Questions, Questions
You know, I look at the people I’ve met over the past few months, the authors especially, and I find myself asking, did they doubt themselves? I don’t mean the surface doubt that I think everyone experiences at some point, am I doing the right job, am I marrying the right person, does my bum look big in these pants? I mean the kind of deep, serious self-doubt where you ask yourself, what am I thinking?
When I was at school I always did best at maths and science because in those subjects there’s a right answer and a wrong answer. But in English I was about the worst student in my class. Everything was open to interpretation, and my interpretation was always wrong. There was no black or white. Hell, sometimes it didn’t even look like there was dark and light grey. I hated it. I wished I’d decided to keep doing biology even though I hated the idea of dissecting things. And yet now here I am. Trying to become one of the indirect reasons for my high school torment.
It’s just so hard. There’s no right or wrong word to use, no right or wrong name or place or style. There’s no way of knowing whether I’m heading in the right direction. Everything is subjective. Something I think is a stroke of genius can become a stroke of absolute stupidity in another person’s eyes. I can’t even tell whether of not I’m getting anywhere. And it’s just so personal. Writing, it’s like a glimpse into what’s going on in a person’s head. Figurativey speaking.
With every word I ask myself, is this what you want to (eventually) put forward to the rest of the world? That’s closely followed by, do you really think the rest of the world wants this? I look at what I’ve written (I know, I know, I’ve been told not to) and I just can’t see it ever being published. I compare it to the other books I’ve read and I just have no idea what possesses me to think I can actually do this. And yet I soldier on.
Is that persistence or stupidity?
Tagged: Fears & Neuroses, Writing.