Taking a trip down memory lane a couple days ago while talking to my husband I became really discouraged with how difficult it has become for me to write. I remember when I was sixteen years old over summer break. We lived in a tiny yellow house with too many kids for the amount of bedrooms. I was ultimately pushed to a partially finished basement. I choose to believe this was for my privacy as an angsty teen, but really I think they just wanted me out of the way a bit. But one of the big perks of this was the ancient E machine hooked up down there.
This was before the internet was readily available in private residences and dial up was all the rage. This dinosaur of a tower would take nearly 5 minutes to boot up again once it had been turned off but I LOVED THAT THING. This computer allowed me the outlet over the summer of my sixteenth year to start writing a story. By the end of the summer my step mother was pissed off I wouldn’t spend enough “quality time” with the family but I had a full blown novel to show off because of my hermit behavior.
Don’t get me wrong, this was not a great novel. Not even a good one really but it was my first massive introduction into writing. Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to be an author, a writer. Stephen King was the Rockstar of my world. That man made up stories often and was paid really well for it. I wanted to be him when I grew up. Through a couple months of work I proved I could write and I could write at length.
So the question at thirty years old is… What happened?
Truthfully I think a ton of things happened. There would be no way I would have written a novel that summer if we had the high speed internet and social media cocktail that we have today. I would have been chatting with friends, posting photos and obsessing over my favorite celebrities. But that isn’t really what's getting in the way as an adult either.
I think I was born in a blissful time where I am young enough to appreciate the internet and what technology has given us but not young enough to be addicted to social media. No, it would be easy to blame those distractions but I don’t think that’s what it is. Simply put, at some point I just stopped writing. It stopped being a great escape for me and it became a chore. That was around the same time reading also became more difficult.
The issue was I wasn’t putting in the effort and I’ve never had to be bored enough in my adult life to seek out alternative ways of entertaining myself. After I get off of work the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a blank document and hope the muse calls. No, after a stressful day I’ve found I need to unwind by placing my face in front of another screen… The television screen.
The thing is everything is a work in progress. I don’t always enjoy writing after work but that is the only time I have to do it, and writing will not become easier again until it becomes a habit like it did that summer. I sat down at that computer, no background music, no discord notifications and just wrote what came to mind.
Beyond that now, I am almost too scared to put anything on the page. Whatever I have to say isn’t important enough, others will not be able to relate to it, or what if the readership just HATES IT! This is where my brilliant husband comes in again with a life philosophy that I wish dictated more of my life. Ready for this?
Who cares? Simple as that.
Do I want the writing to be good? Yes of course I do, but I will never get to the good bits if I’m too afraid to put anything on the page. Will I snap my fingers one day and regain that ease and drive I had at sixteen? Absolutely not. Like anything in life, if something is that important to you, you have to work at it and strive for it.
I think my age is showing now at 30 that I’m starting to get it. I’ve made a schedule out for my daily hours and how I spend them. I sit down for my writing time and that's what I do. I write. And a lot of the time it’s crap that will never see the light of day but it is a couple hours chucked into the bucket. A couple hours getting me closer to the 10,000 that will make me an expert in my field (or so the scientists say, I’ll be happy simply to finish a project and find a couple readers).
Was there a passion you remember from your childhood/ teen years that you lost along the way? Why does being an adult leave so many dreams left in the dust? Personally, with enough work I don’t think it has to. So I will keep plugging away and writing hoping to one day make that 16 year old me very, very proud.
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