I Hate To Be A Downer (I'm Just Kidding I Love It), But What If The World Has Already Ended?

I hate to be a downer (I'm just kidding I love it), but what if the world has already ended?

How will the world end?

it’s genuinely not something i think too much about. there are people to love and dishes to do in the meantime.

Whenever I feel envious of other people's work, I try to remind myself that where I see beauty, they may be overwhelmed with insecurity. This just goes to show that the part of my writing I'm insecure about, how monotonous I can be, can blind me from seeing myself the way others see me.

My advice, if you're open to receiving it, is you cannot control your emotions, so they are not an indicator of how good of a person you are. Allow yourself to feel, but don't let envy or guilt dictate your life.

For what it's worth, I find your writing so interesting! The way that I've seen you talk about love and friendship is incredible, and I envy how expressive and cohesive your writing is. Keep feeling and keep going, my guy :)

Today, I felt envious.

I don't know how to explain the guilt that comes with feeling envy, it's maybe one of the worst emotions.

You see all these poets whose work is better than yours, whether it be better worded, better written, more meaningful, etc etc... and you think: "Why can't I write like that? What am I doing wrong?"

I've often felt the topics I write about are frivolous. Most of my poetry speaks of love, or friendship, or what small things mean to me. I am not writing of my pain.

I think this is something very common amongst poets. We kinda feel as though we must write of anguish, that you have to feel drained every time you finish writing a poem to actually have something be meaningful.

I've struggled with this a lot recently. Feelings of jealousy or envy, insecurity about my work, second thoughts on if writing is really worth it, all that stuff.

I don't really have advice to give about what to do when you feel this way, as I haven't figured it out myself.

As writers, tell me what you do when you feel this way, or just tell me about a time you've felt like this, or tell me of your insecurities about your work.

Character Traits

An interesting trick I learned from scrolling through my Instagram feed (instead of writing) is to focus on the extremes of your character - the two ends on a character’s personality spectrum.

Take a perfectionist, for example. This person strives to be perfect all of the time, therefore, they work extremely hard. However, this person is so obsessed with being perfect that they can come off as condescending or controlling.

A character’s personality traits also depend heavily on the viewpoint at which you’re looking. Take an abusive parent. When the parent is at work, all of their co-workers may see them as a caring, respectful, and friendly person. To their child, they’re seen as uncivilized and a monster.

I’m not saying you have to use the “extremes” concept on every character. In fact, assigning only negative traits helps the reader identify who the antagonist (or villain) may be. However, giving a character both positive and negative traits helps humanize the character.

If you have any questions regarding character traits, or feel as though I’ve missed something, feel free to let me know!

Hi, I'm Anne!

A handful of my posts are from a period of my life when I aspired to be a novelist. I will not delete those posts, so feel free to scroll if you're curious.

My desire for writing has not wavered, but my career path has changed. I still have so much I want to talk about and so much I wish to share with whoever wants to listen.

I often imagine my life in my late 20s, having my dream career, living with my future partner, and being happier. Then I remember it's all under the assumption that I have time to grow. What if I need to step into my power sooner than I'd like? Life is not guaranteed, and time won't hold your hand. Am I ready for that?

- @annetries-towrite

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It appears I am afraid of my success, the supposed inevitability of it. A piece of me finds comfort in the version of myself that settles into practicality. Why must I grow to achieve?

- @annetries-towrite

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