how do you keep going when the dream takes longer than expected?

I think one of the hardest parts about having a dream is realizing that wanting something badly does not make it happen quickly. I have wanted to be a well-known artist for as long as I can remember.

Not necessarily famous in the strange, celebrity sense of the word. I think what I have always wanted is for my work to travel farther than I do. To have someone recognize a painting as mine before reading my name underneath it.

And for a long time, I think I believed there would be a certain point where everything would click. That I would make enough work, become good enough that the right opportunities would happen and sales would become consistent.

Needless to say, I’m still waiting for that to occur.

There is a very big difference between being an artist and building a life that is financially sustained by your art. Because yeah, I want to make a living from it. A really good living. I want art to pay my bills. I’m manifesting daily that it will. I want it to give me freedom. I want to wake up and know that the thing I have spent most of my life loving is also the thing that financially sustains me.

I don’t think creatives talk about that part enough.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this while working on a painting of Aelin Ashryver Galathynius.

The piece is still unfinished, which feels appropriate.

I’m loving every single hour I put into finishing this piece because, my goodness, those books changed me in some way.

Aelin’s story, especially, made me think a lot about endurance. About how many times a person can lose their footing, get tired, get angry, feel defeated, and still somehow decide that the story is not over.

And lately that idea has been hitting a little differently.

Because building a creative business from absolutely nothing requires a kind of resilience I don’t think I understood when I first decided this was the life I wanted.

I thought it meant just becoming a better artist. Turns out I had to become a one-woman team that can be divided into 10-15 job positions. Little me never really considered everything that would have to happen between I want to be an artist and actually building a life around being one.

SEO? Mailing lists? Conversion rates? Content calendars? Spending more time marketing than creating? Huh?

Nope, she just wanted to paint, and my gosh so do I. Which is why I started creating art inspired by the books I love in the first place. Why I’m working on a series inspired by LOVE and self-discovery. Art is supposed to be fun for me even when the business side is moving slowly.

And I think that is what books, art, music, all of it, are supposed to do. Leave something behind.

Aelin’s story, especially, made me think a lot about endurance. About how many times a person can lose their footing, get tired, get angry, feel defeated, and still somehow decide that the story is not over.

I look at my work, my website, the ideas I have scribbled across different notebooks, the collections I want to make, the places I want my art to reach, and I can see it so clearly. I can picture the life.

And then there are days when I look around and think:

Okay, but when does it actually start working?

I would love to be able to tell you that if you work hard for exactly three years and seven months, remain consistent, drink enough water, and make a detailed vision board, everything eventually falls into place.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find that formula.

And I think that uncertainty is what makes the middle of a dream so uncomfortable.

When you start, there is excitement. When you’re in the awkward middle of it, you have proof that you are capable, but maybe not enough proof yet that the whole thing is going to work.

You have wins, but they are scattered between ups and downs. You make progress, but because you are staring at the goal all the time, the progress never feels quite big enough.

And then there’s the ever-expanding internet (cue dramatic music), which is probably the worst possible place to be when you already feel behind. The place where comparison starts, and if you can't discern or separate respect and admiration from envy and jealousy, it’s also where the dream starts slowly dying.

Reminder to self - there is no creative career handbook that says:

At 27, your art business should be making this amount of money.

By year five, this many people should know your name.

By this date, you should have achieved financial freedom.

Now, if you also make random deadlines in your head too, please do not feel like a failure when you don’t meet them!

Remember that being resilient can feel boring too. It quite literally is just the act of repetition, of returning.

Returning to your desk, sending out that email, filling out another application, monitoring your investments, your sales, your conversion rates, blah blah blah… While still making the most of your time to return to the canvas (for me at least). Making that idea come to life. Falling and getting back up. Because you can try again as many times as you want, but you can only quit once.

So yeah, I want to make weird work and beautiful work and personal work and work that maybe only makes sense to me at first. I want to build a life where creativity is not what I squeeze into the leftover hours. I want the exhibitions, to have good relationships with my collectors, to travel because of my art!

There are absolutely days when I wonder if I am being unrealistic. But I choose to be delusional and manifest my way to success rather than succumb to the claws of pessimism.

Okay so, what is resilience?

Resilience, at least for me, has started looking more like being uncertain and doing it anyway. Painting anyway. Applying anyway. Filming, editing, and posting the videos anyway. Posting the work anyway. Fixing my website even when I’m tired from my day job. Sending out the newsletters. Making another collection. Trying something different when something doesn’t work.

Trying again, and again, and again.

Letting myself be disappointed without turning one disappointing result into a prophecy about my entire future. Crying when I fail, breaking down, dusting myself off, drying my tears, taking a shower, going to bed, and trying again the next day.

Because one bad day is not a bad career.

One unsuccessful launch is not an unsuccessful business.

One rejected application is not proof that there isn’t a place for you.

One bad painting is, quite literally, just a painting. I can make another one.

I can try again.

Because I want a life that feels like mine.

There is probably another version of my life that would be more predictable. Sometimes I think about that. But then I think about the younger version of myself who was already dreaming about making art before she knew any of the complicated adult logistics surrounding it. She didn’t know how difficult building a creative life could be. But she knew what she loved.

I think I owe her something.

I owe her the chance to find out what happens if I keep going. And maybe that’s what I would tell anyone who currently feels like giving up on something they genuinely love.

You don’t have to promise yourself forever.

You don’t even have to pretend that you’re feeling particularly positive about it today.

Just don’t confuse exhaustion with the end.

Rest. Complain to your friends. Go outside. Read something completely unrelated. Unleash yourself in your journal with the declarations about how everything feels terrible (keep in mind that wording is important). One bad day does not equate to a bad life.

But then come back.

Change the strategy if you need to. Change the timeline. Change the way you’re approaching the dream. But don’t automatically change the dream because getting there became difficult.

There are paintings I haven’t thought of yet. There are paintings I haven’t started yet that I’ve been wanting to start since last year. Work I haven’t put out because it’s unfinished, and projects I’m crossing my fingers that will help me boost my career.

All I can do is keep going.

Because I believe in myself.

And I wrote this because I believe in you, and you should believe in yourself too.

The Aelin painting you’ve been seeing in this essay is part of my bookish work, inspired by the characters and stories that have somehow followed me outside the pages.

My work as a whole tends to live somewhere between all the things I’m constantly thinking about: love, womanhood, vulnerability, self-discovery, fantasy, books, and what it means to build a life that actually feels like your own. I’m working on two series right now. Let’s call them the “bookish art” one and the one inspired by love and self-discovery.

If you’ve been following my work and one of my pieces has stayed in your mind, you can find my available originals and limited-edition fine art prints in my shop. I also have commission slots available.

Every time someone chooses to bring one of my pieces home, they are supporting this exact dream I’ve spent this entire essay talking about.

Which still feels a little surreal.

And very, very cool.