"I have decided that maybe I want to write when I grow up. I just don't know what I would write."

It seems cliche to start a blog with an entry titled with a quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book that seems so high school, so emo. That is exactly what I was attempting to get away from by switching from Livejournal, which I've had to some extent since ninth grade and which has gotten me into trouble in the past, to blogspot. This quote, however, is a perfect summation of how I've felt for the past two years. I want to write, but I don't know what it is I want to say or how to put into words and paragraphs and chapters all of the thoughts, feelings and experiences that I would inevitably like to share.

A professor once told me that when you don't know what to write, when you have the cursed "writer's block" it's simply because you don't have confidence in yourself and your ideas. I can see where she is coming from, there's such an element of self doubt in everything I do regarding my future. I am hesitant to commit to a chosen career path. Case and point: 3 majors in 3 and a half years. I have mentally decided on at least 6 different careers and neither has lasted longer than several months. I have wanted to work in fashion merchandising, advertising, book promotion, publishing, literary representation and, finally, magazine publishing. Committing to writing is probably the most difficult because there is no assurance of success- no assurance of a paycheck at the end of a week. The life of a writer is not easy, why else would so many of them be driven to drinking?

I would love to write the "great American novel," I'd even accept financial success in lieu of actually saying something meaningful. I just question whether I have it in me to put in the effort that is necessary to make this come to fruition. Or maybe I just doubt that I if did put in the effort anything would come of it; what if my ability isn't enough? Anyone can string words together and make pretty sentences. There are a million people out there whose chosen career path is that of the author; what separates those who simply want to and those who do write, and do so successfully? Maybe it is those who unabashedly stand by their work- those who put it out into the world despite the promise of rejection- that achieve the most success?

Working at a literary agency I had to read, for hours on end, some of the worst writing I have ever seen. Pages and pages of it. People poured their hearts into manuscripts that I rejected in a matter of minutes. It was a little heartbreaking, turning down a dream that is essentially the same as mine. Poor writing or not, I admired these people. They made an effort, they believed in that manuscript enough to send it all the way to New York. They believed that they could one day see their work in print, that people would buy and subsequently read the products of their imaginations. I wish I had that belief, even if it was to eventually be shot down.

Well this blog is officially a step towards finding that belief. A conscious effort to write more, and to have other people read it, rather than keep it stored in a file somewhere on my computer so that I don't even pay attention to it...

...that and I need a more productive way to pass my six or so hours of daily Internet time instead of compulsively checking Facebook and reading Perezhilton.com for hours on end.







OH! By the way, I hate my roommate.