Writer = insanity?

Sometimes I hate being a writer.

And I think that's because I hate the subjectivity of it all, am still trying to learn how to write simply for me and no one else.

But that's kind of the problem too, isn't it? When you wanna be a professional writer, you have to remember who your audience is. There is no writing for yourself. It's always for a publisher, an agent, an editor, an assistant. And even then, just because your publisher thinks your work is fantastic doesn't mean an agent will have the same opinion.

So how can you ever be sure that you're any good?

I've always believed my brain was kind of wired and trained to be a writer. I grew up devouring books, unconsciously memorizing words, taking pride in learning sentence structure. I've never had a problem losing myself in a story, whether on a page or on the silver screen. I'm reflective, sometimes to the point of madness.

But then again, all writers are kind of mad to an extent, aren't they? You spend most of the time in your head, sorting out characters, words, phrases, structure---the list is endless.

But I'm not sure that I have a mind that's ever prepared for what comes afterward. The uncertainty, the lack of objectivity. I consider myself open-minded, but I also think in one-track black and white with little room for any grey area. Just because Person A thinks I'm great doesn't mean a damn thing because Person B may think it's complete garbage.

So who am I to believe, really? How do I keep writing and bending and weaving when the insecurity is always there, gnawing and burrowing?

And do you ever stop growing as a writer? I wonder if there's a time when you peak, when you just stop learning and tweaking and fixing and it's still not really good enough.

I talk to other writers and it seems like we all kind of struggle with the same things. We're masochists, really--the whole lot of us. We keep moving, keep pushing, keep writing, even when we wanna rip our hair out because the words aren't coming as fluidly as we'd like or our vision didn't come to fruition the way we'd thought it out in our heads.

Sometimes I think that's all we really know how to do, all we really can do--keep writing.

Because as every writer knows, there's not really another option. Putting the pen down or closing the laptop isn't an option.

We might be crazy to do it, but we're even crazier without it.