Saturday On the Raw – Battles Within, Battles Without…
I am not a writer. I will never get published. This blog, my dreams, Temple in the Stars? Those are all a sham. I don’t have interesting things to say, and even if I did, I lack the acumen to say them in a way which is impacting and memorable. Even if I dress up my pig of a short story with the amazing work of Skirtzzz, it’s still just a pig in a dress. My dreams of traveling the country, meeting people who enjoy my writing? Absolute rubbish. No one will ever like my writing. No one even comments on it now, why should that change? There are a hundred thousand people just like me, who decide upon this path, find out how hard it is, then quit. Oh, I tell myself I won’t be that man, that I’ll be the one in a thousand, but I know I’m nothing special. I know for a fact that I don’t have a good story within me, and that no matter how hard I try, I will never get any better at trying to tell the bad one I might have.
These, ladies and gentlemen, are my thoughts as I sit here writing. They aren’t pleasant thoughts, they are not full of anything that could be construed as helpful, useful, or even motivating. They are in fact made up of the previously mythical anti-motivation particle, long dismissed by Science. Most days, through most writing sessions however, these are all the thoughts that I have to keep me company while I try to build the Lego Castle in my mind’s eye. Each word placed, one atop another, hoping that the overall effect will be more than the sum of it’s tiny parts. I do so without feeling any sort of hope, without being allowed the luxury of feeling accomplished. I do so simply because I know that at some point, I have to simply make the decision to doggedly pursue my dream. Even if I end up doing nothing but chasing cars, I can at least say I’ve done something. Even if my name fades from the spotlight without ever having been in it, at least I had the courage to take the stage. I will most likely never make the New York Times bestseller list. I will most likely never get to see my name on a book with a Tor label. But I have the courage to submit work. I have the Quixotic endurance to tilt at windmill after windmill, sure each time that I have at last found the dragon I have sought.
I think that is the real reason so many fall to the wayside when it comes to a career in writing. It is a completely logical, realistic decision to look at the vast and gaping chasm which separates each new writer from a successful career, and decide that they would rather do something else. Anything else. That is a completely sane decision, and it is only the insane who are able to time and again look beyond the chasm and see the potential on the other side. You have to have a strange combination of selective amnesia, maniacal patience, and doggedly single-minded vision. You have to be willing to be knocked on your butt every single day, day in and day out, in pursuit of something that you know deep in your bones will most likely never be yours. You have to do it for simultaneous selfish and selfless reasons. At once you must have a deep and abiding devotion to the art of writing, and to the sacred act of reading, yet defy everything and anything you have ever read to blaze a new trail. To put it bluntly, to want to do this to yourself, to need to do this to yourself, is madness.
It’s not rational to sit during the spare hours of your life and crank out word after word to chase some arbitrary daily mark. It’s not desirable to fight every fiber of your mind with each word you squeeze through the self doubt and instant recrimination you experience when writing. I REWROTE THAT LAST SENTENCE SIX TIMES. I still hate it. I will probably always hate it. I will be on my deathbed, and that sentence will taunt me with all that it might have been if I weren’t such a joke. Seriously, that is what it means to be an author. You have to deal with that each and every sentence, and still be willing to plow right on to the next one. People who don’t want to do that aren’t failures, they’re the only smart ones in this whole arrangement! I don’t pity them, I envy them. I would love to be able to walk away from all of this. I would love nothing more than to fade into the background and live a quiet life of fulfillment and enjoyment, then die the inevitable death that comes for all of us. No matter what I do, I will never be able to do that. That part of my life is now over. I have lit the fuse, and for better or worse, that fuse burns one direction and one direction only. No matter what awaits me at the end of the fuse, I could no more stop myself from traveling the path than the fuse could put itself out. My journey has but one destination, and whether I am successful or not is entirely beside the point.
When I was forced to drive into work, before I found my godsend of a new manager, I couldn’t write. Even if I did, it was not the quantity, nor was it even close to the quality, of the works which had come before it. I had no chance to edit, no opportunity to rewrite. All of that was gone. Even then, I didn’t stop. I reduced, I reworked, and I made a resolution to own my imperfections. And then I just continued writing. Even now, this first of the In the Raw series which will run for the foreseeable future, I realize that I won’t be editing this either. This shall truly be my thoughts, poured onto paper. They just won’t stay in my head anymore. My mind has finally found a release valve for all the ideas and feelings stuck within. The words will no longer be silent, my fingers will no longer be still. Good or ill, riches or ruin, my course is set. Each new windmill is unmistakably my dragon at last, and before I can even make the decision to turn away, I’m halfway towards my deadly foe with lance extended. Riding with me is my constant companion in each such struggle; a smile of fierce joy.
Quixotically,
Justin
