Family Values

I think that everyone basically have a love-hate relationship to their close family. On one hand you love them to death, you grew up with them, you've shared the same jokes and lived under the same roof and have many mutual experiences and you know their behaviors and choices of words like the back of your hand. On the other hand it's not very common that everyone in the family shares the same interests, quite the opposite; and it's been said many times that your friends are the family you got to choose. And even though I love my family very much - it's still going to be somewhat of a relief to be around friends, to travel, to have a couple beers, to write and have coffees until the dead of the night and just not really give a shit about anything. Who's in favor? I am! That does kind of make me crave a coffee, I might just have some, hell, it's only 10 PM and hell, I don't start working tomorrow until 4.


Like my dear poet friend Roccari, I'm currently struggling with some writer's doubt and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it. I've got the idea, the background and basic plot all thought out for the short story contribution I am making for the Metro 2033 short story contest; and still when I write on it, all I want to do is scrap it and start over (which violates the very writing tips I myself posted here not so long ago, oh, the irony), and still it never really feels as if I can get it the way I want it. I'm hoping that writing for all these contests will teach me a thing or two about letting a piece go and not overwork it anymore, that it might still be good enough to submit to a contest. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I either have to write it as a masterpiece right away, or I'm unworthy for any competition; which, of course, isn't a very nuanced image of actual reality. There are plenty of people who, for one, write mediocre pieces and win contests of the like with them; and secondly, there're plenty of people who don't feel the pressure to write a masterpiece or overwork it down to the last detail; but who sees the contest announcement, gets inspired, writes their piece and submits it. I'd like to be one of the latter people... or at least I'd like to have a similar attitude towards these kinds of contests. I think that a writer still always has to have the will and desire to improve, or they won't go anywhere. But there's a limit you reach when perfectionism only slows progress, perhaps even brings it to a halt.


POET IN THE SUPPOSEDLY EGOCENTRIC BUT ESSENTIALLY ONLY APPRECIATIVE JAR