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S1: Day 40 (40)
Feb. 9th, 2023 08:42 amI promised a more in-depth entry, and I believe that entry is going to be this one.
I started writing in my teen years. It began with fanfic, and I have no shame in that. I made a lot of original characters and set them in worlds that were pre-built by other authors. Eventually, I started putting these original characters in worlds that I built on my own or with friends. I look at it like training wheels on a bike. Going this path helped me gaining the confidence to break away on my own. I never published my fanfic on fanfic.net or anything like that. I saved it for my friends. We'd trade pages with each other during the school day, because they would write their own things too. Sometimes, we'd do it all together, and it was so much fun and something I miss greatly. I think that was when I was the most creatively inspired. All I wanted to do was write. I could pour okay 80k words in a month which is absolutely insane to think about since now I can barely manage 10k. I'd write until 5am sometimes. I'd do it in class. It was a whole thing.
College I still wrote quite a bit, and I did take myself a bit too seriously. That was a whole stage, and it's definitely embarrassing to think about sometimes. My husband has always been super supportive of my dream to write, so we'd day dream about my big publishing deal. We still talk about it like it's going to happen, and I believe in my heart that it is. The when is always the tricky part.
I started publishing after college. Small presses, and I was still taking myself a bit too seriously. I thought I was the next Shakespeare. I thought I was AMAZING. I was very wrong. Looking back on those old books, I find little bits of beautiful points, but most of it needed a solid overhaul. Great skeleton, required better meat.
From there, I got very into my own head. Nothing felt good enough. Nothing. I wasn't writing enough words. I wasn't producing enough books. I was taking too long. I was writing the wrong genre. I was writing too many words. Etc. etc. And then Covid hit, and the mental anguish became even stronger.
Which brings us to today. The word I'd chosen for myself for the year was "Reset" and I forgot that the whole point of a reset is to start from point zero. The very beginning. And that's been hard for me to accept. Doing it makes my brain and heart feel so much better. Seriously. But the nagging part that's telling me I'm not good enough is still trying to get me to do all of the wrong things so I can been "right" by doing all the things that some of my peers in the field are doing.
So that's what I'm trying to do. Reset. It's difficult, but I know the fruit from this will be abundant.
And that is a piece of my journey. I need to get moving, so I'll continue the story another day. Maybe.
Currently...
Playing: "Dreamlight Valley" lvl 40. "Octopath Traveler". "Hades", streaming on Twitch.
Reading: "The Bullet That Missed", print. "Just As I Am", audio. "Spy X Family vol 7", ebook. "Memento", ebook.
Watching: "Stranger Things" season 1.
I started writing in my teen years. It began with fanfic, and I have no shame in that. I made a lot of original characters and set them in worlds that were pre-built by other authors. Eventually, I started putting these original characters in worlds that I built on my own or with friends. I look at it like training wheels on a bike. Going this path helped me gaining the confidence to break away on my own. I never published my fanfic on fanfic.net or anything like that. I saved it for my friends. We'd trade pages with each other during the school day, because they would write their own things too. Sometimes, we'd do it all together, and it was so much fun and something I miss greatly. I think that was when I was the most creatively inspired. All I wanted to do was write. I could pour okay 80k words in a month which is absolutely insane to think about since now I can barely manage 10k. I'd write until 5am sometimes. I'd do it in class. It was a whole thing.
College I still wrote quite a bit, and I did take myself a bit too seriously. That was a whole stage, and it's definitely embarrassing to think about sometimes. My husband has always been super supportive of my dream to write, so we'd day dream about my big publishing deal. We still talk about it like it's going to happen, and I believe in my heart that it is. The when is always the tricky part.
I started publishing after college. Small presses, and I was still taking myself a bit too seriously. I thought I was the next Shakespeare. I thought I was AMAZING. I was very wrong. Looking back on those old books, I find little bits of beautiful points, but most of it needed a solid overhaul. Great skeleton, required better meat.
From there, I got very into my own head. Nothing felt good enough. Nothing. I wasn't writing enough words. I wasn't producing enough books. I was taking too long. I was writing the wrong genre. I was writing too many words. Etc. etc. And then Covid hit, and the mental anguish became even stronger.
Which brings us to today. The word I'd chosen for myself for the year was "Reset" and I forgot that the whole point of a reset is to start from point zero. The very beginning. And that's been hard for me to accept. Doing it makes my brain and heart feel so much better. Seriously. But the nagging part that's telling me I'm not good enough is still trying to get me to do all of the wrong things so I can been "right" by doing all the things that some of my peers in the field are doing.
So that's what I'm trying to do. Reset. It's difficult, but I know the fruit from this will be abundant.
And that is a piece of my journey. I need to get moving, so I'll continue the story another day. Maybe.
Currently...
Playing: "Dreamlight Valley" lvl 40. "Octopath Traveler". "Hades", streaming on Twitch.
Reading: "The Bullet That Missed", print. "Just As I Am", audio. "Spy X Family vol 7", ebook. "Memento", ebook.
Watching: "Stranger Things" season 1.
