There are times when my goal is within reach. I can see it clearly enough and I even know what needs to be done to accomplish it. Those are the times that I am secure in the knowledge that I will get there. There are other times when I know the goal, but figuring out how to get there is, well obscured. That seems to be my theme as of late. I know where I want to be, and I even know what is required to get there.

Do you ever doubt yourself? I don't mean the shallow little doubts like whether or not you will make it to work on time or if you will be able to get dinner ready before company arrives. I'm talking about the deeper doubts. The doubts in your ability to accomplish something. I find myself fighting that a good deal lately. Doubt is an evil thing. It has forced me to be honest with myself on a level that is uncomfortable.

I have commented more than once that I love to write. That is something that I believe we all share or else why would we really have a blog. I know that we blog for different reasons, but if you think about it we all must like to write our thoughts and feelings to some degree or we just wouldn't do this. Now some enjoy it more than others (Kristy and Tina are really good examples) and are even much better at it than some of us. I could name a dozen blogs that I currently read that should be published (One of them is published YAY Rachel!).

In a post back a ways I mentioned where I saw myself 10 years from now. One of the things I mentioned was taking my shot at being published. That is a lifelong dream of mine. I was a weird child and so much of my enjoyment came from the written word that it's hard to express. I was either reading a great new story or writing one, but in either case I was happy when language was involved. See a story is freedom. It's like an open map, and you get to decide how to fill it in. When you read a story, the characters are described but you get to decide what they really look and act like. You get the blank figures and fill in what they are really like in your own mind. I managed to miss a few assignments in school because I was busy reading or writing instead of doing my homework. Blame my grandmother, since she is the one that gave me a love for reading. Besides wouldn't you rather read The Martian Chronicles than do a boring ol' science worksheet.

Back to my remnant of a point. I write every night to some degree. I don't always work on my story, but most nights I am doing some form of work towards it. Be it a little research or even a few chapters. What is really troubling is when I go back and decide that I don't like what I wrote. DOUBT has reared it's ugly head and forced me to make a choice. Keep it or dump it, and it's usually the latter. I have about 12,000 words of a story and I'm sure I've written over 150,000.

Tonight I was reading through a good deal of blogs. Some were happy and a few were pretty friggin' sad but the one thing they all had in common is they were complete. The person that made the post decided they were going to follow through with what they had to say. I decided my story will become like my blog. I'm going to just do it (to borrow a phrase).

So thank you to all of you that offered up different ways for me to avoid writer's block and thank you to those of you that have given me a boost of confidence. I hope that I too can one day say I'm published. If not I will still say I tried and it didn't work out. At the very least I will know that it wasn't lack of effort that kept me from my goal...

Now where is my pencil?