Why I write what I write 2

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the future. Even as a child, when I first started writing, I was fully aware that it was not an easy way to live. It wasn't easy to write a book that would sell well. I could see that every time I went to the bookstore and walked past aisles upon aisles of books that I had no interest in, and that no one else seemed to be interested in either. Today as I look upon this world of writing, as I tentatively dip my toes in the water, anxiety fills my soul. I become so incredibly terrified of what I am attempting to do that I can't help but ask myself "Am I doing the right thing?"

I want to say yes. I desperately want to, I beg to the universe that I am making the right choice, and I am met with... silence. Crushingly deafening silence. And as I continue to listen to that silence, a chill slips its way into my bones, into my chest, and it rips away the enthusiasm I have tried so desperately to hold on to. I am filled with fear that, perhaps, this is the wrong choice.

Perhaps this is the reason that, as of late, I feel that I am regressing. My writing feels weak, like it will snap under the lightest of tensions, and perhaps it is because I am afraid. Afraid of moving forward, afraid of falling back, afraid of staying at a standstill and never getting anywhere. But above all, afraid that what I once believed in is fading from my mind.

Above all, I want my writings to have happiness, and inspire happiness. Writing these things, these bitter, chilling things, makes me want to vomit. I can feel my stomach shifting, fighting against my actions, trying to tell me to stop before it is too late.

In school, we often read the "classic" stories. Thinking on them, I am struck by how often they left a similar taste in my mouth. Stories of betrayal, confusion, blindness, and a lone sense of hope which is systematically and irreversibly crushed, burned, and obliterated. Pages of text which I wanted to shred and set aflame before they could infest my heart. What little hints of hope they contained within their pages existed only at the expense of others, for the most common lesson I was taught was that happiness could only be gained if wrenched from the hands of others.

Perhaps I was simply missing the point, but this was what I saw, and I hated it. I loathed it with every fiber of my being. I vowed to make that change. There were so many stories I read in my own time where this was not the case, yet no one I talked to had ever heard of them. I accepted that I was alone in these endeavors, though I could not understand why, but I wanted to make that change. I wanted to show people that a good story was not defined by sadness.

I genuinely question if this is something anyone wants to hear. Surely there must be someone out there who believes in happy endings. Surely I am not alone in this. And if I can find a way to write for that person, to give them strength in their beliefs, to show them that they are not alone...

That is why I write.