So let's not suck this time.
I hope it's that easy. Wish yourself to blather less and to finish a coherent thought, and it happens! What a dream.
. . .
I've done a lot of things in my life that I wished I did better. They were things I liked when other people did them, but couldn't seem to do properly myself.
I was in a band that I cared deeply about, but never properly prepared for or took initiative in. When half of the band moved away, instead of buckling down and looking for other musicians or working as a solo act, I let the melodies waste away to cobwebs.
I tried at least a dozen times to make videos on YouTube, songs and vlogs and sketches, but the Zachary who was recording and editing those videos couldn't stand the Zachary who came up with those brilliant ideas and vice versa. I gave up more times than I can count. My video clip graveyard is truly depressing impressive. Instead of working harder to get better, I let my frustration get the better of me and I stopped.
Even in my formative years of writing, I was terribly inconsistent. I published several serial stories on the Quizilla website, mostly fan-fiction in the Kingdom Hearts universe, but I never finished any of them.* When I got to a difficult bit, or when I wasn't feeling the direction I had set for the story and the characters, I cut and ran. I would get messages asking about this arc or this character, and instead of being honest with those people and honest with myself and saying that I was too scared to do it wrong and too lazy to work at it, I ignored those messages and moved on from the site.
When people around me got better and better, I convinced myself that it was okay to be jealous and do nothing, instead of being challenged and doing something
All things considered, I'm lucky that some part of me couldn't and wouldn't let go of writing. When I wrote then and when I write now, the noise in my head clears up. It's almost like a case of tinnitus of the mind, and writing is the only thing that can drown out the ringing and clear out my head.
Over the past few weeks and months, I have been fighting with the parts of me that don't like being uncomfortable. Whether that means getting up and going to the gym when I'd rather sleep for another hour or continuing to write a scene that I find too hot to handle, I'm fighting the laziness and going for it.
I'm done feeling sorry for myself. I'm done wishing I was a better writer, a better musician, a better husband. I'm done saying "yes" to the easy way out.
I'm going to screw up. But I'll be damned if I don't work on the things I need to work on. There ain't enough talent in the world to get me by, so I'm not going to skate on talent and the bare minimum anymore. They aren't my friends. I should have known they never were.
So I'm posting this to put myself on blast: I haven't got any of it figured out. But I'm done hiding.
Let's get to work.
-Z
Next Time: A Proper Introduction
Currently Listening to: "All These Things I've Done" by The Killers
Currently Reading: "Vivian Apple at the End of the World" by Katie Coyle
Currently Playing: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
Currently Watching: Brooklyn Nine-Nine
*-Trust me, no great loss to the world of literature. Quizilla shutting down certainly means that many of the stories I read and loved there are gone, but at the same time, my crappy attempts are gone too.
