Repeat after me.
I am a writer.
I am the fury and the fire.
I will finish the damn thing I started.
No pity parties. No snot nosed tantrums. No “oh, the words aren’t coming today” melodrama. That shit’s for amateurs. My resolve is forged from titanium.
These pants? They’re adult pants.
The diapers of my excuses? Reduced to ash. Scorched in the crucible of my own ambition.
I will light the match. I will burn the whole forest down.
And when my excuses come scuttling out like cockroaches on fire, their tiny legs sizzling…
I won’t flinch. I’ll stomp them flat. I’ll smash them with my wordhammer until they burst like overripe watermelons full of lies and self pity.
This blank page? It’s not my enemy.
The blinking cursor? Not my tormentor.
These characters? Oh, they’re mine. They scream when I tell them to scream. They bleed when I say bleed. They kiss, fuck, kill, cry, and collapse because I command it.
And if they give me any lip? I’ll send them to the gulag of forgotten side characters, where the marmots nibble toes and the plot holes swallow you whole.
This plot? Might be passed up as “just a story”
It’s a weapon. A noose. A steel trap.
I’ll use it to strangle my doubts, hang my insecurities, and watch them thrash until they’re silent, until every last whisper of “you can’t” is choked into oblivion.
The words?
Oh, they’re my army now. My mercenaries.
Tiny soldiers, built from 26 letters, carrying ideas too big for their brittle little shoulders. They march in formation, hauling metaphors and similes and bad ass imagery like ants dragging a goddamn mountain. Hell, sometimes they even surprise me, forming sentences no one else has dared to write.
Like:
“Gertrude’s haunted crockpot whispered forbidden recipes for demon soufflés, and every time she ignored it, a cat somewhere spontaneously combusted.”
That’s mine. I own that.
Because I am the captain of this absurd journey. The mad scientist of this laboratory of chaos. And yeah, it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard.
If it were easy, every latte sipping poser with a Moleskine and a dream would be cranking out Pulitzer winning novels in between Instagram posts. But no. This is the mountain goat’s climb. The gauntlet. The hellish, glorious uphill march.
My hamstrings might snap under the strain and twang like broken banjo strings. My backbone might liquify into Jell-O.
My kneecaps might launch into the stratosphere like rogue champagne corks. And maybe, just maybe, a yeti will descend from the snowy peaks, rip off both my arms, and use them to beat me into a fine paste.
But even then. Even in the face of utter annihilation.
I won’t quit.
I’ll grab one of my severed arms in my teeth.
I’ll slug that yeti in his frosty balls until he howls like a banshee and tumbles into the abyss.
I’ll duct tape my limbs back on.
I’ll realign my spine with a wrench and a prayer.
I’ll puppet my busted legs like a deranged marionette master until I stumble across the finish line, bloody and victorious.
Because I am not weak.
I am not fragile.
I am a writer.
I will finish what I started.
I am the warlord of these words.
The architect of this goddamn chaos.
The ruler of this story.
Repeat after me:
I will write.
I will conquer.
I will burn the excuses.
And when I’m done, when the last word is written, I will look at the smoldering battlefield I’ve created and whisper,
“I did this. This is mine.”
Amen.
And good luck.
You got this.
Stephen Walker