Hello everyone!
Awww, who am I kidding, no one really reads this blog. I haven't updated in months and months, and no one ever really read it to begin with either. There were a handful of people I knew who read, but that was really only because I asked. But thats alright that no one reads it.
If I was writing just because I wanted people's attention, then I'd be writing for the wrong reason.
Since being a 'writer' is something I've had plenty of experience with, and since talking to some other 'writers' out there, I feel like I can say this with some certainty. Now, I highly doubt that it is true for everyone, so please don't feel like this stranger, whom you've never met has suddenly made this broad sweeping statement about your lifestyle and personality. So, lets just get it out there.
Writers are people who are driven to distraction.
I think I can be fairly certain that this statement can apply to most every writer. That isn't saying that plenty of writers haven't overcome this affliction of their personalities; indeed, if anyone ever hopes to become professional this is a demon that they must conquer. Yet even those who somehow manage to write and publish book after book would agree that they have a tendency to focus on the shinies.
Its a sort of self induced writers block, one that is all too appealing to most of us. I've struggled greatly with this tendency my entire life and it has affected both my writing output and my academics. I'm stuck in a particularly deep rut at the moment, and while I was doing the dishes tonight I really thought about it.
Why don't I write? I certainly love to write, so what is the problem? Is it because I don't have any ideas? No, that isn't it. Then why?
I paused a moment as I worked and suddenly a bunch of answers burst into my mind like black friday shoppers into a Best Buy at 3 in the morning. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending in your perspective, none of the answers were entirely reasonable.
I found myself thinking that no one would like my writing, or appreciate it. That I wouldn't be able to support myself or a family on a writers 'salary'. That it wouldn't go anywhere in the end and therefore, wasn't worth my time.
I hated myself for these answers. These were the answers I thought I'd left behind me last year when I had promised myself to become a writer. So much for progress, right? But then I asked myself another question; a question that I quickly realized was much more important.
Why do I want to write?
It was because I had never answered this question that the other answers had remained. There had been nothing to fill the void, so they simply flooded back with all the confidence issues that they had brought in the past.
This realization caught me off guard. I don't know why it had never occurred to me before, but it made perfect sense. I didn't write not because of all these negative reasons, but rather, I didn't write because I never found myself a positive reason.
And so I continued to wash dishes, now deep in thought in my attempt to come up with an answer. I have some answers that are close, but I'm not sure if I've really found the one answer yet. At this point, all I can do is keep thinking and do some soul-searching to find the answer to my question.
Without that answer, I'm afraid I won't ever become a proper writer.
Honestly, it reminds me of that chapter in Inheritance(last of the Eragon books), when Eragon and Saphira are spending their time on Vroengard, deep in thought as they try to realize their true names. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a True Name is a phrase, often magical in context, which describes your personality and being perfectly. It is who you are in the truest sense possible.
That is what I feel like I'm trying to do now. I just hope that I will be happy when I find my answer.
Pondering anxiously,
Marc Eshleman
