People that are normal don’t really get popular, or at least their stories don’t. I hear about how Tom Morello practiced his guitar ten hours every day. He would even pause the timer to go to the bathroom. Brandon Sanderson wrote books at his night job working at a hotel. He may not have published his first book until he was thirty, but by that point he had written around seven novels. If I consider myself ‘gifted’ and ‘a protege’, shouldn’t I be showing symptoms of such greatness at this point? There are old actors making a lot of money right now, sure, but I would challenge you to find an actor above the age of sixty that hasn’t been an actor for at least twenty years.

So I tell myself I have time. But at the same time I feel as though I’m falling behind. I feel like most of the famous people these days have been given the seed of a dream and the water of motivation to expand on that. Where do I find that water if I don’t wake up every morning wanting to sit down and bleed my heart over my keyboard? If I tell myself that “I’ll find it sooner or later” is that what I really believe or is it wishful thinking that makes it easier for me to put it off? Is my putting it off going to make me snap at the age of forty and crank out novels on a monthly basis?

All-in-all, I don’t really care what I have to do today. I just want to die happy, and, hopefully, extend that happiness as far back on my timeline as possible. Every writing advice forum and podcast I listen to says that no advice is as important as simply sitting down and writing, but saying that isn’t enough to spark my motivation.

I guess life is all about the mixed messages it sends. Take your time, but do it as quickly as possible. I understand that diligence and writing even when I’m not motivated to do so is the path that is more likely to lead to success, but if people are telling me to take my time, and go down the other path, are they trying to tell me that that path leads to success, too? If that’s the case, what’s the point? If both paths work, why bother even trying? One path is obviously harder than the other, but if they lead to the same place then nobody would be diligent.

So if these assumptions are true, maybe I’m of a weak will when I am choosing the easier path. And by going along with everybody else, I am not unique, which is the last thing you want to be in this world.

I’m not actually as cynical as I sound in this post, but today I’m simply writing what’s on my mind. I really do think that someday I will be successful, whatever that means. I think someday I’ll find that water of motivation and discover the path I was really meant to walk. What I’m really saying is that I wish I knew right now. But as I said, life is never so simple.