Something has just come to my attention - well, it's actually been knawing at me for the past year - but only now I think I should face the truth.
I am a terrible writer.
I have somehow convinced myself since I was 8 years old that I am good at writing and have talent in this area.
I don't. I never did.
I liked writing, a lot. I had a lot of stories that I wrote (though never completed - I would get bored) and really enjoyed coming up with different worlds and stories and doing as much research as I could. I remember when I was 14, I invented a town on the Northern California coast. I would spend my nights drawing detailed maps of the streets, ripped out pictures of home magazines to find each person's house. I had a set of characters, teenage girls, that lived in this town and had a 20page bible about each one of them. When I started to write about their sailing trip to Hawaii, I took books out of the library and spent MONTHS researching Hawaii. This truly was the best part - it was like I was living it myself.
Later on, I dabbled in poetry (suckfest) and short stories and then on to screenwriting where once again I figured I would have talent. And while things seemed promising at first, it only got worse as I got older. I used to place in screenwriting contests, now I don't get anything. Just a lot of critiscism. Maybe I fluked out with my one script - either way, it led me to stupidly believe I had some talent. It's quite obvious now that I don't.
Just because doing something - such as writing a script - makes you happy, it doesn't mean you are good at it. Just because you get into Journalism school, it doesn't mean you are a good writer. Just because you got a job writing articles, doens't mean you know what you are doing - it just means that the person who hired you has no clue about writing himself.
And so, I have come to the realization that after 15 years of deluding myself into thinking I had talent as a writer, I simply do not.
I will stop applying for writing jobs. I will stop dreaming of making it big as a novelist or a screenwriter. And maybe, even, stop writing this blog.
But before I do all that, I am left with the question....what AM I good at? If I can't write, what can I do? What do I do with myself? What should my new life goals be? Do I have talent in something, anything, and if so....what is it?
I am not sure that anyone of you can help me. But if you have any ideas on how I should move forward and carve out a life for myself, I would be very happy to receive them.
