Something Changed...
Mar 6, 2006Two days ago I finished reading Redeeming The Lost by Elizabeth Kerner, and in doing so I'd like to think a chapter of my life, which began five years ago, is coming to an end. There's nothing really special about the book - it's a good read, and like most female-written fantasy it dwells on character interaction a lot more than the plot - so don't rush out and buy it on my account. 
Yet, somehow I feel it was the culmination of a revelation that has been building these five years.
When I closed that book two days ago, I was flooded by an overwhelming sense of... unused potential. Born out of the characters created in Kerner's world, who it seemed had so many stories left to tell, and eventually focussing on myself and a desire I had suppressed five years ago. A desire to write stories.
In those days I was writing because I wanted to get published. I wanted to be recognized, to escape the years of public school in which I tried more than anything to go unnoticed. And because of my misdirection, my writing suffered. As it turns out, I never mailed away a single manuscript. Months of critically discarding my own efforts drove me one day to burn all I had ever written. I hoped that someday I would gain the knowledge and experience I needed.
I often feel an urge to put my own ideas down on paper after finishing a good book, but two days ago Something Changed. The feeling didn't go away, and I surprised myself by hoping it wouldn't. I think I've learned two things from this. Two things I already knew, but now mean so much more. I know it will still be difficult, and it is yet so easy to fall back into the habits of these last few years. Even in writing this very entry, I've re-experienced that familiar self-doubt...
However, I now know two things I didn't before. One is that the struggle is only with myself. The other is more complicated, and still young. Time will tell if it is the inspiration I have been looking for.
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