Today is grey and bitter. There’s no snow yet, but the winter is truly here. The sky is empty, the trees are stripped bare of leaves, and no one is venturing outside more than they have to.

I’ve been having some trouble with positivity lately. It’s easy to get discouraged as a self-published author. The weather doesn’t reflect my mood, it’s not pathetic fallacy, it’s just December in the Midwest.

Being a self-published author isn’t the easiest thing. I won’t moan on about all my struggles and difficulties, but I’ll just say it has some challenges. Doing it on your own means you have to do so much from writing, editing, making graphics, marketing and more all while competing against people with bigger teams and budgets.

I received a lesson in optimism from my nephews. Every day they want to go to the park. The cold doesn’t bother them. Or more likely, they just don’t care that it’s cold. They still want to go outside and run around and play. They don’t let the weather ruin their fun.

Their favorite response last year when someone said it was too cold to go outside was to say, “Well, to me it isn’t.” Naturally, no one bought this. Ignoring reality didn’t work or produce results, so they’ve adapted. Now they just don’t care. Yes, it’s cold outside, but they want to go out anyway.