So you want to be a writer?

I've done it. I've taken that step into the 'world of writing' and decided I shall become...a writer. Very noble. Very ambitious. Pats on the back for me.

But having stepped into the 'world of writing', I have discovered, as many (many) have before, a certain truth. A truth that freshly-graduated artists discover their first summer looking for an 'art job'. The truth that aspiring actors discover at their first oversubscribed audition.

That thing you wanted to do...that thing you felt made you special and unique and, well, 'above' the general mundane riff-raff? Yup, you got it. Everyone else on the planet seems to want to do exactly the same thing.

You try to process this. You try to tell yourself that you didn't just scroll through twenty-five 'writers' blogs featuring entries identical to the entries on your own (special, unique, 'above') blog. You didn't just flick through screen after screen (after screen) of self-published wannabees on Amazon who have...oh dear...the exact same story premise as the gold-dust gleaming novel saved onto your laptop's hard-drive.

This is reality. Everyone out there wants to do exactly the same thing as you. Everyone out there is potentially as good if not better than you at writing. You are part of a messy, unruly rabble all chasing each other to the coveted finish-line ribbon that has the words 'full time writer' embossed on it.

But the pie is finite. Not everyone will get a piece.

You have a choice. 

a. Find the most specialised field of intergalactic bacterial research and go do that.

b. Keep going and believe you can carve out a tiny slice of that pie for yourself. If you just hang in long enough. If you write hard enough and often enough to actually begin to get good at it and have someone notice. Just...keep going.

So what'll it be?

"Eighty percent of success is showing up." - Woody Allen