Doubt

Today was the day of Callum's first GCSE exam. Everything he had learned would be put to the test in a vast hall full of desks, scratching pens and mute tension. This was the time, his teachers had told him, when his future would be made or broken.

If he wanted that dream job then he'd better succeed here.

As he waited in line for his name to be called, Callum felt his heart racing. He wondered what questions he would face and if he had spent enough time revising for them. He worried his memory would not hold true for him, that he would forget a crucial answer at a critical moment.

Or worse - what if he moved wrongly, made a noise while an invigilator was looking? Instant disqualification and a bleak, anonymous future would be his reward.

News reports complaining about exams growing easier flashed through his mind. Were they really? It sure didn't feel like it at that moment.

Callum suddenly wondered if, among the thousands of other teens walking into halls just like this one across the country, he was even good enough to get where he wanted to be - good enough to pass these tests. There had to be better, brighter kids out there wanting the same thing as him. Maybe he didn't stand a chance against such competition. Maybe he should just give up now...

An adult voice, familiar yet at that moment so distant, called his name. His heart almost stopped.

For his future beckoned - and he had no idea what to do next.

At some time in all our lives we stand at the foot of the mountain that is our dreams. Up until that moment we had pictured what it would be like when we made it to the top, imagined our ascent as an easy stroll up a winding path cut out for us by the world. Then the fog shifts and reality drifts into view.

There is no path, just steep, jagged slopes upon which the slightest error, the smallest loss of grip, would send you tumbling hundreds of feet to an early meeting with your maker. And standing there on the summit, glowing in silent mockery of your optimistic dreams, is the place you want to be.

But the worst has not yet shown itself. It only manifests when you start your long and lonely climb, when you spot other climbers scaling the rocks. They appear in pairs, racing one another. One may slip and fall or, in horror, you see one competitor throw the other off the rock face.

All of a sudden you wonder if it is all really worth it. You could work yourself to death climbing up that mountain only to get thrown off by someone else at your moment of victory?

Do you still feel like climbing?

Doubt sucks. It makes you wonder how people far less deserving than yourself end up where you want to be while you struggle, toil and bleed trying to get there. I often find myself standing on bookstores, gazing at the new release display wondering how I can get my work on there. I know the answer from the laborious hours spent reading Agent's and Publisher's blogs, countless books on the subject and digging into every literary nook and cranny in search of the knowledge I'd need to 'make it' in such a competitive world.

Doesn't stop me wondering.

Which is what inspired me to write this post with the best piece of advice I can impart from hard-won experience.

DON'T EVER GIVE UP!!

So long as one person can honestly tell you that you've got the skills, so long as that is what you can hand-on-heart say you would be happy doing for your life then keep climbing that mountain. I'm still climbing myself and on days like yesterday, I too can feel hands grasping at my feet.

Those hands are only real if you make them. But I don't feel like spending the rest of my life imagining what it would have been like to live the dream.

So I'll see you at the summit.

This is Matt on his first sentimental post - signing off.