Merciel

I felt like a failure all my life. Despite a lucrative career, a lovely house, and an active lifestyle that cannot fit all my ambitions into a single day, I still do, because I have not written a novel. I dedicated over half my life to that dream, mostly to neglect it but never to relinquish it. It inspired me to persevere even at my lowest points. If I was not a writer, what was I?

The eleven seconds it takes for the final boss theme of Mega Man 4 to loop taught me that brevity does not diminish the artistic essence of a work. I do not need to hit a word count to be a writer. I write poems, I blog, and sometimes I write short stories. I may not be a novelist—I cannot commit to people or stories for that long—but I am a writer. I will have to relinquish those dreams of becoming a famous novelist, but to be fair, how many writers dream of becoming the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, and how many do? I do not want to write to fulfill a dream that no longer inspires me. I want to write for my own sake, and I do not want to write a novel.