Starting fresh

It's literally been years since I posted anything in this blog. It's what all the cool kids are doing so I figured I'd give it a try too. Someday I'll spice this up and make it look more interesting, but for the time being I'll just babble.

It seems the purpose of my existence is to come up with ideas, not so much to act on them. I'm at a stage in my life where I'm really starting to understand who I am, and in the process it makes me wonder what I should be doing with my life. I'm 31, I'm married with children, I work full time for the government in a very tedious position that I'm nonetheless grateful for, because it definitely beats not working at all. Still, I feel like an animal taken from the wild and caged in a zoo...you can take the animal out of the wild but you can't take the wild out of the animal, and in my case, the 'wild' is my creative desire.

Every day I move forward on a story I develop. I steal time from my employer, my family and even from myself by staying up extremely late, to work on my art and writing. I believe my ideas are strong and solid, but my problem is they're all so good I can't decide which one to focus on most. Even though right now, at this moment, I'm actively pursuing one concept, it's an everyday battle to keep outside influences from pushing me in another direction.

And I wonder if I'm right or wrong. See, I'm blessed enough to have supporters online as well as off who appear to have a lot of confidence in what I'm trying to create. They seem to believe I'm capable of expressing great things. But so far, I've been a disappointment, at least to myself. I wrote and self published a book, but I can't muster up the interest and drive necessary to prepare a decent draft for literary agents and try to get the book to the next level. Worse, all my people tell me that the central character of this book is my best work, and they want to see her more and more. Meanwhile, my creative drive pushes me in another direction.

The concept I'm working on now is humongous. Several characters, intertwining storylines, a unique "magical future" along the lines of Star Wars (but nothing like Star Wars, if that makes sense) and an extremely complex narrative make the development an extremely convoluted affair. Yet I love working on it, but feedback on the work I've expressed has been mediocre at best.

I've been working very hard to try to push myself to stay focused, stop worrying about what might or might not be the best idea and just go forward until I finish something, but even that line of thought has its drawbacks. If I just push and push something that even I don't have a great deal of confidence in, doesn't that in turn guarantee I'll waste months, even years developing something for nothing?

But if I always think like that, I'll never get anything done. I have to keep reminding myself as to why I came up with the concept I did. I just keep thinking it shouldn't be this hard.

Is it right to ask others what they think? If I can't decide for myself, should I ask others, or should I just keep going through the motions?

Well, this is starting to drag out, so I'll end this here. I'll post again another time.