I used to write stories to get away from the world and become someone else. I used to channel myself through my characters and stop being ME for a little while. It was my safe haven. It was how I could stand back and take a break for a little while.
Now though, it just feels like a chore. There is no longer an escape when I write. I miss it.
Now when I write, I feel like I'm not writing for me. I'm not writing for me anymore. Those characters aren't me, they're a product of what I think everyone else wants. I wanted to turn this into a career that I loved and I've barely started and I'm already resenting it.
I was rereading some of my older stuff today and god it was pretty awful. But it was real. It was my train of thought, it was how I was feeling, it was how I was escaping. I miss that.
Ever since I decided that I would go into publishing after I graduate, I've sort of hit a wall. I don't WANT to write anymore and I absolutely hate that.
This was something I loved. This was something that helped me feel better. I want to get back to that place but I'm afraid that I've lost it forever.
I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Since I was a little kid I was making up stories and in elementary school we would have free write and I'd write all of them down. The first story that I ever wrote that someone read, however, was in seventh grade for Mrs. Colgan's LA class. She had us take nursery rhymes and rewrite them with a different ending and make it a story rather than a poem.
I chose Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
She loved it.
She still uses it as an example in her classes today.
Right then and there was when I decided I was going to do this. I was going to write. I was good at it. People liked it. I made people FEEL something, and I was only twelve years old. What could my potential be in five, ten, fifteen years? I couldn't even imagine.
Well here we are at that first milestone. It's been just over five years and I haven't written anything new or good since last April (Gregory's Books). Don't get me wrong, I really am trying. I promise I am. I just keep getting discouraged.
My friend and I were discussing this the other day over lunch. She told me I couldn't get discouraged because I still have 50+ years of a career ahead of me. Just because I'm not finishing anything right now doesn't mean I won't in the future.
But what I was thinking to myself was that if I can't finish anything now, what makes anyone think I WILL finish anything in the future?
It's almost like ever since I decided a different career path, I've subconsciously given up on writing completely.
I miss the person I was before I decided this is what I wanted to do with my life. Where did that girl go? Why doesn't the girl I am now feel motivated to write anything?
I can hardly get myself to write opinion essays anymore. It's pitiful. It's like every creative bit of my body has been sucked out of me and I can't do it anymore.
Is this what happens when you grow up? Your imagination goes away with the kid you were? Because that would suck.
I'm in a class this semester called The Elements of Fiction and we have to create character sketches and most of the assignments are creative writing based. At first I was excited but now I'm just terrified. What if my stuff sucks? What if I'm not good at this anymore? What if I've run my course and getting published in a couple of school literary magazines is as far as I'm going to get?
I'm just discouraged and unmotivated and rereading my older stuff made me think about all this a little deeper.
