What I Know

Write what you know. Isn't that the tried and true advice given to writers? I think I really need to sit down and figure out what it is I know, and what I really want to write about. Horror? Dark Fantasy? Literary? Poetry? Am I stretching myself too thin if I try to conquer them all?

The comment made on my last entry on my website makes sense. Maybe I'm worrying too much about what I think people want to read. Of course, you have to keep your audience in mind. But not so much that it alters your originality, and expression of self.

I think my focus for the Star contest was all wrong, which is why I abandoned it. I was too focussed on trying to write something that I thought could win the tuition to Humber. Realistically, that is ALL WRONG, and not like me. I think I'm just so desperate right now to rediscover my voice, and when this contest came about with the one thing that I've been wanting anyway, I lost sight of the fact that I am a WRITER with stories to tell, and not that I am in it for the prize. And to be honest, there are usually thousands of entries to this contest every year. I don't know why I thought I could automatically win just because I wanted to when I've been out of practice for so long.

I'm not being hard on myself. I'm being realistic. I have a long way to go. And I think I was setting myself up for rejection, wanting so badly to win when most likely, I wouldn't anyway. So, I'll still try to come up with a story for the contest. But I know that A) it isn't all about winning and B) if I don't finish, there is always next year. By then, I'll have a year's worth of experience and hopefully will have left these old doubts behind!

It's easy to be this optimistic and realistic in a journal entry. It's difficult to remember this sensibility when I'm staring at a blank page and feeling like I suck!