I want to be a writer.
I love the silence that writing has. When all you hear is the scraping of pen on paper or the clicking of the keyboard. And nothing else. Nothing but that.
But writing is also one of the loudest things I do.
My mind is a giant cacophny of noise and thoughts that I literally cannot control. My mind is chaotic and a giant labyrinth that I am constantly lost in and trying to make sense of. I know it sounds, unpleasant, but if you compare it to Jim Henson's Labyrinth, it's actually quite breathtaking.
Until you do become hopelessly lost in the strings that you've tangled yourself up in.
I can't say that I'm actually very good at writing. In fact, I'm a rather rubbish writer.
Somebody else could write this a whole lot better than I could. Somebody else could make my characters become three dimensional better than me. I'm not gifted to write, it doesn't come as naturally as it does for others. My writing takes work.
I hope that one day I can open up one of my stories and look at my words and realize their worth. I wish I could spot the diamonds in the rough, the phrases that sparkle and make me feel something.
There are times where I avoid writing because I believe the story is too good to be tainted by my inadequate skills. These characters too good, the world too exquisite. If I place my fingers on that keyboard and begin, it will never be as good as I hope it will be.
Somebody can do it so much better.
It drives me insane to feel this way because I need to write to survive. My soul, my heart, and my mind live off of words, the creating of phrases and thoughts that pierce the mind and make you pause for thought. My mind yearns for the beautiful word, the carefully crafted tale.
I wish I knew how others do it. How did Dickinson, Dickens, and Austen write the foundation of classical literature? How did Tolkien, Lewis and Burroughs create the forge the begining of fantastical literature? How does Rowling, Martin and Riordan sustain that expectation? How do they do it? I want to make my words fly off of the page and become real inside someone's head. I want to make someone feel something. I want a phrase of my story to be written on a scratch piece of paper when they need those words for strength. I want my words to inspire and lift, to restore hope in a younger reader's mind. I want to create something that makes people feel, makes people think.
I could be doing it now, but I don't know. I don't know where my value is when it comes to writing.
I feel frustrated, I feel incompetent. I wish I could be better. I wish I could feel like my words are crisp, strong, powerful and emphatic rather than under-cooked and soft, without any flavor or vibrancy.
I want to be a writer. I want people to see my worlds and see them like they are home. Because to me, my stories are home. I have created a haven I can escape to when I write. In that world, there are characters and creatures who know me better than I and are waiting to be crafted and molded under my direction. They wait so patiently for me to be ready. My world is far too good to me, far too patient.
I want to be writer, but do not know yet if I have earned such a title.
