Imposter Syndrome

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
-Hemingway

Bleed. What a scary thought. The idea of sitting in front of the means in which you communicate words and bleeding your thoughts out onto the page. Fear. I think it holds me back from what I'm truly capable of. In this line of work, risk is damn near everything. You risk failure on the daily. You risk people not liking what you have to say, risk no one caring to listen. As a writer, you spew emotions out for the world to see; opening your veins and spilling the contents of what beats inside your chest. Fear is everywhere. But I guess at some point you meander past the ever so present anticipation of rejection, or the chances of those disliking your heart that is strewn about the page.

Your writing makes up who you are. Twenty-six letters arranged in a way that reflect your soul. 

I’m scared. I admit it. Fear weighs heavy on my chest. I am afraid of not being enough, not amounting to anything, becoming nothing but a big disappointment. Twenty three years young yet feeling like nothing but a restless failure. But who am I disappointing? Who am I doing an injustice? At the end of the day when it's all said and done, who is the one losing due to this fear?

Myself. 

In my recent days, I have encountered writers who bleed for the craft. It's truly a gorgeous yet torturous piece of them. The best and worst parts of what keeps them up into the late evening hours and early morning sunrises. Writing breeds true insomniacs. It makes up their entire. They welcome exposure, risk it all. They do it for themselves. There are all these ideas just clawing their way out of the chests of those so in love with what they are capable of. I want to be one of those people.

I want to create and inspire those around me. I want to inspire myself. To find something that you love with such great ferocity seems to be few and far between these days. I don't want to lose grip on the talent I was given. I don't want to avoid putting myself out there because fear keeps my feet cemented to the ground. I want to fight that fear. I don't call myself a writer because although I craft thoughts of substance, I still feel like there is a part missing. There is a part of my creative self needing to be discovered and brought to the surface. I believe it's to accept that I will fail at times, and to appreciate those failures and learn from them. Use them as experience and know that its okay and normal to fail sometimes. I will learn to bleed for the craft, and really get in touch with the inspiration and such that I pull from being human. 

I suppose in the grand scope of things I am coming to realize that maybe I am a writer, I do bleed for the craft. I put thoughts and ideas out allowing them to be evaluated by the world and hoping that others take away something positive. But I wish to be more, push myself past what I am doing now and truly do what I am capable.

It all starts somewhere, and that somewhere is here.