How To: Have a Writing Career

A short anecdote by me:

So, I began writing a super long time ago. Like, probably when I was 4 or 5. I mean, you've seen that story I wrote with my brother when we were but wee ones. However, I like to think that I've improved since then.

I used to just have notebooks filled with random thoughts and things that would make good stories, but somehow, there always just happened to be a thing that was like, "All your stories are weird and no one would read them so you might as well stop writing because they're horrible." That's basically what my internal monologue is for a lot of stuff, actually, and it takes a lot of work to combat that stupid little voice.

In sixth grade, I wrote this story, and it was about a girl who kept being abducted, but then she found out that aliens were protecting her, but the aliens were really confusing and the people trying to kill/kidnap her were really evil and she had to get a little tiny baby alien to protect her as her personal body guard, and it was actually a really good story.

I'm pretty sure that I deleted it.

Unless it's miraculously saved on some flash drive somewhere, that 60 pages of writing by 11 year old me is gone forever.

That stupid little voice is why I have more than fifteen first ten pages of stories on my computer that I never look at again because they suddenly sound stupid in my head after I come back to write some more.

I think (know) that middle school made me stop writing. Suddenly people were grading my work, suddenly I didn't have enough time to think up my own plots, suddenly there was no extra space in my brain. I told myself that if I could just get through middle school, I would have plenty of time to write in high school. Ha. Yeah, that didn't happen.

And then, it was "get through high school and write in college!" And that's kind of happening. I write a blog. But it's not the same. But maybe some people aren't meant to write stories.

The fact that the last two years of my English classes have basically been people telling me that everything I write is bad doesn't really help this situation either.

Somehow, though, I think that all the people who ever try to write go through this process of WHY IS EVERYTHING I WRITE HORRIBLE AND WHY DO I SOUND LIKE A CAVE PERSON WHEN I READ THIS STUFF? Maybe that's the point. Maybe we can't be great at something unless we dedicate large amounts of time and effort and practice to it, unless you're born some kind of genius child. And I don't think I'm willing to spend my life writing. Actually, I would be, but I just don't think I'm good enough. I'm looking for something I'm good enough at.

Sometimes, I'll have these brilliant ideas or even just sentences that could be the perfect beginning or end to a story, but inevitably I'll be walking around campus or hiking through trees and won't have anything to transcribe my thoughts. Why can't I ever have thoughts when I'm at my desk or in class where I have an ample supply of paper?? Oh, right. Because indoors and education drag creativity back into the dark abyss of anti-individuality where everything must be the same and equal so we can all pass a test, goodness knows that's the most important measure of your abilities, so you gosh darn better not have an original idea about anything.

I'm very jealous of all the people who know how to write stories. You should teach me. But for now, I'll settle for this strange blog on which I share all my thoughts about thoughts. It can sustain me and my creative endeavors.

Mostly, I just hope I don't give up something that once made me so happy and excited (and still sometimes does!) just because I feel like I'm not good enough. I'm trying to learn to write for me and not my stupid little internal voice that hates things. That's not me. I'm better than that! Yeah! Optimist!