![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Surrounded by success
Jun. 20th, 2017 06:14 pmI enjoy going to bookstores. I also hate going to bookstores.
The reason wasn't too clear to me until a few days ago. I'd gone to Barnes & Noble to check out the writing reference section. But I enjoy browsing other sections: romance, graphic novels, general fiction, and children's to name a few. If a cover or name interests me, I'll slide the book off the shelf and turn it around in my hands. Of course, I'll read the synopses to find out what the stories are about, but sometimes feeling a book in my hands helps me imagine actually reading the book and the mindsets or moods I'll have then.
But lately, I've been avoiding doing too much of that. I'll pick up a book, feel uneasy, then replace it. My head feels foggy, I get anxious, and I have to wander around until I inevitably find myself near the writing reference section. Only then will the feelings fade.
I finally figured it out. It's because the other books are finished stories. The kinds of stories I want to write and publish. I'm holding other peoples' successes in my hands, and it's intimidating and depressing.
The reference books would help me achieve success. They're comforting; they're teachers; they know that my works are still in progress, and they're not going to judge.
I know the other books don't judge, but when I hold a fiction book, there's an inner voice saying, "So, what have you done to finish a project?"
It would probably help if my current projects were actual books instead of webcomics, but those were the stories that stood out the most to me. The written stories have been put into brain storage, impatiently waiting for the day I'll drag them out.
I wish I could have had only one project to fret over.
The reason wasn't too clear to me until a few days ago. I'd gone to Barnes & Noble to check out the writing reference section. But I enjoy browsing other sections: romance, graphic novels, general fiction, and children's to name a few. If a cover or name interests me, I'll slide the book off the shelf and turn it around in my hands. Of course, I'll read the synopses to find out what the stories are about, but sometimes feeling a book in my hands helps me imagine actually reading the book and the mindsets or moods I'll have then.
But lately, I've been avoiding doing too much of that. I'll pick up a book, feel uneasy, then replace it. My head feels foggy, I get anxious, and I have to wander around until I inevitably find myself near the writing reference section. Only then will the feelings fade.
I finally figured it out. It's because the other books are finished stories. The kinds of stories I want to write and publish. I'm holding other peoples' successes in my hands, and it's intimidating and depressing.
The reference books would help me achieve success. They're comforting; they're teachers; they know that my works are still in progress, and they're not going to judge.
I know the other books don't judge, but when I hold a fiction book, there's an inner voice saying, "So, what have you done to finish a project?"
It would probably help if my current projects were actual books instead of webcomics, but those were the stories that stood out the most to me. The written stories have been put into brain storage, impatiently waiting for the day I'll drag them out.
I wish I could have had only one project to fret over.
