This feeling has kicked around for the last few years and has come back in full force. I had a long period where I wasn't writing anything at all. I felt like a part of me had died. Now I find that I'm signing up for challenges and getting ideas on the bus. It's become abundantly clear that there's a driving force within me.
It's something of which I know I am on a journey. I'm not quite there yet. I've got some terrible, horrible, awful writing habits which really need to be excised. I have a large telling rather than showing problem which I am actively working on. And I've got this thing where I can have elements one, two and three in a story, but I'm missing four. Or I have elements two, three and four, and I'm missing one. Or I don't write stories at all, I just write words and words of stuff. And stuff is good, I like stuff, it's just not what I really want to be doing.
So, you know, I am aware that at this stage, I am very much an amateur and I am okay with that. You have to start somewhere. I've already learnt a lot and I am grateful. I know that I still have a lot yet to learn and I am looking forward to that too.
I realise that I should really start reading again - not seeing other people's work as this amazing force which I could never live up to, but seeing it as a useful tool for honing and learning techniques and simply gaining enjoyment. The problem is, I am such a procrastinator. I am always saying I should start reading again and I never actually do. It's a rare skill.
I'll keep practicing and persisting. I might have some success. I will definitely have quite a few failures. I will work at it. I keep telling myself that if I write and reflect and continue to try, then eventually it's going to happen. It'll click. I will be a writer! One who still needs to evolve, but a writer all the same.
Of course, this all brings into question how I define 'a writer'.
And I have no idea.
