A New Start

Barnell Anderson
4 min readDec 29, 2020

As I sit here gazing at the empty page and wondering what to write, I can’t help but think back on why I wanted to write in the first place. Looking back- I think my writing came from a place of wanting to create a new world for myself. I often had fantasies of what the perfect childhood looked like and I believe many of my random writings as a kid reflected that. I can remember naturally writing stories, random scribblings, and even songs at one point from the time I was able to construct coherent ideas and I knew then that I wanted to be a part of that world. I don’t think I ever thought it would be something I would excel at, but it was my passion, although never fully nourished or encouraged by the people around me. I had a light inside of me that I was able to keep alive, for a while at least, and in retrospect, I should have stuck with it more as I got older and gained new experiences. Now all these years later, I must admit that I am a bit disappointed in myself. As a college student who majored in English, I had all the chances in the world to not only hone my craft but to also find a direction as a writer. I think I have mostly honed my craft, sure there are perhaps some technical things I could be more knowledgeable of, but I know that writing is my thing; however, I don’t know my identity as a writer. I am on the path to understanding this aspect of myself as a writer, but I am still not there. I know what I like and I understand what I am good at, but I know that I need to focus on a few things and stick with them.
The other reason why I am disappointed in myself as a writer is that I don’t work at it nearly enough. There are times where I experience random spurts of energy and I write almost none stop, but typically, I seldom write. I don’t understand why. As much as I love the feeling of opening a document and either continuing on a story or even randomly exploring ideas, it’s difficult to sit down and simply do it. Writing comes naturally when I try, but 90% of the time I find any distractions to keep me away from it. I have a problem disciplining myself. I was driving to the store the other day and thought to myself, “the year is just about over and you have only finished two short stories”. I know that I could have done much more and I know that I have just spent another year not moving closer to my dreams. Maybe I just haven’t been ready, which I accept, but I still hate it.
I don’t often set New Year’s resolutions because the times where I have found success have been the years where I went in with a blank slate. Sure, I hoped for the best, but I didn’t set any specific goals, and those years were often some of the best. However, what I have recently realized is that at the root of me not having achieved many of my goals in writing, and in life in general, is that I have never been super goal-oriented. Looking back- the one goal that I, along with my family set, was to graduate college so I forgot to think about anything else. I have accomplished a lot in my life, although I sometimes forget it, in writing this, I realize that I don’t often set out to do very much. I think going into not only this new year, but what I am considering a new start is the perfect opportunity to experiment with legit goal setting and planning. As a writer, I should not only write every day, but I should also read a great deal. It is important to study writing and storytelling, and if I’m being honest, I also haven’t been the best about this since I finished graduate school.
My goal for the new year is to push myself to new limits. As a writer, I have many passions and I want to explore as many of them as I can. I want to write a novel and this will be my top priority, but I also have dreams of writing for television. TV has always been a major passion of mine, and I often find myself using the episodes as case studies. I plan to gain more training in script wring, but I hope to fully jump in with developing an idea and finding ways to pitch it. Besides this- I am returning to blogging. Blogging is something I have done one and off since high school and I find it to be a great way to express my thoughts, but I hope to stick with it for more than one year this time. Overall- I just want to find my way. I know that I am meant to be a writer, but I have to figure out how to retain the motivation to accomplish my dreams!

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