So I realize that once again it has been a week since I posted anything. For that I am sorry. I have been in a funny mood lately. I have been unmotivated to write, and thus unmotivated to write about writing. Perhaps it is some weird form of Writer's Block. But what is worse for me is that I have also been unmotivated to read. I find it so hard to pick up a book, because as soon as I get a few pages in I start thinking about all the writing I need to do. Sometimes I get inspired by what I am reading and run to my computer, ready to pound out a couple of chapters. But I get there, and suddenly one or two paragraphs is like running a 12K marathon. I just don't have it in me.



Honestly, it scares me a little. Like I am some big fraud. Like if it is this difficult maybe it isn't meant to be. Maybe I have the love for writing and books but I will never have the talent, the heart but not the skill. I sit here everyday and I call myself a writer, but even that, I do with a sense of hesitation. When I talk to people it is like I am role playing. Like I am pretending to be something I am not. But who defines writer? What makes a writer? And what makes the difference between a writer and an author?



For me I guess the difference is that an author is someone who has been published. And a writer is someone who writes. But if that is true then why do I have this reluctance to call myself a writer, when by my own definition I meet the merits of the term?



Then there is this sense that I have to prove myself to everyone around me. I have to prove that I am a writer, that my writing is good. Most people who know me know that I want to write. They know how far I would go to reach that dream. And yet I still know people to this day who talk to me as if it is some far off dream. As if they have been giving me time to frolic in the fields of innocence, but now I must face the harsh realities of the world. They still suggest that I do things, which I made quite clear I didn't want to do. They still talk of my writing as if it is a hobby. Something I do at night while watching TV to keep my fingers busy. Something that I will wrap up with bows and ribbons and sell at the local craft show. But it isn't a hobby. It isn't even something I do for fun. Sure sometimes it is fun. But right now, and most of the time, it just feels like work. And when I come home from work, the last thing that I want to do is work some more.



I don't know how to get around that. I don't know how to separate my writing from my work. I don't know how to convince people that I am serious about my writing, that I am not holding on to a dream, that I am not wasting my time or settling for something because I am scared to go after something else. And more than anything I am tired of people looking at me and talking to me with that, "you had so much potential" look.



Yes, I am scared. Very scared. Scared that I will try my hardest and it won't be Good enough. That I will never figure out what I need to do to improve. That one day I will wake up and "the others" will have won. They will have beaten the dream out of me. They will have slipped under my skin and milked away the starving writer in my blood when I wasn't paying attention. I don't want this to happen but sometimes I am not sure that I can stop it.



Hmmm. This was not what I had intended to write at all, but something hidden deep with in my unconscious mind. I suppose it had to be said. I suppose I needed to read this before I got out my manuscript and began hacking away at it. I will go and continue my journey and hope that someone else will learn from my struggles. I see so many of my friends struggling. Some realize it and some don't. I wish I could take their hand and walk them to the door. I see it, clearly marked and I know the safety that lies beyond. But they must find it on their own. They must knock with their own hand. Just as, I am learning I must take the burden of my journey on alone.