It went something like this:
The world: Everyone wants to be a writer
Me: You're not special, you're not talented, you'll never make it.
The world: Filled with literary genius, people who can create
Me: Still scrawling how much I hate myself on to a page
The world: There will always been someone better
Me: You're not good enough. Never will be
The thing that I have only just come to realise is this: I am a writer. I have written for as long as I can remember and no-one can take that away from me. Now those words, ones I wrote in the midst of an ill-understood pain, help me realise how much I hated myself, how not ok it was and how far I have come. The help me to understand I wasn't just a moody teenager. I didn't just eat too much or not eat at all. I wasn't unattractive and horrible. I was just extremely good at pushing everything good away.
I am a writer.
Yes, you are a writer. If you try, you are a writer. If you write, you are a writer. If you're published, great. If not, you're still a writer. You're doing something that most people can't, and most of the few who can, don't. The stories you write, the poems you create, the essays you craft CANNOT be done by anyone but you. They are unique to your talent and effort and understanding of the world. No one else can write what you write. The notion that we're not "good enough" or that someone else will always be "better" is false. No one is better at what you can do than you are! The fact is that even the most "successful" writer in the world still cannot write whatever it is you write. Only you can write your stories. Bring your unique vision to the page (or the screen) and struggle with getting it right, which we all must do, and then revel in the knowledge that you've done it. And then write some more.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your thoughtful and inspiring comment! You are dead on in terms of writing, having someone else say it is brilliant.
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