Self-Doubt

Sometimes, I get things right on the first try. More often than not, I do not. I don’t know whether most people are this way, or whether people other than myself tend to succeed at things the first time. I guess I don’t know for sure whether I’ve actually failed, sometimes, when I feel like I have. Perhaps I’m just being overly critical. It’s in my nature to criticize myself and my works. It’s hard to avoid.

For a while, when I started this blog, I would write a day ahead of time, and then edit what I had written and post it the next day. My work at that time was probably of a higher quality, but it’s hard to say. When I look back at things I’ve already done, they always seem better to me than the projects I’m currently working on. That’s another thing that’s part of my nature. Thinking I’m not as good as I used to be.

Today, I restarted the story I tried to start writing yesterday. I didn’t get very far yesterday, and I wasn’t happy with what I had written, so beginning anew wasn’t difficult. Nevertheless, it was a mistake. It’s a mistake I’ve made over and over again: I grow displeased because my project isn’t what I want it to be, so I restart it. I do that over and over again and never finish.

I’ve been writing and posting and successfully ignoring my self-doubt for so long now that this feels like a step back, but I can’t bring myself to post what I wrote so far today, and I’m having trouble finishing it besides. It’s another personal failing that I say, far too often, “maybe tomorrow,” but in the present moment, that’s all I can hope for my next post.

It’s possibly I’ll write something different than I intended. Maybe that’s what’s forestalling me. When I try to come back to something, whether it be a story involving Evran or the story of (code-name) Narblegab, and I haven’t written from that mind-set in a while, it’s very intimidating. It’s like I have to go back and research the story again, even though it sprang from my own mind. I grow removed enough from the self that wrote it that sometimes it feels like the work of someone else.

I like Evran, and I like the stories I’ve written about him. I want to live up to those stories with further content involving him. Maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself about them, but in a way I don’t want to fail him. The story has to be right, for him, and for Gleam. I’ll keep trying, or I’ll leave it alone for a while. I’m not sure which, yet.