Not Afraid to Try

The pages practically bleed red ink. My mind is a whirl of emotions. At one time I thought this piece was good. I thought it was written well enough to actually send out to editors and agents to read. As my pen touches the page for another slash of red ink I can’t help but think, “I thought I was a better writer than this?”

I have a confession, I am not your typical writer. I always got poor marks in my English classes at school. I could not have cared less about pronouns before I transitioned. I started writing not because I was good at it or because I had mad skills. Writing was the outlet my imagination chose to flow though as I grew older. It started out just with a few stories, and that was enough. As the projects grew in scope and complexity, my ambition grew too. By 2015 I had been writing novels for almost seven years. I thought it was time to make a real effort to publish one of my novels and so I began making one of my projects into something I thought would be marketable. I worked for a year on that project, editing and polishing the manuscript and sending it into submissions contests and agents who were accepting Post-pocalyptic Fiction or Fantasy. It was a lot of time spent, without a big reward. No one picked up the book and I only received rejection letters if I heard anything back at all. This is the life of a writer though, rejection is common. I shelved that project as a new era of my life came into view. I still want to publish a book one day, so I have recently gone back into that old story and was horrified. I was also really happy. Why? It’s about skill.

When we set out to achieve our dreams there is often a mismatch between our skill level and our goal. For many this is an intimidating realization. Raw talent can only get us so far, and for many that is as far as they will go. Most dreams are not reached by luck or pure talent. When I say we have to dare to dream this is what I mean. We should not be intimidated, or afraid to reach beyond ourselves. Your skill at writing today is not the same skill you will have a year from now. If you put in the time and the dedication to achieve something that is just beyond your reach you will improve and move closer to that dream. If we If we want to reach out and grab those dreams then we have to keep working, shaping and polishing our skills. Finding ways that you can work on improving your skills throughout the year is they key to making progress.

The reason this blog exists is because I need a way to keep writing between projects. No matter how busy my week gets, I know I have to write something. I have to wrestle thoughts and ideas onto the page and shape something coherent and meaningful. This blog acts as a weekly skills practice for me. The month of November (for NaNoWriMo) is likewise a skill challenge to see how far can I push against my boundaries. It’s not easy, but I can type faster now. My ideas have more cohesion to them. My stories and characters are more vivid and alive. Each year the goal is for me to become a slightly better writer than the year before, improving my skills with each post, each story and each completed project.

This is why I was happy when I dusted off my old work and promptly began murdering it with the red pen. Remember this old piece was the high water mark of my skills in 2015. Each red mark felt like a badge displaying how much I have changed as an author and how my skills have improved as a storyteller. Just because your dreams include skills that you have not mastered yet is no reason to leave them behind. Grow. Improve. Keep on reaching past your limits. One day you will be able to touch that dream. One day you will grab that dream and make it real.