The
Progression (and Obsession) of Success
success – noun (suh k-ses):
1.
the favourable or prosperous
termination of attempts or endeavours
2.
the attainment of wealth,
position, honours, or the like
We all measure success in different ways;
some by achievement, some by financial gain, some simply by the way we
feel. With the Olympics underway, we see
success attained on a daily basis, but even at that high level of athletics,
what each competitor sees as success is different. Does every athlete in London
this summer expect to win gold? Or are there some who have already achieved
their success simply by getting there?
Even an elite athlete like Usain Bolt (tell
me people wouldn't look at my sideways if I wrote a novel involving the fastest
man in the world and I named him Bolt!) went through a progression of
success. While nothing less than gold is
good enough for him now, it likely wasn't always that way. When a young Bolt
took to the track for the first time, did he have Olympic gold in his eyes? No,
he was happy to qualify in those first few races.
I still remember the day I reached what I'd
consider my first success: completing my first novel. I cried. Yeah, it's true,
I actually shed tears. Not very manly, I know, but I hear the woman-folk dig a
man in touch with his sensitive side. After that first time, finishing a novel
has become an expectation for me, and with each novel, I expect the finished
product to be better. Then came publication, then sales. When once selling one
copy was enough, now I reached the #2 spot in my novel's sub-category for a
short period, climbed into the top 100 of its main category, and broke the top
5000 overall. And that's where progression starts to become obsession. Every
novel leads to another, every sale makes you want more. With each level of
success, there is another level beyond. With each race won, there is another,
bigger race to be run.
The measuring stick of success grows ever
longer.
Biography
Bruce Blake lives
on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. When pressing issues like
shovelling snow and building igloos don't take up his spare time, Bruce can be
found taking the dog sled to the nearest coffee shop to work on his short
stories and novels.
Actually,
Victoria, B.C. is only a couple hours north of Seattle, Wash., where more rain
is seen than snow. Since snow isn't really a pressing issue, Bruce spends more
time trying to remember to leave the "u" out of words like
"colour" and "neighbour" then he does shovelling. The father
of two, Bruce is also the trophy husband of burlesque diva Miss Rosie Bitts.
Bruce has been
writing since grade school but it wasn't until five years ago he set his sights
on becoming a full-time writer. Since then, his first short story,
"Another Man's Shoes" was published in the Winter 2008 edition of
Cemetery Moon, another short, "Yardwork", was made into a podcast in
Oct., 2011 by Pseudopod and his first Icarus Fell novel, "On Unfaithful
Wings", was published to Kindle in Dec., 2011. The second Icarus Fell novel,
“All Who Wander Are Lost”, was released in July, 2012, with the first book in
the four-part “Khirro's Journey” epic fantasy coming soon. He has plans for at
least three more Icarus novels, several stand alones, and a possible YA fantasy
co-written with his eleven-year-old daughter.
Twitter:
@bruceablake
Kindle: http://amzn.to/GKi7mq
