This is a question I often ask myself when I'm sitting at my computer at night, trying to figure out how to get the stories I have in my head down on the page. I ask it a lot, usually when I find myself frustrated because the words aren't coming out as much as I would like them to. It also comes during those frequent moments where I am so totally convinced that I cannot write a lick that I am just wasting my time.
I've always liked to write and craft stories. As a kid, because I had a fairly inane life, I would create ones with me doing all the things I wanted to do like be a superhero, fly to the moon or cavort with dinosaurs. By the time I reached elementary school, I was actually getting noticed and recognized by my teachers for having some writing acumen and couldn't believe it when I realized that my stories could win prizes.
*Editorial Note - It was at this same time that I somehow thought getting "Honorable Mention" was the same as being named the best writer in my second-grade class. These were indeed simpler times.
I continued my fascination with both writing and reading stories of various shapes and sizes through the rest of my academic career and by the time I finished high school, I had a pretty good idea that while I needed to work a day job to pay my bills, I knew what I could do the rest of the day. I was going to be a writer. And then I started trying to get books done and found myself in the middle of a severe crisis of self-confidence.
Not having a whole lot of faith in my abilities to do much of anything, I've always been on shaky ground when I get into endeavors like this. I'd like to think that base fear is prominent in all fledgling writers have, realizing they're entering a realm occupied by the likes of Homer, Shakespeare, Twain, Poe, Austen, Hawthorne, Dickens, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, King, Gibson, Rowling and so on. There's also the fear that you're writing a story that's already been told better by someone else, so really what's the point of getting what's in your head down on the page?
There's a Chinese proverb I remember hearing somewhere that just six basic stories constitute the root from which every new one branches out from. I don't know how true that is, but since we are often influenced by what books we read and media we consume that often predate our own lifespans, I suppose there is some validity to it.
I'd like to think I'm equal to the task of belonging to that sort of grand fraternity, but for every time I do, I can't help but wonder if I have what it takes by comparison to other writers who possess better vocabularies, more refined creative engines and more elaborate plot threads to weave together.
Then I think about one of the most painful memories I have. I was 18 and riding back from Seattle to Portland with my older brother, and explained to him what I wanted to do and that before the year is over, I would write a book that could be published.
His response was to laugh and say I was wasting my time.
He dropped me off at home. I went inside, hugged and kissed my wife-to-be, then went into our bedroom and bawled my eyes out. I felt completely crushed, and even though I finished my first manuscript eight years ago, I've just tucked it and every other story I've written away in the recesses of my computer. In all honesty, our relationship has never really been the same since and I doubt it ever will be.
I've never tried to get them published. I've never even sent them to an editor or proofreader, because I don't want to be told the same thing by them too. I don't want to be told I'm wasting my time and that I'm not good enough.
It's what leaves me sitting on my couch most nights, looking at the dozens of paragraphs I'd spent the last few hours building, with the same thought resounding in my head over and over and over...
"This is shit, Devin. You can't do this. You're not a good writer. Hell, you're not even a decent writer. Stop wasting your time."
Writers need to have a thick skin because each page they churn out involves taking a piece of themselves and documenting it in their prose. It's a very personal thing and takes a committed investment of time and energy to construct a story that might be worth being read by other people. Writers also need a strong foundation of self-confidence to withstand the stings and arrows of those who would tell them they're just hacks.
I don't have that foundation. I've never really had it. But I want it. I have stories I want to tell. There's a stack of notebooks in a box in my living room with every idea I've ever had for the books I want to make, and I would hope that at some point, someone would not only want to read them, but enjoy them as well.
But it can be very hard to get there when I sit there most nights, doing what I've wanted to do my whole life, and feel terrified that I'm just wasting my time.
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