Permanence

Sometimes I have a confidence problem. I think that I’m not good enough, my writing isn’t good enough, that no one will ever want to read something I created. I look at all the time I’ve spent over the past seven months – hundreds of hours – and wonder if it’s all a waste of time, if I could have spent it better with family and friends, doing paid work, or hell, maybe cleaning up a bit around here.

And then something inside me, the part that made me start in the first place, that won’t let me keep this story inside my head, says who the hell cares?

Today I got this to remind me of that, in the dark moments when I wonder if I should give up.

Part of a quote from French writer Emile Zola: “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”

I will not be silenced by my own self-doubt. I will not live an ordinary life by failing to try to achieve what I’m capable of. I will be bold.