Back To the Beginning of the Dream

Back to the beginning of a dream

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I felt when I first felt I was meant to become a writer. I was only 6 years old when I realized the way that words can affect people and when I knew that writing was what I wanted to do with my life. However, I was 10 when the words finally began to come to me, first in the form of poetry, and then in the form of telling stories. I’ve always had a wild imagination and when I started writing I felt so confident in my talent and my abilities to craft a story and to express my feelings through the art of poetry.

In fact, at that age, and with such low self esteem in so many other areas, it was just about the only thing I was confident and sure about. My passion for writing then was like no other that I had ever felt or have felt since. I worked relentlessly on my craft, night and day, oftentimes neglecting sleep just so I could get the ideas down. I studied different styles of writing, I’ve studied and continue to learn from other writers and I love every single aspect of the craft of writing.

The business side of writing however, the tedious marketing strategy that goes into getting your words out there in front of other people, the networking that is required of a strongly introverted person to do, that is the one aspect that I am not entirely passionate about doing. Throughout the years I have been hardened by the rejection that has come with dealing with the business side of writing, the constant revolving doors of no’s. If it were up to me I would just write and let someone else who’s good at the business part do that side of things.

My passion for making a living with my writing hasn’t weened but I think somewhere along the line the confidence I had in myself as a writer has been battered and bruised a little. The lack of business savvy that I have when it comes to writing has taken the wind out of my sails just a bit. I’ve started to question myself more and more about whether or not I am really good enough and do my words really matter that much. I keep letting the fear of everything that’s not working in my favor influence the drive towards what I know in my heart I’m meant to do and that’s because the confidence I had in the beginning has been damaged. I realize that I have to go back to the beginning, to when I felt sure about my writing.

Now obviously, making a living as a writer there’s no way to get around the business aspect of writing because financially I am not in a place where I can just hire someone else to deal with it and simply write. But I realize that I have to have more creative days where I solely focus on the craft of writing and not how I’m going to get it out there. I still love writing. To be able to write is like being able to breathe to me. I have to return back to what made me really love writing to begin with and I have to nurture that passion. I think that I had gotten so focused on the other stuff that I was starting to lose the part of the craft that fed my soul. I don’t ever want to lose that part of being a writer. Sometimes we have to go back to the beginning of a dream to make sure that we get back on the right path that will enable us to see it through.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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