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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Microstory 349: Self-confidence

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Physical Independence

My self-confidence waxes and wanes through stressors and  successes. For instance, I’m not completely certain that I’ve just used those two terms right. But I’m going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and not look it up, because I have to trust that I know what I’m doing. I’ve always considered the moment I became a writer to be when I learned that I was failing 8th grade science. I had wanted to write about science, but since that was out, all I had was the writing part. Over the next two years, I experimented with fanfiction while trying to absorb what I could from my predecessors. It was at that point, and that point only, that I felt comfortable calling myself a writer. I’ve spent countless hours since then honing my skills; reading, writing, and failing. I’ve tried out all different genres, including dreaded poetry. And honestly, I’m damn good. No, I’m not as flowery as Dickens, or as epic as Tolkien, or as iconic as King. But I get how words work, and I’ve developed techniques to bend them to my will, rearranging them in unusual but still understandable ways. I don’t have an example of this for you as proof, because these are short essays, but I do have evidence of my gratuitous use of the comma, as you can see. That’s part of my style, as are emphatic sentence fragments. Love. It took me quite a long time to nurture my self-confidence, and to know so inescapably that writing is what I’m supposed to be doing, even if I have to do something else to make real money. It’s come at a cost. I’ve neglected other aspects of my repertoire for it, allowing myself to be lax in my studies of other subjects. But I’ve recently worked to improve on these other things, and I was ultimately able to do so because of my self-confidence. Now I know that I’m a decent human being, I can become better. Too much self-confidence can be dangerous, but never more than none at all. For sure.

Self-expression

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