Special?

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I've noticed that I have some kind of innate belief in myself that I am somehow special. Regardless of the fact that I am dependent on other people for emotional support which I often don't get I still believe myself to be special. I remember when I was young someone told me that a famous prophet had propheside that I would be a very wealthy person. Ever since then I've wondered just how my life would turn out that I could become wealthy (which is funny because I've never been a very religious person).


I've looked into many possible career paths and the only thing I seem to be able to do is write things that make people laugh. I used to have a good talent for writing which I've tried to pick up again. I'm attempting to write a book, one page a day. I'll probably be done in a few months. I've noticed that even my writing isn't as great as it used to be, probably because I had stopped writing for more then a year (I used to try to write stories but would never finish). But even then, somehow I have some belief in myself that when I complete this book somebody will want to publish it and it will be successful. But then I look at my track record, I've never gotten this far into writing a book before, I've never been very good at anything in particular (some people say I have a talent for writing, I tend to think they just lack skill or understanding of it, or maybe they are being nice).


They only productive thing I've ever done before is cheer people up. I usually know when things are bothering other people and on occasion I have been able to help other people (usually its obvious to everyone I'm just the only person thats not to emberassed to ask people if something is wrong).


I'm kind of scared right now. I'm making sure that I write a page every night (If I don't force a qouta on myself I don't get things done). There is a part of me that says that when I complete it somebody will have some genuine interest in what I've written. Theres another part of me that doubts any skills I have, and says that the people that have encouraged me up to this point are just being nice.


I'm worried that I'm really not that great at writing, and sometime a few months from now I'll find that my work is utter crap. If that happend I don't know what I'd do. I'd have a feeling of complete worthlesness, I feel writing is the only thing that I have any actual skill for. If I can't get this published when its done, then I don't have any skill or any future in writing. I can't count the number of books that I've read that were dreadfully borring, and I'm writing a book that to me would be interesting. If this doesn't work out, if I don't have the skill in this that I think I have, what then what will I do with my life?


As always, another post I've made from simply feeling lost.

If you're writing a page a day, you're writing. If you're writing something you would find interesting to read, that's a good guess.

There's no predicting how others will respond to what you've written when you're done.

Take a look at the background on some writers you admire. Not too many of them became instant successes as soon as they finished their first book.

I took your advice I began to do research... Apperently publishing a book is about as hard as writing one. At least according to random sites online whose accuracy I won't know for some time, it seems pretty hard to get a book published if I don't know somebody or have very much of my own money to make an investment. I'm finding that just like everything else in this world writing is more about polotics and who you know or what you can convince people of outside of a book then what you can write inside of it.


I just hope that when I do finish with this book I can find a publisher that I can "sell myself" to. I've been reading more average books lately, normally I just read books that are of interest to me. But yesterday I went down and bought a few average looking fantasy/fiction/science fiction books and have been reading them. Honestly the books didn't stink but I couldn't believe some of the things writers get away with. A number of the sentences in one of the books didn't match up. I mean, I understood what he was saying but he'd leave little words out of sentences like of/and/when that would make for an easier read. Another writer never put anything in between chapters to seperate when he's changed charecters. I read this horrer book, one of the resident evils. I was kind of ticked, in the beginning of each chapter it tells the time but he constantly switched between charecters in different places with nothing in the book that showed that was happening. I like when it does something like


***Later that night*** or ***Elsewhere*** or ***Back in the lobby we find our heroes are***


I found a lot of things were wrong with these books that I was reading that made them unecessarily complicated and I've never published anything. These books made me feel better about my writing skills, but it made me wonder how far they had to go to get these things done. Anyways, I've decided I'm going to make myself a website and put some of my short stories up on it. Maybe I'll be able to use it as a refence when I get to this book complete.

Magazines are said to be the best way to get started. Something like eighty percent of magazine articles are freelance written. It saves the publishers having to pay writers benefits and all that other stuff. They just buy the articles or stories.

A few of them pay good, but most of them dont, but most people considering buying stuff you've written want to see something you've published.

There's quite a few science fiction and fantasy magazines.

Writer's Market is a good source on how the publishing process works. It's a book that comes out annually, and they also have a website.