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I don’t know about you, but I can always tell.

When you’re having trouble with something, it usually shows. We’ve all gone over to a friend’s house and saw the dessert cake they’d attempted to put icing on, something that looks more like a trifle, and even (more often than not) ends up becoming one. Same with drawing, public speaking, just about everything you can think of. I’ve seen attempts at Photoshop that could (and have) inspired gut-laughs on a scale previously unimaginable, and not on purpose. So too, you can just sort of tell when a writer is having a hard time of things.

Was listening to an interview posted by a friend of mine, and the conversation was steered towards writing about what you’re passionate about. The writer mentioned that the difference could be felt, not only when he was writing it, but when it was read afterward. He maintained that you could always tell when someone was passionate about what they wrote, because it almost always sounded stunted and awkward when they weren’t.

Following Black Glass to completion will be a learning experience – of this I have no doubt. I’ll finish it, because it needs to be finished, and because you need to nudge yourself out of your comfort zone from time to time. You can’t learn much by doing the thing you’re good at over and over, after all. What if you were better at something else? How would you know?

So, I’ll finish the novel, and I’ll pat myself on the back, and then I’ll stuff it somewhere and not look at it, not think about it, not do anything at all. Maybe I’m too close to it right now. Maybe the struggle to slog through it comes through in the pages I’ve put together, maybe it’s all fine and I’m just oversensitive to the whole struggle. This has become less about telling a story and more about reaching a goal, and maybe that’s what bugs me. I was passionate about the story when I started it – I’m not sure if I still am.

And thus, I’ll finish writing, put it away, and then work on something else for a while. Whatever I do end up working on, I’m going to make sure that it’s something I’m passionate about. I have a pretty good idea of what it’ll be, too.

And no, the fact that I appear to be good at it doesn’t factor into the equation at all. It’s all about the passion, baby. Trust me.

Update: Black Glass – Well, duh.

If you need an update on how Black Glass is going, you obviously haven’t read the above paragraphs. I mean, you probably didn’t even skim them! Tsk tsk!

That being said, I finished Chapter 29 last week and have moved on to Chapter 30, meaning that I’ve reached the 75% mark or so. There’s still a lot of time to put in, but I gotta step it up and get it done. It won’t be ‘Yay, it’s done! I’m so proud!’ at the end of it, as I’ve said, but it’ll still be something. I’ve already learned a great deal.