When I start something new, I go at it 110%.

When I started taking music lessons again, I spent way too much money resorting my clarinet, buying new music, finding a great music teacher. Because I work at a school and get home about two hours before anyone else, I set aside an hour of that time each day to practice. And let me tell you, for about six months, I did just that. I was starting to actually feel comfortable with playing again when I started sluffing. I’d find little things to distract me or I’d go on a trip and not take my instrument. Then I got sick over Christmas and took about a month to get better. Then I got sick again for a couple of weeks. Now I haven’t played for about four months.

I get really gun ho about reading my scriptures or writing in my journal. I could be really consistent for years at a time, only to go cold turkey for the next year. It’s a good thing I’m not a smoker or a drinker—I’d be really great a quitting only to pick it up again five years down the line.

I went to college right after I graduated from high school and did really well my first year. Sure I took classes at three different colleges across the United States and I always struggled in the winter term, but I had scholarships and friends. Most of my professors liked me, and I could always find a good job doing in my field of study to help me stay afloat financially. But then with 10 credit hours to go, I dropped out. I tried doing Internet classes but could never find the motivation to finish them.

So now I’m leaving for school in just over a week, and I’m trying to stay on top of things. I’ve emailed my professors to get booklists and syllabi and advice. I calculated just how much time I will need to spend doing homework for each class each week (nine hours for media law compared to three hours for basic math). I even entered in all of the homework assignments and their due dates into my desktop calendar and drew up a weekly study and class schedule that includes “Free Time” and “Group Work.”



How long to you want to bet this will last? I give myself until midterm.

I think this personal pattern is what scares me the most about becoming a writer. I want it so bad, and maybe I’m even good at it. But will I stick with it? It’s not like I’m this lazy person who never finishes anything—I’ve done a lot of really cool things in my life, and most of my friends would even say I’m dependable. But it terrifies me to think I might not finish something I want so badly.

Here I have given myself until August to finish this manuscript. I really do have a good start on it, and I am constantly doing research and jotting down notes and running dialogue in my head. But in the back of my mind, this little voice keeps questioning if I will stick with it. Will I be able to come up with an ending? Do I have the ability to see it through? Can I keep coming up with scenes that will keep people engaged and new metaphors and similes that will keep the writing consistent?

This is one of those self-doubts I find hard to admit. I’m normally a really confident person, and I don’t admit to many personal weaknesses, especially in a public forum. But this one has me so concerned at times I find it all-consuming. Maybe I find myself needing a little validation. Or maybe if I really want this blog to be about my journey to becoming a published author, I feel I need to express the good and the bad.

Or maybe I’ve found more truth in Abraham Lincoln’s saying than I fist expected. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

Am I trying to fool myself?