You know those completely delusional singers on American Idol who are the worst of the worst, yet they think they're totally amazing? Have you ever wondered...if that's you? Sometimes questions pop into my mind, and they give me new story ideas. Sometimes they pop into my head and I wonder...is it hopeless?
Where's Paula Abdul When You Need Her?
Wouldn't it be great if there was an American Idol for authors? You could go in and read your blurb, maybe the first page of your novel, and Simon Cowell could tell you that you're fantastic and you're going to Hollywood. What for, I don't know. I haven't worked out all the details of the show yet (American Writer), but that's not the point. The point is this: when you're an author, everyone is Simon Cowell.
Emily Dickinson was a recluse who, literally, sat in her room and wrote about death. I'm not just writing that to be colorful. Sylvia Plath achieved a fair amount of success as a poet, wrote a popular novel, and stuck her head in the oven one day. Ernest Hemingway, well-known in his own lifetime, put a shotgun to his own head. Virginia Woolf put rocks in her pockets and walked into the River Ouse.
Here's what I'm saying: writing is dark sometimes. You have to wallow around in the ugliest part of the human condition, in some cases, really dive into terrible thoughts and emotions. Every good story needs a villain...and it's always you. You're the one who tortures the characters, you're the one who kills them, you're the one who creates it all...and you're the one who will feel all the criticism with terrible keenness.