This was originally posted on an old blog of mine. I’m getting ready to delete the blog and I as looking though it and came across this post dated November 29, 2012. It’s funny how things change. I remember the feelings, and before I post the blog, I’m going to answer the question that I posed in the blog post. Just do it! Make yourself write every day. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to be meaningful, it just has to be. I am a writer, because I write.
Original blog post
I am Not a Writer
November 28, 2012
I’m not a writer – not any more. Well, lets be honest and fair, I was never a professional writer, but I did write. I used to write all the time. I was thinking about this yesterday at work. A friend and I were talking about writing papers and she said how she always struggled with writing papers. That was never a problem for me, I could sit and write the hell out of just about any topic and get a good grade. She said she couldn’t do that and always hated writing. That when I started thinking about writing. I used to LOVE to write. I have notebooks, pads of paper, and countless files filed with stories. If you look at my profile on fanfiction.net I have 35 completed stories under my pen name (and one uncompleted one – sorry people). Of those 35 completed stories, 16 are multi-chaptered, and a couple of those are novel length stories. They’re not necessary novel QUALITY stories however, nor are they original creations, they are fan fiction. I don’t care about that. I loved the subjects I was writing about. It didn’t matter to me if they weren’t mine originally, I made them mine. I’m fairly positive Melinda Metz doesn’t mind sharing her characters with me – it’s not like I’m profiting from them or anything like that.
I even have a couple of rejection letters to my name for some original things that I’ve submitted. And if you look on my hard drive, you will find a bazillion story ideas, a couple of half written books and a thousand false starts. But I stopped writing one day, and I don’t know why. It wasn’t the rejection letters. Sure they hurt, but it’s not like I had any false illusions about my talent. If I were to get published, that would be great, if I don’t, that’s okay too. There are tons of ways to get my words out there if that’s what I want to do. But I don’t seem to want to any more. I still have stories to tell, but I seem to lack the motivation to write. I don’t know what happened and I don’t know why, but it’s gone, and I don’t know how to get it back. It’s November 28th, and I just realized that it’s NaNoWriMo and I didn’t even think about it until the other day. That has NEVER happened to me.
In a way, it’s kind of like a dream I had died. I’d always dreamed that some day I’d get published, much in the way I dream of winning the powerball or something. The chances of either thing happening are somewhere in the likelihood of slim and none. I always knew that and didn’t care. I still play powerball, but I don’t write. That dream is gone. It’s died and I don’t know how it happened or why, and I don’t know if it can be brought back to life.
I’m saddened by the loss of this dream. The death of any dream is a tragedy, but usually when a dream dies, a new one is reborn, like a phoenix to rise from the ashes of that lost dream. Not this time. I have NOTHING that has taken it’s place and I don’t know what to do about it.
How do you get a dream back, or replace a dream that’s died? How do I write again? Can I write again?