And so it begins.

They say that writing is lonely work. They say that it's a process you must delve into alone. You must improve your craft, alone. When you finish a story, you must be it's biggest fan and it's biggest critic, for if you are unable to do so yourself, then who will?

For the longest time, this was something I had trouble accepting. Surely I could look to my friends for help. Surely they could give me feedback. Maybe someone else could be my biggest fan while I remained my biggest critic. Maybe those little "good jobs" and "keep it ups" were the things that I needed to keep getting through it all, to keep up with such a hard, stressful and flat out frustrating craft.

I can see now that I was wrong. I was wrong in wanting support. I was wrong in wanting encouragement. I was wrong for expecting that anybody should care about anything I could do. After spending so long in various writing communities trying to keep things afloat through the idea of support, the idea of various like minded individuals helping each other persevere.

Having such support was nice, and the idea behind it is something that I will cherish and defend to the end of my days, but the reason I am here now--alone, instead of with my writing companions is because I've realized that counting on them leads to more trouble then it's worth.

Encouragement is great, but what happens when it disappears? Feedback is excellent, but how will you improve yourself shall it no longer find it's way to you? I as a writer, had become so dependent on these two things, that as a result, I almost became unable to function without them. I lived in a world where I wanted people to read my works because they were friends. I wanted feedback because I was too lazy to learn how to fix my own problems. I wanted their encouragement, because I couldn't encourage myself.

I'd like to say that my resolution in all of this is just to say "Fuck those people", but in the end, I cannot. Because of those people, I have improved, and because at least one of those people having the balls to be honest with me, I was able to make this latest realization of mine. The fact that I needed them to tell me that I didn't need them is something that's almost too ironic to bare.

And so, here I am, with my current resolution, one that I've had before, albeit slightly modified now. I am here to get better. I am here because I want to not only write novels one day, but because I want to write great short stories. I want to write work that a reader will want to read because it is good, and not because they'll feel guilty shall they ignore it.

And so it begins. On this blog, I shall post all my work. As am amateur writer, I will offer each short story that I complete, when it is in good enough shape, and as an amateur film critic, I will bring you reviews of films in theaters along with the recommendations(and non recommendation) of films already released.

I'm not expecting to have any followers for a long time, but over the course of the following months and years, I hope to win some of you over, one by one. Maybe one day, one of you will stumble upon this read it. Should you make it to the end, I hope you enjoy the work I have left behind up until now, and I hope you like it enough to continue reading.

As they say though, time waits for no one, and with that, I must get writing on other material.

For writing is a lonely battle, and no one ever won a battle by complaining about the semantics of it.