how does anyone know the depth to which they can judge their own writing? i have considered myself as someone who enjoys writing, who keeps it as a hobby and rarely anything else. but more and more i find myself really wishing that this was my title.
what are you?
i'm a writer.
it was always my fantasy fall back to not have to call myself a waitress or an office assistant or whatever long list of menial jobs i've worked over the years. i wanted for so long to do something that truly made me happy and fulfilled.
but lately i have discovered that maybe writing is all that i really have. my relationship is over, i'm a single parent, i have no job, no life, no car, no future really. and so i turned to the one thing that makes me get a sense of my own worth.
pen hits paper and without any pretense i am satisfied that everything else is secondary to the moment when my passion is satiated. then the notebook closes, the computer screen is blank, and i am nothing again. i am simple and small and unsatisfied.
i want to know that i can do this. i want to see my words in print at a bookstore or see someone reading my story. i want to enthrall and entice and excite people the way the written word was always meant to. nowadays we have paper, pencil, pen, notebook, marker, chalk boards and every other writing implement under the sun at our complete disposal 24/7. there was a time when the only things written were the things that needed to last. the thoughts and events that needed to be recorded and therefore remembered. the future relied on certain pieces of information being recalled at a later time.
but not now. now reading has become a chore, a bore, a task that must be done to fill our heads with what we have to know, have to learn, have to see, and hate it the entire time. if people could have learning chips implanted in their heads so they never had to turn another page they'd do it in a heartbeat.
my book should be different. it should touch people, move them, relate to them, and find in them the awareness of how valuable our voices can be. it reminds me even now that i have things inside of me that are worth putting down in written form...because i am full of life and experience and originality that is worth remembering.