This is more of a rant/ me whining thing. I am writing it because I know a ton of people on this board understand what its like to feel like a huge failure.
I went to all the right colleges, got all the right degrees. Everything "the man" tells you to do to succeed. Then after giving birth to my first child, I found out I had lupus sle and APS. I was medically retired from the Air Force and I became a stay at home mother because sometimes all of my medications makes it impossible for me to do more than spend time with my face in the toilet bowl.
My husband, who is the most supportive man in the world, encouraged me to write rather than be miserable about how my life was thrown off track. With his encouragement, I started writing while my kids were at school.
But now I am coming to the point where I am wondering, what if I suck at writing? What if I can never be successful in the workplace or at home?
I am raising two beautiful, brilliant, and good kids. I support my husband who is gone with the military half the time. So I know I am not a complete failure.
However, this writing thing is not for those who need to feel a sense of accomplishment. I wish someone had warned me about all this. That you could spend countless hours pouring yourself into a novel, which becomes your baby. Then you hand your novel to someone, hoping they will even give you the time of day.
Long rant made short- I wish I had known that writing would make me question myself almost as much as being a parent does.
You
should question yourself as a writer as much as you do as a parent. It's the only way you're gonna be any good at it.
Writing rarely provides immediate gratification. Oh sure, there's a small degree of satisfaction in getting the words all nice and neatly arranged and all the vowels and consonants lined up just so, but the work never expresses its gratitude for all the effort you've put into it. It kind of just lies there and doesn't do much of anything until you dress it up and send it out to the world.
The accomplishment Ringading is in the creation of the work, not whether the world gives a damn about it. Whether it is your children or your words,
you and only you have created something that has never existed before. There have been billions of children and trillions of words, but nothing like what you gave birth to.
There's your accomplishment right there and you should take pride in it. Think of all the people you know who can't do on their best day what you can do on your worst.
Writing is pain and writing is pleasure. Writing is an unmatched joy and a splendid misery. It can be an dirty, sweaty and arduous toil and sometimes all you get from it is utter drek that makes you put your head in your hands and say,
"I slaved for hours, days, weeks, months and years for this?"
To be a writer is an act of madness. You put time into it. You put writing before family, friends, leisure, food, exercise, sex, and even the bathroom when you're on a tear. Sometimes the ideas are flooding out of your head and other times you're running on empty staring numbly/dumbly at a blank screen or paper.
You're right to question yourself, doubt yourself and beat yourself up over writing, Ringading. Everyone does because that's included in the price of the ticket. Writing is harder for writers than anyone else.
But you aren't the first writer to wonder if this is really your thing. Here's an easy way to find out: stop writing. Don't do any writing for a week or two. If you don't miss it maybe you never loved it.
However, if you do begin to get twitchy, feeling a vague, yet maddening sense there's some unfinished business you need to attend to, then you'll know you're into this thing come hell or waters high.
I love writing even if it doesn't always love me back. I hope you can get to the point where you feel the same way.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—
Ernest Hemingway