Richard Siciliano’s “Portrait in Broken Glass.” Joseph Curcio is an indifferent, homeless ex-alcoholic who once considered himself a progressive intellectual and the future mayor of his city. Now, he is staying in an abandoned cabin. While finding strength in a platonic friendship, he resolves to resurrect his career by writing an autobiographical journal in which he hopes to confront and understand his failures, his lost idealism and his past relationships. However, he is blind to the character flaws that were his undoing and will take him once again from the brink of success to tragedy. Sadly, his shards of guilt and regret are too sharp to touch.
The majority of us spend large portions of our life working for someone – whether that is in a big office or a coffee shop. There are others who are stay-at-home parents and part-time workers who contribute to cultivating strong family values while maintaining financial stability.
Both of these sets of people, and all those that have not been mentioned, are entrepreneurs.
What are my dreams? What are my ambitions?
I will tell you why.
Ask children what they want to do when they grow up. Some want to be firemen, some want to be a princess, and some want to be in the army.
All of us have dreams, ambitions, and a unique life story. All of us have a tale to tell, a tale that allows a reader or a listener to experience our life through our words. All of us have this inherent, self-motivated, entrepreneurial attitude that allows us to connect with others and tell them our story; and people pay attention, not because it is ours, but it is different than their story.
Self-publishing is very similar.
The books that we pen are rooted in experiences – physical, emotional, and spiritual. By telling our story (everything we write is a story), we are giving courage to the entrepreneur within us. This entrepreneur always existed somewhere deep down in our psyche but couldn’t get out due to time restraints, financial commitments or family issues.
Self-publishing is the lifting of the final veil of our life experiment.
Whatever we have been through comes out on paper, and it is there for everyone to see. In this, self-publishers are no different than entrepreneurs, who risk everything to innovate and tell their story. The only difference, perhaps, is that most innovators start early; and most self-publishers finish late.