Some Kind of Failure

It seems silly to point out, as if not doing so would alter the course of history, but sometimes it seems that if I don’t I will lose a part of me. The me, that can’t help but string words together like pearls on a string, whether fake or real, not even I can always tell. I found another blog today. It has almost become a treasure hunt for me as I’m searching, following clues, sniffing out for similes- poetical- melodic. Fictitious is not required but a reality put together with ingenious stitching is.

Anyways. This blog is written by a young lady (Woman? Girl?- how do we define ourselves caught between girlish teenager and a married woman?!) She writes in the way I wish I could. I compare myself to these people and there is this knowing in me that I should be like that. But I sit down to write, with all the good intentions of the Pharisees, and fail. I get one, two, and on good days maybe three paragraphs in and suddenly I go......_________..... Yes, just like that. An empty space follows a few words. Call it writer block, call it the end of my inspiration, call it normal. I call it my failure. I know. How dramatic. But it is easy to judge me when it’s not your dream.

Needless to say, at one point she presents the question someone else once posed to her- how is she such a good writer? Yes, my thoughts exactly. Did I fall off the creation belt when God was sprinkling people with writer’s ability? Did I miss that class in Heaven? This magnificent writer says that simply she once had someone believe in her. She had someone tell her that they could see her name on books sitting in shelves throughout bookstores.

Is wrong for me to be jealous of that?

Yes.
 

I know, I know. I’ve had people tell me that I could write (just like I could sing...almost insinuating I lacked the ability to do it well but saying I could do it.) Yet, someone did even give me a couple of gems in the way of storylines. But no one. I repeat no one has ever told me that they could see MY name on a book. I’m not angry at that fact. Really, I’m not!

 

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

-Shut up Shakespeare.-

I’m realizing there is something to what she says. If I want to write and write well the biggest hurdle I’m going to need to leap is believing I can.

I can string words together to make beautiful sentences that shimmer and shine like the stars.

I can group these star like sentences into constellational paragraphs.

And I can turn these constellations into stories, books, essays.

What. A. Thought.

Perhaps if I imagine myself like The Little Engine That Could-

“I think I can...I think I can...”

Up I go, slowly chugging up the hill of my writer’s block...or inability... Finally, reaching the crest, the pinnacle, the height of creative genius (-not egotistical at all-) and as I barrel down, screaming-

“I thought I could!....I thought I could!...”

Oh what a happy day that will be.