Inspiration comes in the darkest and strangest of places. Watching the appendices of The Lord of the Rings DVD, Fellowship of the Ring, and watching how Tolkien had developed his epic got me thinking. He exerted a lot of effort in designing the world, in understanding the characters and their history, in even developing the languages (which was his expertise and study, so there is no need to duplicate—as if you could duplicate that feat) of the world, Middle-Earth. He sat down, after having spent most of his lifetime developing this mythology, and started writing the trilogy. There was no planning, although there were probably plenty of drafts. The writing was almost an afterthought. He wrote it more for himself than anyone else. He wanted to share his vision, but, at the same time, understand it and see it writing. It was his hobby.

Which brings me, as most of your thoughts do, to what you’re doing. You’re trying to write. You’re actually thinking of leaving your job, your secure, good future job, and trying to do this professionally. To say to hell with all of this shit, I am not going to waste my time doing something that doesn’t interest me, and I’m going to instead sit in front of a computer and type away and see what comes. See what develops on the page and in my head. But my real fear, and I’ve told many people of it, is that nothing will develop. I will write pretty words that perhaps amuse or entertain, but there won’t be much behind those words, or even worse, the words won’t even come. I’ll fall into the same trap that I’ve fallen into in my drawing: I could look at the world and draw it; but when it came to drawing my own world, I couldn’t do it. I had nothing new to offer the world but a vision of itself.

That’s my real fear. Not know if what it is I’m going to write is worthwhile. Will it support whatever type of life I want for myself? Will I have the wherewithal to actually follow through with it, to spend the time developing my skills and sharing them with the world? This is all contingent on my actually having skills, and that’s what scares me. What if I don’t have them? What if I’m just pretending like I can do this? Talking with Nicole about writing has been helpful. She’s a different type of writer than me. Perhaps she’s better—hell she probably is better, but regardless of an ego-competition, her style is very different, more feminine. She writes from feelings, emotions. All writers write from there. You aren’t there yet. You don’t let your feelings (as if you’ve actually had feelings!) control your writing. You try to dip into the paint can of feelings, but usually it’s just for a quick stroke on the wall before you fill the rest with thoughts and happenings. You need to combine thoughts, happenings (and imagination!) with the feelings. Feelings are what ties your writing together. Look at these musings. What brought them about was a feeling you developed after watching twenty minutes of the Tolkien documentary.

Use those feelings. Use them to paint a picture. Let your mind wander, lose focus, and use your feelings as the medium to paint the walls. Then go back and use your brain to clean things up, to go back and make sure the paint stayed within the lines. Until you do that, you’ll not be writing to your full potential. You’ll not be truly sharing something that is entertaining and possibly a career.