One of the hardest things sometimes is to force yourself to sit down and simply keep writing. My novel is one of the longest, most difficult projects I've ever worked on, but I feel that it's worth it. There's a story in my head that I know could be really good if I just keep working at it. I assume that's how a lot of writers feel, that there's something inside them that is worth telling? Obviously there's some false sense of becoming rich and famous if you get really lucky and sell something super popular, but although I intend to at least try to sell my work, I can't imagine that as a goal. I wouldn't complain if I were the next J.K. Rowling or something, but the chances of that are so slim as to be pretty much impossible. I will be insanely thrilled if I ever write something someone feels worthy of publishing someday.
I guess it helps that I have no intentions of doing this as a career. I have other goals to pursue, even if writing is something that has been and always will be important to me. It's always been a main outlet for my creativity, and I'm the sort that has to be creating something at nearly all times. I love writing simply because it requires nothing more than a pen, a piece of paper, and your imagination. Or, these days, some sort of tablet or computer, if that's more your speed. Sure, that's pretty much true of visual art, as well, but there's something just so simple about weaving words together in a pleasing manner. I've studied a lot of art and design over the years, and it's something I love to do, but I guess it also comes less naturally to me in some ways. They are pretty different skill sets, after all. Maybe it comes down to the fact that the book world can sometimes be a lot less complicated than that of fine art. Words don't always have to fit some vague notion of truly being 'art' to find a fairly broad appeal. They don't need to always be topping one another, or fulfil any sort of 'shock value' requirement to be taken seriously. There are probably a lot of arguments why this is or isn't purely true, but that's how it seems to me, and that's partially why I've chosen words to create the story I want to tell.
Anyway, I have been thinking about submitting some of the short works I have on this blog to competitions or something of that sort, mostly as an exercise in building up some confidence that I am actually any good at this. As with anything creative, what you make never really feels good enough or it seems like you just can't get enough space from it to evaluate it properly at all. So, I'm gonna see what other people think, outside of those few people I often ask specifically for feedback. It's kind of scary putting your writing out there into the wild, so to speak, but it's probably time to see where I'm at and what I can learn to apply to the big project. I found a couple good places to attempt submitting some of my recent short stories on here, so I'm going to polish them up a bit and then keep my fingers crossed. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.
In the meantime, I keep poking away at my novel as often as my concentration lets me. Progress varies, and at the moment it's a bit slow, but I'm not going to get anywhere if I don't keep at it, either. Determination is often just as important as inspiration, after all. That and great music to listen to as you write.
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