Endless Ink Spots

Ink splatters on a page
Are hopeless fingers
Wasting their days writing -
What does it mean?

I used to be a writer. When I was 13, I decided that when I grew up, I would be a famous novelist like J. K. Rowling. I created my story; a member of an ancient race of mentally superior beings goes bad and must be killed by the Chosen One. I wrote thousands and thousands of words for my story. I did tons of research into the art of novel writing and just writing in general. I took classes. I practiced and I practiced my writing. Eventually, I was even good at it.

But it wasn't enough.

I wanted nothing less than perfection. I wanted my books to wield their own powerful sense of being. I wanted them to be alive and personal and full of color. I wanted my readers to cling to their pages, breathing in the smell as though trying to suck in the atmosphere. I wanted to be placed in the Literary Hall of Fame next to the likes of Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephen King, J. R. R. Tolkien, and of course, J. K. Rowling. I wanted to achieve immortality through my words.

This was an ideal I could not reach. I think I knew that from the beginning, but I clung stubbornly to my ideal. In the words of J. R. R. Tolkien's hobbit, it was precious to me. Still, you can't sleep forever. One day you have to wake up from the dream. My waking up was slow, reluctant, and painless. It was a gradually drifting away pervaded by the kind of bittersweet sorrow that follows things lost. I was distracted. The notebooks began to gather dust, the pencils grew dull, the saved files were not renewed.

I don't write seriously anymore. I just write for fun. Mostly I just have this little blog here for blurbs and vignettes and whatnot. In the end though, all the learning I had during my writing phase paid off. I got full credit on the english related sections of the SAT (except for the essay...I dunno what happened there). I do well in all my english classes. I occasionally write something, a piece of a story, but I never show anything to anyone. I never will. Maybe one day, though, I'll go back to writing.