i like reading my thoughts after i think them.

sobriety requires cutting back and moving forward.

Amidst an unremarkable job hunt and a discouraging self-score on a GRE practice test, I searched for editorial encouragement in my past writings, my pieces submitted as final projects in college. The ones covered in positive comments from my professors and stamped with the first letter of the alphabet on the last page of the draft.

And either teachers are taught how to lie through their teeth or they’re just naturally the nicest people on the planet, because I just reread my final article for my media writing workshop—all twenty pages of it—and it’s a load of crap. My eyes hurt from reading over so many cliche phrases (and rolling in reaction to them too), my ears sting from listening to an all-too-familiar “holier-than-thou” tone, my jaw hurts from dropping every time I thought I knew how to properly use an em dash. I can’t believe I thought I was ready back then…and I can’t believe how far I haven’t come since I proudly turned in that paper.

The way I read Ernest Hemingway’s words “Write drunk; edit sober” is both literally and metaphorically: spill absolutely everything you have in you on the page as if you’re completely wasted in a bar and talking your friend’s ear off with deep-rooted confessions and threads of your imagination. Then, after stepping away from it with a good night’s rest, a nutritious meal and a strong swallow of electrolytes, come back and edit with fresh eyes, usually accompanied with a heart of regret from revealing so much and shoulders that feel lighter because, against your normal judgment and due to your inebriated state of mind, you did so.

And I feel as if I’ve been drunk for so many years now, telling everyone I know about how I want to be a writer and tell the stories of those who cannot share them themselves. But I haven’t even been able to tell mine properly; I know how to spot AP style mistakes and I can edit essays with ease, but it’s the actual act of coming back to a piece for a second that’s my trouble. The decision to reinvest time and effort into my own piece of unfinished work is the brick wall I could not—or cannot—break past.

Because to do so might take more work than I’m ready for, more time than I anticipated, more money than I’ll ever see in a lifetime, with no guarantee that the end result is worth national publication or any kind of paycheck. Is it worth it, then? Is it worth the endless loan payments and the possibility of joining the 99%?

I don’t know, I won’t know until it’s over if it was worth it, but it’s up to me to get there and make it so, instead of letting fear and laziness stop me from trying. Here’s to hoping that it all works out in the end, whether on a masthead, in a cubicle or in front of a classroom…as long as I’m not indefinitely on the fence.

And as for that article, it’s a load of crap because its ending is inauthentic, sloppily slapped together minutes before its deadline. I’ll write up the rest of it once I’m done playing out this plot line; I guess it isn’t over just yet.