Because You Love It

Not in my wildest imagination did I ever think I’d want to be a writer. Growing up, I adopted the identity of an artist. That is, I thought of myself as a traditional drawing artist. It started when I was very young with tracing, then eyeball-copying comic books, and went on from there to composing my own images. Countless hours of my youth were spent hunched over a drawing table with music in the background. At first, I wasn’t good, then over time I was.

I came to writing in the middle-season of my life. A work friend told me about a writing project they started years ago that was coming to a close. I learned of a bunch of writing resources from him and helped as an alpha reader on his project.

As I dove into writing stories, I recognized the structural tools for rendering universes from imagination. Outlines and skeletons became realized characters in believable while unrealized worlds. It’s all the art of storytelling, but in different mediums.

The pride part of all of us want to be good at the things we put our time into. I put a lot of time and effort into writing my first novel-length story. When you put that much into a thing, you want to feel it was worth it. But by what measure do we judge what worth it is?

My first novel was an experiment. Am I equipped with enough storytelling tools to write long-form stories? Getting to the end of it after multiple years of effort I found myself somewhat defeated by all the areas I felt deficient. “My prose isn’t nearly as elegant as that author,” I’d find my inner voice tell myself. “I could never imagine an incredible scenario like that,” I’d hear myself think while watching some well done show or film. I’ve heard it said before:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Unknown

Too true. I think when you’ve done a creative thing, there is no stopping making a comparison with what’s out there. It’s a fertile field of inspiration that has the double-edge of cutting your most recent work down to size. The inner critic latches onto comparison like a moth to a flame. Mine certainly does. I might as well be voluntarily standing in a pool of gasoline while holding a torch.

If you’ve gotten to this point holding your breath for the magic life hack to revel in others work while not comparing it to your own, you might want to take a breath. I don’t have it.

What I do have is encouragement of a thought I’ve been holding onto lately. Whatever you’re into that you feel like you’re not great at yet, it’s important to remember the “yet”. People do all kinds of things not because they are great at it, but because they enjoy doing them. So do it not to be great, but to get better. Whether it’s writing, or art, or climbing mountains, or painting them, do it for the fun that it is. Take the comparison out and remember you do it because you love it.