You Are Awesome. Did you know you are awesome?
When I was six years old, I had an epiphany…
Never doubt that you are an awesome writer. I will never doubt that I am, and here’s why. I was six years old when I had the epiphany that I’d be a great writer. Epiphanies AND awesomeness at such a young age? How humble. Admittedly being six and having epiphanies was a new experience.
To this day, I rarely have a pure epiphany; they’re just too profound to have all the time. This epiphany swept through me as I wrote my opus via pencil and paper. My handwriting was atrocious then and still is. I showed the story to my Teacher (I was secretly in love with her, and I forget her name, but such is the nature of young love) and my Mom and Dad and all my friends. I was so proud of this story! To this day, I don’t remember what I wrote, only that for a six-year-old, it was insightful and a bit funny.
All the big people and human larva told me I should be a writer! And YES, I felt it! I felt all the warm fuzzies, stars aligned, gremlins danced, Santa laughed in the background, small suns exploded in my mind, and I knew I was meant to be a writer! Years and years later, I still hadn’t written anything, and I ran from it because writing is hard work, and I was just a kid, and I would always be a kid. An eye-blink later, I grew up and had a mortgage complete with offspring of my own, and every time I’d close my eyes, my first epiphany would haunt me.
What happens when you close your eyes?
Do your dreams speak to you? (You are awesome)
My inspirations come in horridly normal ways. Profound thoughts always feel normal until I speak them aloud or write them down. I don’t have a booming voice talk to me. In fact, I rarely hear voices. That’s for crazy people. Usually, my muse is like an overweight ex-girlfriend nagging at me, a bit grating and profoundly mundane. She sounds a lot like this.
You are awesome. You should write. The thoughts you think are shiny and fun! You should write them down and make people think. Make them laugh and gross them out and capture their attention! You have gifts, and they must be expressed, and if you don’t, you will die soon… and won’t that be slightly sad?”
My epiphany chases me like a cartoon ferret racing toward a goblet of blood and milk. She never stops. When I write, others tell me, “With some polish and care, you could do great things with this!” They’re all well-intentioned people who tell me this. Ordinary people, average, and every day, they’re mostly family, friends, strangers online… and a handful of successful authors.
The nature of awesome writers
Odd traits they have, they tend to write a lot… funny that
I often tell myself I’m a writer, but writers WRITE, and they write more than witty responses on Facebook or cause flame wars on the inter-trons. Writers attack their work and manufacture manuscripts until they amass a body of evidence that they are writers. My status as a “writer” is a debatable point. As I pondered this fact the other day, I spotted this in my inbox:
318R Writing Class Offered by David Farland Online! Sign Up Here!
I like David Farland. He’s one of my favorite authors, I respect his discipline and writing style, and his classes have molded legendary authors. I see things like this all the time, and I know how to deal with them. I ignored the email. My epiphany beat me about the head every other hour, but I’ve learned to weather her effects. Ignoring became forgetting, and I went back to my routine. Ah, routine, normal safe, and predictable. Routine is dangerously COMFORTABLE and comes with injuries. I have to live with this whistling hole in the back of my head. It’s bothersome, and it slowly sucks the joy out of my life. While pondering this, I accidentally opened the email, and it destroyed my comfort in ignorance.
An email with greatness attached to it
Can you hide from the “You Are Awesome” phenomenon?
“Hi, Roy,
From 1999 to 2002, David Farland taught popular science fiction and fantasy writing class at Brigham Young University. Some of his students from those classes went on and made millions. Brandon Sanderson took it twice and has become one of the bestselling writers of our time. Dan Wells also took it and became one of the bestselling writers of dark fantasy of the past three decades. Stephenie Meyer took it and has sold over 100 million copies of her Twilight trilogy.
Now, just for the fun of it, Dave will teach the class online. His new workshop, “318R,” will feature much of the same content, only it will be better because, as Dave put it, “I’ve learned a lot.” It will also have the same assignments that Dave used. Students are asked to write three short stories or three chapters to a novel for critique. The class will be limited to 20 people and taught live on Saturday mornings from 10:00 to 11:00 AM MST. We’ll have a total of 30 classes, the classes are taped, so if you miss one, you can watch the tape, even repeat it if you like. The price for taking the course will be $360. The price for auditing will be $180. If you’re interested in attending, please email [email protected] with the word 318R in the subject header.”
I had $360! Yet, I was attached to these monies, and I had it earmarked for tools, computer parts, and materials for my latest Woodworking/Blacksmithing/New-Idea. Creating things brings me a lot of joy, but writing is something I’ve promised myself I will do… someday.
You are awesome, but does that stop mental breakdowns?
(Due to frequency, I’m quite used to them)
My epiphany screamed, “You Are Awesome! What are you going to do about it!?” Seeking comfort, I scooped up my cat. His name is Glerm. He’s a beautiful silver tabby with beaming eyes and a calm demeanor. He averages the combined intelligence of a rock hitting a brick, and I love him. I cuddled Glerm close to my face and asked, “What am I supposed to do, Glerm?” And like a crazy person, I spoke for my cat, saying, “You should do this. You should do this immediately and stop being scared of failure; this class will make you grow.”
But I didn’t, I asked my wife what she thought, and she said almost the same thing. My wife is like that a lot. Very wise, far wiser than my cat. I enrolled in the class, and I’ve been attending for a few months now. Many odd things have happened. Self-sabotage tried to run rampant. This didn’t feel like self-sabotage at the time, but it was. I had to build a website and finish writing assignments. Stretching all my mental fibers, I created glorious stories; I was in love with them, and they were horrible. I re-wrote them, and it hurt but growing hurts. I’d been an entitled brat. I kept telling myself that I was too good for this class, but in reality, it was solid gold, and I wasn’t (yet). It was edifying and foundational, and humbling. It was perfect.
You should check out David Farland’s 318R class. Click here if interested. (UPDATE – David Farland passed away eight months after I wrote this, 01/14/2022, and I will miss him dreadfully).
The Paradox of being a GOOD writer
The biggest room is the room for improvement
I will never “win” at writing; I will only get better. Writing is a talent that is polished FOREVER, and it’s a race worth running. Writing is my destiny, and I knew this at age six. I have something great within me, something so great that I will never master it, but I will become a badass expressing it! Be a writer with me. You are awesome, and you know you are awesome. Write Something Great!