And look at me now! A 16 year old published author with a book that shines with 5-star reviews!

Imagination with five stars.png

You can read this book with your child and help them learn new words and open up their Imagination!

But the moral is this: when you have a goal to achieve, don’t push it off with the ‘One Day’ excuse. Pursue it, make it a goal, and give yourself a deadline to finish it. Even when the going gets tough, push through your anger and being tired, to pursue what you came here to do.

Until next time! :)

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My name is Shila Williams. I am 16 years-old, and I’ve had a passion for writing and drawing ever since I could spell. I grew up in North Carolina, as well as lived and traveled abroad. I write to inspire kids' minds to imagine and take them on a fun and adventurous journey.