Day 139: I wonder if all young writers feel like this.

I wonder if all young writers feel like they're not doing enough. I wonder if every one of us gets up in the morning with this feeling like we forgot something, or that perhaps there's a written to-do list and we never received a copy. Maybe it got lost in the mail.

I wonder if we all wander around, wondering if we're just crazy people or maybe it'll all make sense someday. The sacrifices, the weird awkward blog posts we wrote in our beginning days, the missed connections we should have cultivated more, the friendships we should have cared for, the conferences we should be going to, the conferences we shouldn't be going to. I wonder if we are all going to be okay.

I wonder if we all feel alone when we sit down at our computers to write. I know that once we get caught up in the emotional throes of our characters, we're surrounded by old faces and heartbreaking worlds to which we've dedicated our lives. But when that fragmented sentence stubs our toes, or when that plot inconsistency make us stumble, or even after we look up from the screen at the end of our writing session, I wonder if we all feel so detached from the world, we aren't sure if we're even a part of it.

I wonder if those people we learn from now, those people who are no longer as young as us, who figured out how to publish a book through an agent, if they felt this way. Maybe they still feel this way. There are rumors they still do. I wonder if it gets better, because I don't think it does. 

I wonder if, when we rattle off our newest accomplishments, we're really saying, "Please believe me that I'm worth something." And when we try to shrug off a rejection, we're really saying, "Please tell me this happens to you, too."

I've learned that we're all introverts in our own way. So maybe we are all just rotten at communicating with humans who aren't in fiction. Because I'd like to think we all feel scared. I'd like to believe that all of us hope the best for one another, and we hope the best for ourselves.

I hope you make it. I hope the best for you.