Occasionally I forget that being a writer involves two writing and searching for inspiration.
I forget that writing for the audience that has found me keeps me from doing both of those. I question myself. I question the words I put on the page.
What will they think? Is this bigger, smarter, deeper than the last thing I wrote? Will it keep everyone interested?
Then I remember: I don’t care. I can’t care. Writing isn’t about that. This place isn’t that. I’m thrilled that people have found me. I’m stoked that people dig it. I love reading the emails, the Tweets and everything that comes with it.
But it’s kept me from writing. From being me.
In other words: I’ve made the classic mistake. I read my own press clippings, got too invested in what this was becoming and forgot there are words to be put on the page. Ideas to be wrestled with. Mistakes to be made in public.
It’s spilled over into my personal life, trying to shape myself into the things that people around me want me to become. Trying to figure out what I want to become.
I’m working on correcting the first part. Here’s how I’m trying to fix the second. We’ll see about the rest of my life.
Glee: Somebody to Love
Glee: Gold Digger
Glee: Don’t Stop Believing
Glee: Go To Rehab