So I’m having a self-pitying moment, and since I’m just getting this crap off my chest by writing it down, there’s no reason for anyone else to read this entry. I should probably find somewhere else to write it down in that case, but whatever — If I write it here, new entries will drive it out of my sight; whereas if I make a file for it on my computer, I’ll eventually have to deal with it again.

OK, I know that I have talent. I won’t explain how I know because that would just be too arrogant. I could spend forever discussing that particular failing of which I am so often guilty, but I won’t waste my own time any more than I already am. The point is that I know I have skills. Still setting the matter of arrogance aside, I’m fairly sure I have them to a somewhat high degree. Somewhat. That’s the high end of moderate or the low end of high. I’ve been aware of this for quite some time, and anyone who’s close to me knows that I never hesitate to praise my own talent. Arrogance again, and I’m not even condemning it. Good stuff. Well. So I know how good I am, and I’ve known for as long as I can remember — which is the reason that for some time I’ve been wondering exactly why I don’t work harder at finishing some of my original works and trying for publication, which has been my lifelong dream, hasn’t it? I’ve been confused over the last few years as to why I write endless amounts of very good fanfiction and still have original novels sitting unfinished and unread on my hard drive. I usually wrote it off to a lack of ambition, as I’m in general a very lazy person, and certainly that’s a big part of it. But I realized today exactly why it is that I’ve never sent anything in to a publisher or why I don’t work harder to have something ready to send it. I can sum it up in a few words, but I need to explain it at length to get this all out of my system.

I have a lot of fanfiction. Pages and pages and pages and pages, just about all of which I consider very good, as fanfiction goes. Sure, just like everybody, not excluding the literary geniuses who brought us all the age-old classics, I have my obnoxious writing quirks — I don’t have an entirely clear concept of what they are, and nobody ever enlightens me, but I can sense them — but I tend to regard my writing as being in the upper levels of the fanfiction world. I’m satisfied with the level of response I get to most things I post, and since I’m always delighted to have a new review, it seldom strikes me that I might perhaps be getting less than some writers who aren’t perhaps as talented. When this fact does strike me, however, I tend to become sick with envy and what my mind, already established as being arrogant, considers righteous indignation. Obviously it’s easier when someone whose talent I consider equal to my own is getting more attention than I am, as I can say to myself, “Luck of the draw,” or “At least someone good is getting reviews.” However, sometimes I’ll stumble across someone who is unmistakably better than I am, and start leaning more towards the Luck of the draw idea (when it comes to those of us on my level) than the “At least someone…” It’s not a competition. It doesn’t even seem like a competition, and it never has. And yet I feel utterly defeated — and all the more pathetic as it never was a battle in the first place.

And the bearing all this has on my apparent lack of ambition? Well, the action that I’m supposed to have been taking towards my lifelong goal turns out, in my eyes, thus: put a lot of time, effort, and emotion into something, and offer it to a public that often gives attention copiously where it isn’t deserved, randomly where it is, and has at the same time attention-grabbers who without trying are far superior to me……… My circumstances would then be thus: publication because I’m inferior but I’ll sell; publication because I happened to hit the right publisher at the right time; or rejection because there are skill-levels above and beyond my own readily available. In short, I am afraid to try purely out of fear: either that my honest and high-quality endeavors are turned down because despite my level of accomplishment I am still not sufficient, or acceptance on uncertain terms as I either preyed upon the capitalism and fallen intellect of the consumer or beat out some other honest and high-quality work to attain my own end.

So, to sum this all up, I’m pitying myself because I’m an arrogant, selfish, cowardly spoiled brat who can’t handle real life or the real world. Good cause to be depressed, ne?

I add, in my own defense (my self-preservation instinct is overly strong: a sign of a true coward), that I would not be wallowing so deeply in these pathetic mental depths were it not for the fact that I’ve been trying to find a new job and it damn well seems like nobody will ever hire me. It doesn’t do much for self confidence when even Chuck E. Cheese’s won’t hire you. Actually, to put it bluntly, I feel completely worthless. The fact that I have to move back in with my parents and start to rely on them again doesn’t help. I know perfectly well that I’m not a worldly person and that I’m not the best at being responsible and taking care of myself — but I was, dammit! At least I thought I was. Guess it’s about time I admitted that I wasn’t. I need a new car, and I wasn’t ever going to be able to save up for one while paying rent. And even after that I’m sure there would be something. Maybe I should just admit that I’m a failure as an adult and I should just go back to kindergarten. Oh, I can babble on all I want about how I’m made for a life of intellectual pursuits, but unless you’re born into an aristocratic Elizabethan family or you have a rich doctor for a husband, that’s all just talk. I might as well be a little kid with a crayon drawing on the walls and calling it art for all the good I do to myself or anyone else.

I’ve forgotten where I’m going with this, and it’s turning into a bash-on-myself thing, which can’t be healthy (there’s that self-preservation instinct again). My summary up above is good enough, so I think I’ll leave it at that and go — ironically enough — try to write something. Eh, fuck.