Success

For two years I've wrote. Holidays, weekends, any day that I didn't feel exhausted from the daily grind. I've gotten good. Hell, I'll say I've gotten great. I've gone from barely legible squibbles on the screen to sentences that I even find beautiful. I've done it for the love of the craft, certainly. I don't think I could be a complete person if I didn't write. Some part of me aches, hell, screams, to put words to paper. Of course there were other considerations to this breakneck pace.

I wanted success.

Money, wealth, the pass from the day-to-day monotony of the 9-5. Then I wouldn't have to wake up for a job I dreaded. Then I wouldn't have to perform my passion as a hobby, cobbling together stories in any spare time I could graft together. I could be a professional storyteller, and damn the rest of the world. The finish line was publication, and then I would be free.

Except it isn't, and I won't. The publishing world's a good deal more complicated than I ever thought, with some lucky ticket items getting fortunes while most get the equivalent of pocket change. Even if I get published, that isn't a ticket to a better life. It's only one more step on a long road. You can imagine my reaction, the traditional five stages of Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression. You spend two years with tunnel vision, and you're bound to feel a little pain when things don't come up alright.

Of course there was Acceptance somewhere in there. I may not be a success in a year. Hell, ten years might be too optimistic of a goal. I might spend my entire life at this and never get to the lofty perch of full-time writer. That's the chance I take.

In everything involving love, there's a risk.

And I love writing. If I put it down now, I put down part of myself, that creative force that twists and writhes inside of me, bubbling up when I tap the keys. It's something I can't do without.