Conviction from Twitter (Warning: Long and not very funny)

I wasn't much for Twitter in the beginning. I didn't follow or was followed by any interesting people, so I almost never updated or even looked at the thing. I only picked it up again because it seemed like that was the sole source of some information. I follow computer game companies and when a server goes down or news comes out, sometimes they update Twitter before Facebook. Actually, there seem to be far too many different social media things that I have to watch. One time they changed a game of mine and I couldn't find anything about it on Twitter or Facebook and when I contacted them, they said they had put it on their blog... which is getting a bit excessive, in my opinion.

But anyway, I picked up Twitter again partially to follow my favorite people in the Voice. This proved to be a mistake as they normally posted inane things and reTweeted fan Tweets that consisted of no more content than "Retweet me!" Twitter updates too fast to follow it consistently. And I hate seeing vapid retweets.

So I went back to avoiding Twitter. The character limit is also highly annoying to me. Why not just use Facebook? Then one evening David and I were out with Mom and Dad, and Dad asked me if I used it. I certainly can't quote what he said, but it was something along the lines of following what's important to me. So I started following publishers, authors, and writing advice accounts. And ditched almost every single person from the Voice.

Earlier this month, I read something that has stuck with me from one of those writing advice ones. "Anyone who says he wants to be a writer and isn’t writing, doesn’t. ERNEST HEMINGWAY"

Most convicting thing I've read all year.

Those who know me know I've been obsessed with stories since I was a little girl, many of them emanating from inside my own head. When I was really small, I would have Mom put my hair in pigtails and they would be floppy puppy dog ears. I am also remembered for being a horse and a cat frequently. I played out stories with my dolls and Beanie Babies, tried to put myself into my favorite stories. I distinctly remember trying to imagine myself along for the ride in the movie The Silver Chair, pretending my parents' bed was a cart and collecting provisions and bringing along several stuffed Dalmatians for company.

I played with dolls a lot longer than a lot of girls, partially because I wasn't raised around them. And then I stopped, somehow realizing that what I could imagine inside my head was bigger than what I could act out with Barbies.

For a while, I penned a few scenes now and then, but usually didn't have any more background information than what had suddenly occurred to me. Those characters often didn't even have names. I discovered in school that I could usually say what I meant to say and had a decent gift with writing essays.

And thinking back on my life, I can often point out what I was imagining and what stories I was writing in each event. My imaginary world lives side by side with my real one. I've always been somewhat escapist, seeking to liven up any dull situation by simply traveling out of it. I've been telling myself stories to put myself to sleep for a long time. If I'm in between stories, sometimes I have a really hard time sleeping. If I have a good story, I can fall asleep almost anywhere.

But I can't write. If you know me, you also know that my biggest fear in life is failure. It's practically a phobia for me, a crippling, encompassing, constant fear. And you can quote all those people about "you miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don't take," and how if you never try, you will never succeed, but I know in my head that if I never try, nobody can see me fall. And maybe that's better than succeeding.

I want to write. But I am so desperately afraid of ever putting words to paper. It's like when I tried drawing characters I made up. I stopped drawing at all because the only things I wanted to draw were people and once I drew them, the vision in my head was replaced by the failure on the paper. So too, I'm afraid that writing it will reduce it to the words and grammar and mistakes. That putting down will reduce it to being criticized, killing it while still young. I'm afraid I don't have what it takes. I don't have the technical skill to show people my vision. I don't have the vision or inspiration worth ever writing about. I know too many other people, good writers, and they will succeed before me. I use adverbs to modify "said."

So do I want to be a writer? Not like a career, full time job or anything like that. I want a part time job, a few volunteer gigs, hobbies, and maybe a family. I've always thought I wanted to be. The stories are my life. I'm addicted to stories, I crave them, I overdose on them. But I don't know if I can.