A Rebuke from the Past

I’ve been reading through a lot of my old journals recently (and by old, I’m talking 1994-ish, back when I was in 3rd and 4th grade), and I’ve been learning a couple of surprising things! For one, I’ve learned that my writing style back then is about as grammatically correct as my blogging style on this blog (yeah, I’m pretty laid back when it comes to blogging). Another thing I’ve learned is that I use about as many YEAH!!!‘s and AWESOME!!!‘s now as I did then–possibly more, actually.

But the coolest stuff I’ve been learning has to do with my childhood ambition to become a fiction writer–an ambition that has probably been one of the few things about me that hasn’t changed much in the past fifteen years. By far, I wrote more on all the stories I was coming up with and how much I wanted to be a writer than anything else. And as I was reading them yesterday, I came across something that really shocked me. Here it is:

When I grow up I will be an author. And that is not just a dream that might happen. It WILL happen!!! And I might be an engineer, arcitect, paleontologist, or mabye mabey mabye maybe, just maybe, a movie maker. And when I retire, I might be a, a…I don’t know.

Wow. And just at a time when I’ve been wondering “is this something that I can REALLY do professionally/semi-professionally? Can I REALLY get published?” I think it’s pretty clear what my 4th grade self would say!

All of a sudden I had an image of my 10 year old self chasing me around with a whip. Don’t worry; if it takes you a moment to get back off of the floor from ROFLing, I don’t mind.

Also, yesterday, as I was in priesthood, my mind wandered and I started to ask myself these questions. The priesthood lesson was on marriage and all the usual things that go along with it–namely, how to provide for a family–and I started to wonder what it would be like if I made a portion of my income as a fiction writer. After all, that’s kind of what professional/semi-professional writers do.

And…it’s weird. For a second, I had this image of myself actually doing it. It wasn’t so much of an image, actually, as it was concept. Just…writing books and getting published. And doing that part time for work. It’s hard to describe how it made me feel, but it actually surprised me. It was…slightly scary, but exciting at the same time. The big thing, really, was how different it was from the current paradigm I have, where I see myself working as…I don’t know. To be honest, this was actually how my thought process went:

You know, for some people, family is all they care about. Like that guy I knew who worked receiving at the MTC. Work was just a job that he did when he wasn’t doing what he really wanted to do, which was to be with his family. There’s something stifling in that, but…not as stifling as I thought. I wonder if I could do something like that? Like, instead of choosing a vocation out of a passionate, all-consuming desire to do work in that vocation, focus instead on my family and have the vocation just be a means to an end. Hmmm, if I did that, I might actually have the time in my life to write. I might actually be able to be a semi-professional writer! Hey!

It didn’t last for very long, and I don’t think it was predicated by any divine revelation or anything, but it was a thought that really challenged my paradigm. Could I REALLY do this? Could I REALLY write fiction and get published professionally?

My friends seem to think that the answer is yes. Aneeka was telling me the other day that even if we get discouraged and give up now, we’ve got such a long life ahead of us that eventually, in one way or another, that writing bug is going to come back and bite us. She also said that the really stubborn writers tend to be less fragile than the other kinds–that we’ve got thicker skins, and that crushing disappointments don’t…crush us as much. I can see that.

If that’s all the case, then I think the only thing that can really stop us is 1) self-doubt, and 2) an inability to finish what you start. Apathy isn’t a threat, because the desire to write just isn’t going to leave us alone. I know it won’t leave me alone. If it’s been bugging me for the greater part of my lifetime, it’s not going to stop! And defeat isn’t going to be so bad, either, because the stubbornness will just kick in and keep us doing it–no matter how illogical or stupid it is. But self-doubt and fear could cripple me, if it got too bad. If I don’t really believe that I can get published, or that I can find success in this, then I’m going to lose a lot of motivation. And the inability to finish what you start is a HUGE thing. It’s what I’m currently wrestling with, with writing this novel. I have NEVER finished a novel–not even a rough draft! But if WHEN I do this, it will be a tremendous personal victory! And a sign that I won’t be stopped from my life-long desire to become a writer!