On Patience…

When I’m not thinking up new stories, I like to take time to write about things that happen either with my writing or situations which occur to influence my writing.  So far, I’ve written a fair collection of short stories, and I am proud of that growing collection.  Yet somehow, I feel like it’s a bit of a cop out for me to sit here and just write a humdrum post on something that affects me greatly but doesn’t really affect my readers.  Honestly, posts on various subjects that affect my writing are really a chance for me to engage in a rather public form of therapy.  I feel almost that I can’t get past those subjects sometimes unless I let my thoughts flow out my fingers.

One came up today, and I posted about it on Twitter, but it’s one that truly bothers me.  I’ve chosen to walk down a path of creativity, of something that speaks deeply to so many of us.  At it’s nature though, it is a pursuit of an artistic nature.  You can make a living doing this.  There are countless talented men and women who do just that.  Yet I’ve no overwhelming talent, no insight gleamed of a life spent on the ragged edges of survival to lend it’s own honing effect to my words.  I am simply a man who wishes to give back to a group of individuals who have given me so much.  I wish to emulate those that I value most.  While imitation is truly the most sincere form of flattery, it’s not really of much help in building a career on the written word.  Sadly, imitation in that medium is called plagiarism and is illegal.  So, like all young (maybe not that young) artists who stand before the canvas of their lives and wish to make of it a masterpiece fit to inspire others, I must begin at the beginning.

There are no real shortcuts on this journey, no hidden paths to swiftly advance from one point to the next or to skip them entirely.  For all intents and purposes, as of right now I have voluntarily taken on a second job with no pay, which will slowly demand more and more of my time as I develop a greater knack for productivity.  Even if I stick to my plans, even if I can continue to write at least a thousand words a night, even if I am able to form a cohesive story, even if that story is edited into something recognizable as a book, there is no guarantee that I will see print.  It could take years, plural, of fielding rejection after rejection after rejection before I find a company willing to print my book.  Even then, it might tank.  I might have taken all of that time, all of that effort, all of those rejections, and created something which will have no value to anyone.  An afterthought, worthy only of derision for it’s lack of anything new to add to the tapestry of humanity.

I wish to share a story from my life.  I will share no names, nor places.  They aren’t needed in this instance.  My friend has spent the last twelve years of his life attempting to accomplish his specific goal of living off his passion.  During that time, he has worked every odd job imaginable, including a years long stint at a liquor store.  Highly educated, highly talented, he toiled away while desperately seeking to make his dream a reality.  He took everything offered to him which was related to his passion, everything which could advance him in the arena of his choosing.  Each new break brought with it another small piece of the puzzle, but none were enough to form a complete picture of his ideals.  Finally, after more than a decade of constant work, he accomplished his goal.  He got to turn in his two week notice to his day job, and turned his passion into his paycheck.  I am not him, and I cannot speak to his feelings, but I can only imagine the joy he felt at that moment when the door closed for the last time on the store he would never need to re-enter was divine.

I am overjoyed for my friend, do not mistake me sharing this story.  If anything, it should give us all hope, we who dream of a life filled with and filled by our passions.  Yet even his success hides within it a most bitter pill to swallow.  I could, with great ease, emulate the arc of his journey.  It could very well take the better part of a decade to make a good enough harvest to hang my hat upon.  I could bleed my whole soul onto these pages at the same pace I have been, five times a week, every week, every year from now till the passing of my 40th birthday, and be in the same place I am at this exact moment.  Desperate with the hopes in my heart, desperate with the dreams in my head, and desperately wrestling with my advancing years and looming mortality.

These thoughts haunt me so exactly because of my age at the outset of this quest.  I have not started along this path in the fiery passion of my youth, when the whole world was before me for the taking.  I have lost, been worn down by the grinding passage of years as so many of us are.  I simply cannot take the same stances as I could before.  Winner take all, come home with my shield or upon it, go big or go broke.  I have a family I must care for, a child who exists solely at the whim of my wife and I.  His birth is not of his own making, and I will not punish a child who has no choice but to rely upon me for his daily needs by taking needless risks.  The righteous rush of tendering my resignation would only last until I set foot out of the building and realized just how much I had cost my wife and child.  So, I must bide my time, and take the patient route to my dream.

The patient route carries it’s own risks however.  So many, many men and women enter the exact same situation as I have.  They have done the math, crunched the numbers, and weighed the risks, and opted for this path.  It is so easy to lose your way once you are here however, so easy to let the regular pitfalls of life rob you of all momentum.  So very many who take the slow road soon take no road, abandoning their dreams in the face of the ever pressing realities of existence.  It takes someone of extraordinary character and iron-clad resolve to bear up under such stormy weather.  I am just a man, and have never truly been extraordinary at anything I’ve turned my hand to.  Good at them: yes, even great upon occasion.  But that is not enough.  I wish to live this life of words and imagination, swim in it, breathe it in and let it sustain me.  I wish to lose myself to the enthusiasm and joy shared at a comic convention.  I want to see even one person who has read my novel seek my time specifically, and find a look of joy on their face for having gotten to meet me.  I want, more than anything, for men and women within my life to have been better for having known me.  I wish to build them up, burgeon them in times of need, and provide a place where they can go look for comfort when times are tough.  I wish for men and women of all ages to find within the covers of my novel a chance to explore a life outside their own.  I want so badly for my life to have a meaning and a purpose beyond a faded tombstone that time will erase from all knowledge.  I want to reach across the ages and inspire a sense of wonder within new faces.

I fear so much that in wrestling my demons on the slow road, I will lose to them.  Allowing them to win even once is a poison which shall surely doom me.  There are years between my dreams and reality, and there is nothing to be done about the distance but to take it one step at a time.  One day at a time.  One post at a time.  One story-writing session of no less than a thousand words at a time.  I hope that as I place one foot in front of the other, I will find that I’ve mastered the challenges placed before me.  Maybe that is why I am able to weather the storms of my emotions, because I yet hope.  Stay with me hope, we have a long way to go, you and I.

Hopefully,
Justin