Avery K. Tingle, The Gamer Author

I’ve been writing and publishing for fifteen years. I have very little to show for it.

I’m not good enough. I’m not inspired by the right people. I have little knowledge (or interest) in the classics. Industry professionals have told me that because my inspiration comes from video games rather than books, I will have an exceptionally difficult time finding readers. I don’t know if that’s true, because I haven’t had the courage to check.

The people who have told me that they enjoy my stories don’t actually enjoy them. They’re just saying that because they like me. They don’t want to hurt my feelings. But no one actually enjoys what I write. If anything, it’s so far out of left field they wonder what the hell I think I’m doing. I don’t blame them.

The fact that I nearly cracked a bestseller list five years ago means that I have a lot of people willing to support me, not that my writing is any good. I don’t know anything about this business anyway. Everything I write is drivel. This is why I rarely get anything done. This is why I’m on the fifth draft of this gaht-damn story. This is why I refuse to finish anything. Because anything is better than putting my work out there and hearing what I’ve always known to be true.

That I’m a failure.

That I’m a fraud.

That I’m a hack.

That I have no business being here.

That soon, they will grow tired of tolerating my presence and show me the door.

I do not write this for sympathy. This is what goes through my head every time I sit down to write and publish. I imagine we all go through something similar. Our own versions of self-hatred and doubt and such.

Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It’s the courage to act in the face of it. I am afraid. In fact, I’m terrified. I look at people like Stephen King and wonder just where he had to go in order to become so outwardly comfortable with the whole thing.

I am afraid, but I will write anyway.

I am afraid, but I will publish anyway.

I am afraid, but I am more afraid of dying with untold stories, than telling the stories and having the world revile them.

I am afraid of being untraditional, but I am more afraid of someone who doesn’t know how to chase their dreams because no one showed them how.

I am afraid, but I will do it anyway.

Thanks for reading.