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| sunrise over Tongyeong, South Korea |
I don't think I'm a writer. "Writer" has always been a part of my identity ever since I was a kid. I've planned countless novels and started writing a few, but have never finished a first draft. I've participated in two NaNoWriMo's (National Novel Writing Month) but didn't complete either. The furthest I got was 30k words on my second try. No, wait. I think I got to the 25 days mark my junior year of high school but gave up for some reason. I can't even remember but that's not the point.
The point is that I don't think I'm a writer. I'm definitely not a poet. I participated in National Poetry Writing Month in April and got about two weeks in before forgetting to continue. My poems are complete shit (this isn't me being self-deprecating; poetry is a SKILL that takes a lot of study and practice) but it was cathartic and it felt good producing words even when I knew they'd be shit. Not caring felt good.
I say I'm not a writer because I don't write often. Now there is a debate on whether you're a writer or not based on how often you actually write but we're not getting into that right now. I actually really like the last two posts I've posted on here (which I won't link to because I'm L A Z Y!) and I do see myself improving as the years go by, which I'm proud of considering how rarely I actually produce anything.
But that's the thing. Writers produce. But I think I'm still in my consuming stage of life. Which is GOOD. I think our twenties especially are supposed to be about consuming. To not assume that I know anything about the world. To soak up and absorb every detail and experience I can. Who has the TIME to write, to retreat into my skull and pull out the bits that actually make sense, when I have so much living to do. So many people to talk to. So many places to see. So many books to read. God! There are so many books I want to read! (It saddens me to think that the human life span is not long enough to read all the books on my Goodreads to-read list.)
So I don't think I'm a writer, not yet anyway. I have a feeling I will be someday though, so I'm going to spend my time collecting as much material for her as I can. I hope she's more capable of making sense of all the complexities of human life than I am because man is it hard.
Godspeed, Future Writer Victoria, I wish you the best. Now it's time for me to go out and give you something to write about.