I'm not getting any younger.
I'll be twenty two this summer. And with every passing moment comes the overwhelming realization that I am so far behind so many great writers who by my age had read more, written more, published at least something. I know many writers also did not, but it doesn't help the feeling that this will never happen for me.
One of my greatest fears is that I will never get published, never be the writer I want to be. I dread the idea of being that writer who just writes online, screaming mediocre lines at a disinterested world. Because that's what I am now and maybe that is all I will ever be.
This might be a bit vain but I want to be up there with Rowling and Pullman and Lewis and Barrie and, even Riordan now. I see things that I know aren't real but in my head it's like this spinning of so many possibilities, so many false but fascinating explanations for what I see. I want to write works that are a synthesis of Greek, Roman, and Norse myth, different histories, reality, and fantasy. That's what I believe great literature is, especially children's literature. Even though as an adult you know it is not true, it's so fascinating that you are compelled and pulled into it. It just has this appeal and spirit that no other literature has. That's what I want to write. I want to write something that makes my spirit just explode and flow out of me and into it in the way that my passion does for so many of these works that I love.
But I am going to be twenty two and what have I written? What do I have that is ready to be submitted? Am I even to the level that I can really submit anything?
And that answer is in two parts: no, and I'm not getting any younger. My birthday this year is going to be a bitter prodding.