I have hopes and dreams of one day being a famous storyteller. Perhaps you do too? Are we fooling ourselves? Will we ever succeed? Why would our stories be more important and relevant than others? What dictates current success? When do you want your work to succeed, now or in a hundred years? Is this our feeble attempt at staying relevant to society? I am nothing outside of my own head, a simple small working bee, barely that. Yet in my dreams for the future I see everything from building an orphanage to building entire societies. I see all the fantastic people I will meet along the journey. I see success and happiness. I imagine how easily it will all come to fruition if I only put pen to paper. I have it all planned out. Yet realistically I have barely written half a book. Most of my ideas are still in my head. I have been spending more than a decade working on it. I have a ton of notes and framework. Realistically, when I am done, if I even get there, I will be rejected time and time again. I feel like my story is decent. I know my writing requires improvement. Realistically it will not at all go according to plan. I have dedicated a significant part of my life to this work, I hope to finish it in one way or another. Did I make the wrong move? Am I setting myself up for disappointment? Will this be the end of me? Would it matter in the grand scheme of things? Should I stop trying? How about you? What are your dreams and visions for your work? Where are you now? What do you think will happen realistically? How important is it to stay realistic? Who are you? What do you want?
I am the bee. I have fallen to the ground. My worn body turns in circles as I beat my tattered pages upon the world, waiting to be devoured by the dark-winged demons of the publishing world... *Ahem* I'm just a guy who's learned too much about too many things. I put two-and-two together and was unhinged by the answer. I never wanted to write. Everyone has a story in them. Mine rolled around in my head for twenty years, and it would have died with me, if not for a terrifying nightmare. By no means a wake-up-call, it was completely unrelated, but it haunted me for near of a decade. Finally, I had to write that nightmare to get it out of my head. I fought against it for these last three years. I made every effort to sabotage my progress, to write myself into a corner, but a paragraph became a page, then pages and pages, as I realized a fake tale had people with real fears, and real feelings, and I knew what those were. Somewhere around 150kw into that story, I realized I could write my decades old story, too. Now, I just want to finish off these two monsters before they kill me. I've written more in the last three years than I have in the last fifty years. After 250kw, I'm at the one-third mark for each. What do I want? I want to free my brain of it. When it's done, it might see the light of day, if I survive...
I am neither Vorlon nor Shadow. I suppose I should respond with, "Why are you here?" But I would instead favor, "Where are you going?" These are truly existential questions, and not only do the answers define you, so does the question you embrace.
1. No. I don't want to be famous. Successful - yes. Famous - no. It is possible that I'll do all or most of my writing under one or several pen names. 2. Work, creativity, research, persistence, intelligence, the quality of life experience, health... 3. When it is good enough. And I hope that happens soon. 4. Writing daily, getting paid, making good text. 5. One published, one old non-published manuscript, 2 SFD's, 15-20 other works in pipeline. Self studying writing about 40-50 books a year + more from internet. 6. It depends. Sometimes it is very important not to be realistic. Sometimes you must be realistic. You must know the difference when to do what. 7- I'm autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) wanna-be-writer from Finland. I want to write good books, good tv- and/or movie scripts + good vlog and/or blog.
@Some Guy The feeling of being haunted by one's story is something I can relate to. It just creeps around in your mind and yells at you to be released into the world.
I just want to write good stories. I want to be legitimately skilled at something, and this is the something I've chosen. I would love to make a comfortable living doing this, but I could do without the fame.