Personal Experience: Fate is a Cruel Mistress

It is said that fate is a cruel mistress, and while that may be, I find writing to be the true sadist of the two. Unrehearsed and unpracticed, she will convince you otherwise; falsely building confidence and convincing you of a greatness that you might not have. The tide must be taken when it comes and when it came for me, with great effort and greater encouragement; I advanced – ignoring all apprehension. In the summer of 2003 an opportunity arose like no other, to review and critique a cornerstone of my youth, video games. Like many tales before mine, it was the hard work and tenacity that launched me from online to print and to traveling from coast-to-coast. My literacy skills helped to tame this personal demon to reach a published and, subsequently, quoted status because this meant that I had overcome the fear of writing and the worry of having others read what I had written and to help me to externalize my internal discourse.

Formal education could only take me so far, it is the experiences along the way and in life that built the confidence needed to temper the dread I felt when writing. As I write, my inner voice serves as both critic and supporter ,and it is this dichotomy that becomes the source of my writing fear; “This is perfect…”, leads to “just one more revision”, and ultimately landing on “this will never work, start over”. For me as a writer, I have to learn to look outside of myself and critically apply thought. Is this perfect? Have I stated my points, defended, and defined them? Or Does it truly need one more revision, and if so why? By placing myself in the mindset of my audience I can start to overcome these fears and find the voice that wants to be written down. To work towards my next great source of u...

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...t someone else would pay money to read what I had written and to reprint it for others to read as well. With that article I knew that, for me, writing was more about conveying my emotions and experiences in simple yet defining prose then it was about stringing together a clever stream of synonyms.

In a certain light, I can see myself as being the cruel mistress. I’ll never find a harsher critic than myself and it is this realization that ultimately gets me through the writing process. Sure others might rip apart my style and my flow, but as long as I feel like I’ve gotten my point out in a clear and concise manner in a way that I’m happy with, I’ve done my job. I’ve always viewed writing as art – subjective – so whom do I have to fear but myself? It is my continual writing that helped me overcome fear in the past and continues to help me overcome it in the future.