I ALMOST GAVE UP
Yesterday I asked myself, what the hell are you doing? Writing!? For what? Fuck writing. You don’t have enough followers on your social channels. You haven’t heard back from the one agent you submitted to. You haven’t finished any of the stories/novels that you say you want to publish. What in all the hell are you really doing?
And my answer to myself was a plain I don’t know.
Defeated couldn’t describe my mental state yesterday. My soul was dark and my eyes were clouded. I couldn’t see where I was going anymore and I almost gave up writing.
It was like my mind wanted something different but I didn’t know what that “want” was exactly. More results maybe. More followers and likes. More finished projects. Just more. But why?
SOMETIMES IT’S MORE THAN JUST ABOUT THE “WHY”
I’ve been told many times that you have to savor those amazing moments; live in the blessing that you’ve received. One of my most amazing writing moments was the day I released my first book. I was in heaven for that day but by the next day, I was lost in “what the hell is next?”
Honestly, that’s one of my biggest problems as a writer—hell probably as a person—is that I miss out those savory moments. I’m so caught up in “what’s next” or “do more” or “why are you…” that it mentally drains my will and passion.
Some days we’ve got to ask ourselves what have we done to understand why we have and continue to do it.
WHAT HAVEN’T WE DONE!
As writers, in any capacity, we have given the world our words. Words that once they are out, are etched in stone, on the world wide web (remember when we use to say that…ok I digress), or up in the cloud, or in our audience’s mind. We share our thoughts with no real clue how the world may receive our message. As dangerous, scary or rejuvenating as it may be, it’s the biggest and most important what to our journey.
Toni Morrison already told us that “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
We write because we love to do it. If you’re like me, you love to do it so much that you get up early and go to bed late just to get out your story because you have to.
That’s what the fuck we are doing. We are fulfilling our purpose by telling a story that needs to be told. Let’s not lose focus on that. So what if it takes us months or years to get it out, it’s the action that matter’s most. An action that keeps us sane and thriving. An action that is the key to our creative joy.
Push through writer’s block. Push through your doubts and worries about how the audience will receive your message. Push through the unknowns of this journey because it WILL be worth it. God gave us this gift for a reason and we MUST NOT take it lightly.
I almost gave up writing yesterday, until I realized that this gift was directly from God and it’s exactly what I should be doing to leave my legacy.
The Chronicles of DNC 