writing insecurities

Today is the last day of January 2012.  It is also the day my editorial paper for my English 3 paper was due.  Let's not forget, today was also the day that my arthritis decided that it hadn't come around much and decided to kick my ass so hard I ended up staying in bed crying myself to sleep instead of going to school.  Yup, what a great way to end Jaunary 2012.  Don't worry though, this isn't going to be the end of today.

Although I did spend the majority of my day in my bed whimpering in pain, and the other half sitting on the couch watching Formual One Racing for no real apparant reason, I did something I've never done before.

As I said, my editorial paper was due in English today.  My teacher doesn't take late papers, which is understandable since the last three years she's taught at MHS juniors just didn't show up on due day thinking they could get out of it.  I made it extremely clear to my dad that he was in charge of taking my paper, research and other needed items into the school and give to the front desk.  I pressured him so much he kept repeating what I said to him before he left for his doctor appointment.

I've had mixed feelings on this editorial.  Not only was it my first editorial that I wrote, but I was ill the day that everyone picked topics so the ones I wanted were gone and I was left with the bottom of the barrel scraping around for something somewhat interesting to research and write about.  I ended up with a topic over milk, which does sound funny I know, but it intrested me enough considering me other options so I chose it.  I became extremely frustrated when I couldn't figure out how to sort through the almost meaningless research I had found, and even more frustrated when I began to actually write the paper in class and my teacher offered no real support.

The thing with me is this, I love to write. I enjoy writing papers for schools, they don't bother me.  I'll put a lot of work into a project and when I turn it in I become so overly anxious and nervous that it's all I think about.  Even with just free writing, I'll write for twenty minutes with no filter in my brain to see where my imagination will take me.  Then, instead of sharing it I push it away into the files of my laptop to never been seen again.  Even when it comes to blogging I second guess my abilities when I post something.  I wonder if I wrote that to the best of my abilities or if I just half assed it and should delete it to just forget it ever happened.

I'm sure that several people feel similiar, that they work really hard on a project and then fear for rejection or something similiar.  It really upsets me though.  I love writing so much, and it's become ever so apparant in the last few months.  With working on the Secret Book project, it makes me nervous already, and I'm only within the first five chapters of the book.

What I did today though, it took a lot of talking to myself to do it but I did it.  I put my editorial on Writing.com for the whole interwebs to see.  I won't lie, I was extremely nervous when I pressed the saved button even though I knew I should be confident in my hard work and writing.  I then left the website for a hour or so and focused on some other things.  When I went back, I was shocked to find that I had two reviews on my editorial, both of which where informative and offered very good advice in how to tweak a few things and urging me to continue to write.

Just those two reviews changed my thinking on my abilitiy as a writer.  I know I'm not the best that I can achieve, I still have a lot of work to do to better my writing skills.  I also know that not everyone will like what I produce, and that's fine.  I feel a lot better now in more ways than I can describe, taking that plunge and hitting save was what it took to show myself that the things I produce aren't all that bad.

Out of all this, it made my day considerably better and gives me the push I needed to keep on writing.

If you feel so inclined to read my editorial, it can be found here.

Now, I just need to push through my reading and tackle that book report for Topics.

days until MDT: 4
days until Valentine's Day: 14
days until graduation: 108