I always imagined that I would find writing such a romantic profession. I'd sit down at my desk and some gorgeous heroine would creep up from the back of my mind and possess me; my fingers would move over the keys so quickly that I'd hardly remember what I'd written until I'd read it myself. I'd laugh and cry as I brought to life the character who was a real manifestation of what was in my heart, who lived in a parallel universe of beauty and truth that I felt it my humble duty to share.
I want to say that that is rediculous and childish, but my current - hopefully more realistic - image of myself as a writer is not as drastically different as you might think.
I still hope to - first and foremost - bind myself to a main character, if I am ever to write successful fiction. That seems to be the hardest part, as I sit down every night to write but simply lose enthusiasm for the underdeveloped heroine after only a few pages. And I'd like the actual storytelling process to be a little easier, but there is something almost delicious about having folder after folder on your computer full of incomplete - but not totally discarded - beginnings. I imagine myself still at the bottom of a long ladder leading to my actually producing something that works, from beginning to end - but with all the practice I build up, I can see myself on the second or third rung of the ladder instead of gloomily pouting next to it, waiting for the burst of "sudden inspiration." And in looking for that inspiration on my own, I've learned to see the world around me differently. Little anecdotes in my own life become starting points for a meaningful short story.
I still have so many things to work out, in my writing style, wording, structure, plot progression. To tell you the truth, I'm really not that disciplined, and at this point I'm just not devoting myself enough to my work to judge whether or not I have a chance in the grand world of literature. Who knows? Maybe, in Jo Rowling style, I'll have to plummet to the most humble existence possible, with nothing else but a pen and a keen sense of observation, before my scarred hero decides to creep out from my fingers onto a paper napkin at a cafe. We'll just have to see.