It’s October, summer is around the corner, the soft light of dawn filters through my curtains earlier than when it’s winter; birds chirp joyfully, everywhere colourful flowers bloom at the touch of summer daylights, and the cells of my body vibrate at the invisible kisses of summery delights. I feel inspired, my creative energy reinvigorated, that summer vibe thrills me to the extreme, yet, right now, editing Darcocyte is consuming all of my time and creative energy… I feel like one of those cheap batteries that quickly lose their charge.

I should have used that mental energetic boost to imagine and daydream fictional scenes, muse about poems, ponder about the contents for this blog, supercharge my creative work and imagination, edit all of my former posts, dance with the words, bath in the light of the open air, go to the beach, contemplate the seaside and its ocean, the seashells, and seaweeds, and swim freely in the sea… but I can’t, I simply can’t because I need to ameliorate my writing skills, because writing is what I want to do.

This tiresome editing is a necessary endeavour, even though some times I ask myself if I’ll be able to make it before all of my hair become white, or even before the grey matter of my brain melts.

It’s Pink October, I should be writing a poem that lifts spirits for this 2021 Breast Cancer Awareness Month, embed Pink October’s logo on my blog and social feeds to show personal positive support to all those that are fighting the malady, which for me is necessary; but here I am, without the time to sit and ponder about what to write for this year’s #Pinktober. Still, I convince myself, through self-talk, that when I’ll finally acquire the tips and tricks to edit what I write, I am sure that every year, on the month of October, I’ll be able to bring my contribution to the cause of breast cancer.

Moreover, anxieties about all of these grammatical mistakes I made on all of my former published works are tearing my heart apart. What if I am making the same stupid mistakes again? What if it’s again that Dunning-Kruger effect, that there’s again peepoo in my eyes😅… of course, all of these questions would have been answered if I paid a professional editor, or paid for an editing software, or asked for feedbacks to get the necessary critics… for damn sake, if I stop being that stupid and obstinate, and do whatever else the other writers are doing, everything will be fine… but here I am, not wanting to let go, feeling as if I was journeying on a lake like Huckleberry Finn on his raft.

But there’s also the fact that it costs a lot, not the same thing as, say, if a big publishing company would have approached me to take care of the editing, formatting, marketing, and all of the costs that need to go into the publishing process; get a big book deal, and that my dream of sitting down only to concentrate and write will come true. Of course I am a realist, but I believe that with the advent of the informational web, writing softwares, self-publishing platforms, and outreach through social medias — though the book and content market is more saturated than ever before — I get the chance to try, to learn at my own pace in my own space, to adapt myself to the digital era, and to try reinventing myself.

It’s hard, I won’t lie, very very hard indeed, but if I don’t finish this game, I’ll never know what there is on the next level. Also, why should I be the one to go towards people?… to then afterwards suffer rejections, and lose hope, and stop dreaming! Why won’t they connect with me if ever they really like what I write. Yes, I know that someday my stubbornness will be the death of me… unfortunately. But I don’t think that I am doing something wrong here, I don’t think that I am disturbing that constellation of bright writers; I am not breaking-in web accounts to steal contents and ideas, nor I don’t think that a tiny hustler like me is stealing food from the mouth of anyone; I just want to do my thing peacefully, and with no whatsoever sources of frustration to come along and bug me.

I moved back for better jumping, but I also moved back to think more deeply about my situation. I feel the weight of a great responsibility on my shoulders, and it’s that of succeeding at what I am doing, so that autodidacts, those without resources, the nonconformists, the individualists, the introverts, the exotic-English speakers, and everyone else, know that through hard work, patience, passion, determination, and perseverance, one can actually beat the odds, that magic can really happen.

I am not crazy, you know, not crazy at all, but I can, I dare, and I’m an over-obstinate woman; not your typical type of person; free and wild, not giving a damn about rude people. And I tell to myself that even though I don’t succeed in the world of words, I hope at least that my blog posts will help someone succeed there where I failed. 

I don’t regret that I started my writing adventure with a novel, because I’ve been able to learn a lot through these endless rereading, editing, and polishing; but writing speculative fiction is a full time job, hard and harsh, where the writer of science-fiction needs to focus and give attention to every details, need time to do lots of research about scientific terms and meanings to strengthen plots… and that’s why I decided that if Darcocyte doesn’t give me the type of response that will motivate me to write more, I won’t write another novel again, because it’s too much time and energy consuming. Perhaps I’ll strode more on the side of short stories and poems, and if my short stories, too, don’t get the necessary attention, then I’ll only stick to writing poems.