Never Enough

Every now and then, I have the urge to write something.

I don’t mean blog posts, or essays, or anything else that I need to write for school. I mean long fictional works, epic narratives, stories that constantly brew in my mind. I watch TV shows, movies, and I play games, and I constantly feel the need to put my own stories out there, to somehow surpass the works of art that are so widely known and accepted…(or not so well-known and accepted. Whenever I read a terrible book, I also feel the urge to make something better.)

I’ve also learned that trying to create giant epic stories is very difficult, no matter what medium I’m working in. Writing is difficult, as I think in pictures, and text is difficult to visualize. Video games are incredibly painful to program and put together, and visual novels have a similar problem. And the one or two times I’ve dabbled in comic creation, I quickly lost my way and produced absolutely incomprehensible plots.

It was always a vicious cycle of enthusiasm, and then disillusionment.

Unfortunately, I’m not very good at speaking my mind clearly. The few works of long fiction I’ve produced have all been rather confusing, and my tendencies to completely screw up time lines doesn’t help, either. And now that I’ve taken a little leap and published some of my fiction online (and showed it to friends), the generally-confused reaction has made me hesitant to publish any more work. I can’t seem to be able to present my long stories in a way that’s actually sane, and my friends always tell me they don’t have the time to review my work, or even give me a sanity check.

I tend to hate the ‘too busy’ excuse for not doing something. I don’t think it’s a valid excuse, as it’s incredibly vague and usually untrue. If my friends aren’t going to read my work, and they tell me that they won’t, I’m okay with that…but if they agree to, and constantly excuse themselves by being ‘too busy’, then I get really frustrated. But I digress.

Either way, I’ve become reluctant to share my work with the world. I try, of course, and I always keep working, but it’s never good enough. We’re all taught that we can be whatever and whoever we want, to pursue our dreams. We’re all taught that we’re special enough to be recognized. I’m not sure how much of that is true.

The fact remains that I’ll probably achieve much more success as a computer engineer than as an entertainer or a writer; I’m better at the former, more passionate about the latter. But reality still ensues.

On the other hand, I was also taught that nothing is ever enough. I used to be satisfied with just finishing something, no matter how good or bad. And that soon wasn’t enough either; I needed feedback, craved some kind of attention, constantly tried to improve. No matter what, I’ve always been improving, and I can see that every time I open up my (embarrassing) work from a few years ago. Still, that is never enough.

I have the urge to create, only to be discouraged every time by my inability to make something great out of it. I know that that is a ridiculous expectation for myself, but what I can do reliably now is almost never enough to make me calm.

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