On Goal Completion and the Satisfaction that Should Come with it.
After 20+ years, I woke up to realize I was on the wrong path. Is it people pleasing or ADHD that drove me?
15 minute read
On Goal Completion and the Satisfaction that Should Come with it.
I graduated high school in the late 90s. If you ask teachers and friends (or even strangers) at the time — Diliny will be an author.
Six month earlier, I sent out applications to Waterloo, Toronto, and McMaster to enroll in their engineering programs. I got in to every one. Five years would pass. I graduated with honors in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo Co-op program. I breezed through those years content to ride the curve. Never the best at anything.
I wondered: should I switch to Computer Science? I stayed the course picking up mad development skills during Y2K.
By the early 2000s, I was an Associate Scientist printing 300+ pages of my novel, THE TAKING, on the printers at Aventis Pasteur, Toronto. I submitted the first draft(!) to Tor, Daw, and Baen. Three rejections, no explanation. I had no clue what I was doing. Knew about literary agents but didn’t know how to get one.
My father remembers fondly seeing my crazy escapade. “She wrote so many words!”
Surrounded by scientists and engineers, the information age had yet to begin. For the next two decades, writing was and would be my hobby.
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What you're missing...
- Shelving my passion and running away to Ireland.
- How I found and then lost my dream job.
- How the search for myself led me back to writing.
- Satisfaction and my early days as an author.
