Silver and bronze awards at the National Independence Festival for Creative Arts (NIFCA) suddenly weren't enough. Almost rabidly, I went back through my submissions wondering why they weren't good enough for gold, agonizing over sentences that - in my mind - went from perfection to long-winded garbage. Closing my laptop with a thud that resounded like a death knell in my ears, I felt like the validation had been anti-climatic at best.
And then I remembered that I always feel like this when creating. Why? Art is such a solitary process that, as writers, we always second-guess what we do and allow ourselves to get bogged down by this crippling fear of not being good enough. Then, when we finally slay that feeling, leaving it bloodied and broken on the ground, we put our work out into the world and wait for the accolades to flow in. Sadly, they also come with criticism.
I've said it again and again: the creative process is rife with far too many pitfalls and not enough mountains.
Not that I've finished this blog I'm going to get back to writing. After all, there are gold awards waiting to be won next year. :)
