As I sit here inspired to write yet another belly button-gazing post about where I am in my writing journey there’s a part of me that wishes I could just be one of those people who never really thinks about things.  You know the ones.  They just get out there and tumble through life, never stopping to pause or think or reconsider…

Must be nice.

Unfortunately, I have never, ever been that person.  I have been the type to pick a path and stick to it stubbornly until things work out.  That I can do.  It’s how I survived the last two years of college.  And the two years I spent getting my MBA.

But those were concrete paths with concrete results.  Pass x number of courses and here’s your degree.

Writing, though…

Writing makes me stop and think a lot and question what I’m doing.

It’s like throwing things into a dark pit in the hopes that eventually you’ll fill the pit enough to be able to cross over to the other side but you have no idea how deep that pit is or how much you need to throw in there or even what’s on the other side once you succeed.  (From what I hear, another pit.)

And everyone once in a while I think about stopping.  About just not writing anymore.  There are other things I can do with my free time.  Like finally get around to watching Stranger Things.  But then I wonder how close I am to filling up that pit.  Maybe it’ll just take one more story.  Or one more novel.

And I am proud of what I’ve written.  I do feel accomplishment in that.

I just wish I could write more of it without constantly stopping and asking myself why I keep writing.  What’s the point?  Why do I do this?

I don’t want to be famous.  If I were famous and that interfered with my life in any way I’d be annoyed as heck.  But I don’t just want to write for me either.  I want to put what I’ve written out there.  But why?  It’s not to make money.  I have easier ways of doing that.  It’s not for accolades.  I’ve never been a huge fan of someone else telling me I’ve done a good job.  It’s not to communicate or open a dialogue.  I tend to get a bit cranky when someone wants to debate things with me.  Maybe it’s to teach and share?  Maybe?

Or because I have to many free hours in my day?  I am not one of those people to skip sleep just to get in my writing.

I don’t know.

At this rate, if I’m not careful I’m going to end up writing a novel with a main character who is a writer struggling through a mid-life crisis.

Anyway.  My apologies for burdening you with my existential angst.  It’s just that I think I’m in the mushy middle equivalent of the new writer’s journey and it’s an annoying place to be and it unfortunately prompts me to write blog posts instead of getting on with the next novel already.

Ah well.  Onward and upward and let’s hope this next thing I throw into the dark chasm is the one I’ve been waiting for to…do something.