Jun | 2014 | TJ Withers

“You can fail at what you don’t want. So you may as well take a chance at doing what you love.”

Inspired words from an unlikely source!

Jim Carrey’s words in this commencement address to Maharishi University were inspired by his father’s life, but they ring true for so many of us.

Obviously we all have constraints on our time and resources, but we also have great ability to try to go after what we really want to do with our lives. And I want to write.

So today I entered a story, The Empress Road, in the State Library of Queensland’s Young Writers Award 2014 competition!

Fellow young writers! Will you join me?

Enter here:

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/awards/ywa

For a sneak peek at The Empress Road, shoot me an email!

This post was written by TJ Withers-Ryan © 2014. Reblogging is highly encouraged as long as you credit me as the author.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling book / movie Eat Pray Love, has always been a fascinating speaker to me.

For Elizabeth Gilbert, the success of Eat Pray Love meant a form of failure. Her next book completely bombed because everyone who wanted a sequel to Eat Pray Love didn’t get it, and everyone who hated Eat Pray Love was annoyed that she had written another book.

But what could she do about that? Nothing.

So she says she had a choice – to retire and move to some gorgeous villa, or to keep writing and see if she couldn’t succeed/fail again. If she was going to avoid being paralysed as a writer and a human being, she had to get up and get started on her next book.