Stop Waiting for Permission to Begin
Introducing Wide Open... the Gear Girls album about the moment you stop asking if you're ready
Nobody Is Coming With the Green Light
Let me ask you something.
What are you waiting for?
Not in a motivational-poster kind of way. I mean actually...what is the specific thing?
Because most writers Iâve talked toâŚand Iâve talked to a lot of themâŚarenât waiting for talent.
They already have that.
Theyâre not waiting for time.
They could find twenty minutes if they really had to.
Theyâre waiting for permission.
Permission to call themselves a writer.
Permission to publish before theyâre âready.â
Permission to take up space in a genre that already has people in it who seem more qualified, more polished, more...whatever the thing is they think theyâre not yet.
I keep asking myselfâŚWHY?
Nobody is coming with that permission.
There is no committee.
There is no moment when the world looks at you and says, âYes. Now. You may proceed.â
Back in 2000, I was waiting for my âbig breakâ to become a comic book creator with Marvel, or DC, or Image comics. Iâd submitted my work and got very polite rejections, and yet something in me said, âBut Iâm SUPPOSED to do this!â
They âhadâ to notice meâŚor I would never have the opportunity to become a comic book creator.
âŚor so I thought.
Thatâs when my dad,âŚmy real life hero, came to me in 2004 and said, âYou know son, thereâs this amazing thing called the internet, and I think itâs here to stay. Through it, youâd have access to the whole world over time, so why not do your Wanted Hero comic book solo?â
Thatâs when it clicked.
WHY was I waiting?
The Thing About the Door
I spent years working up to things.
Almost published.
Almost launched.
Almost finished.
Almost started.
I had reasons.
Good onesâŚor at least I THOUGHT they we good ones.
The world was genuinely hard and the timing genuinely wasnât right and there were genuinely other things I had to handle first.
Some of that was real.
But some of it... some of it was just the comfortable feeling of almost. Almost means youâre still in the game without actually having to play. Almost means you canât fail yet. Almost is a place you can live for a long time if youâre not careful.
The door was there the whole time.
I kept walking past it.
Not because I didnât see it. Because stepping through it meant I couldnât blame the door anymore.
What âReadyâ Actually Means
Hereâs the thing about waiting until youâre ready.
Ready is not a destination.
Itâs a story you tell yourself to explain why today isnât the day.
I know writers who have been getting ready for eleven years.
Beautiful outlines.
Detailed world maps.
Character sheets with backstories going back four generations.
Everything in place.
Everything except the actual writing.
Because the actual writing is where the permission thing gets real. You can prepare in private. But writing... publishing... putting the thing into the world... that requires you to decide youâre allowed to.
Nope. Let me put that differently.
It requires you to decide you donât need to be allowed.
Thatâs the shift.
Not confidenceâŚyou donât need to feel confident.
Not certaintyâŚthe uncertainty never fully goes away.
Just the decision that you are going to begin without waiting for the signal that was never coming anyway.
I have a good friendâŚbrilliant writer with solid talentâŚwho finally got fed up with waiting on the ârightâ time or the ârightâ opportunity to complete a novel. In fact, he got so sick of trying to find an agent and waiting on some âprofessionalâ gatekeeper to tell him what to do, he didnât complete a bookâŚhe wrote a trilogy.
The only thing he regretted, was waiting so long to get his writing butt in gear.
The Cost of Waiting
Every day you wait has a price tag. Most people donât look at it.
The story you donât write this year doesnât just...wait around for you.
It changes.
You change.
The version of that story you could tell today is different from the one youâll tell in three yearsâŚand not always in the direction youâd hope.
Some stories need to be told when the wound is fresh. Some characters only speak when youâre in the right season of your own life to hear them. The waiting doesnât preserve the material.
Sometimes it just lets it go stale.
And the readers... the ones who would have found something in your work... theyâre out there right now reading something else. Not because your thing isnât worth finding. Because you havenât put it where they can find it.
Thatâs not a guilt trip. Thatâs just math.
What Beginning Actually Looks Like
Itâs not dramatic.
No one writes a first chapter and hears trumpets. You sit down, you open the document, and you write a sentence. Probably a bad one.
Thatâs fine.
Bad first sentences have launched more good books than any amount of waiting ever did.
The beginning doesnât feel like a beginning while itâs happening.
It feels like Tuesday.
It feels like thirty minutes you carved out while the coffee was still hot.
It feels like uncertainty and a blinking cursor and the distinct possibility that this might not work.
Do it anyway.
Because here is the only thing I know for certain after however many years of doing this:
The writers who have work in the world are not the ones who waited until they were sure. Theyâre the ones who started before they were.
What the hell are you waiting for?
Iâm saying that because you NEED to hear this!
No one has to give you permission to write, to finish, to publish, to share with readers around the whole flippinâ world!
YOU get to decide.
YOU get to choose how and where and when you create, from start to finish.
That also means the ONLY one holding you backâŚis you.
In the end, when you look in the mirror with regret, youâll only have yourself to blame.
The Only Permission That Was Ever Real
You want to know where that permission comes from?
You.
It was always you. The whole time, the only signature that ever mattered on the green light was yours.
Nobody can give you what you wonât give yourself. And nobody can take it from you once you do.
So hereâs what I want you to do.
Not tomorrow.
Today, before you close this tab.
Write one sentence.
Doesnât matter if itâs good.
Doesnât matter if itâs the beginning or the middle or a scene youâre not sure belongs anywhere yet. One sentence, in the document, today.
Thatâs the beginning.
Thatâs what it looks like.
...and once you start, you might be surprised how hard it is to stop.
This is one piece of a larger content bridge built around the Gear Girls album Wide Open. The song âWide Openâ explores the same themeâŚthe moment you stop waiting for a door to be opened and realize youâve been standing next to the handle the whole time.
Have a listen: WIDE OPEN
