A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Eight

I am so sick of the sense that I have been working hard but not making any progress.  I am not satisfied with the knowledge that I am writing, or the awareness that my work is changing and growing, that I am learning and developing as an artist.  All that is important, and necessary, but I am not really sure how to even believe in my work on that level when it does not provoke any response but more rejection.  I believe the work to be good, of course, and trust those who support my efforts, but it is important to me that I am able to progress professionally and not only artistically.  In part, I am realizing that the situation I am in is very limiting in terms of my writing itself.  This piece is an example of that, of the way.I am continuously stuck considering the same mental patterns in a way that does not help me.  To be stuck is to be within a singular paradigm, and I long to write work that is different, work I feel I cannot even conceive of within my current situation.  Beyond this, it is keeping me mired in other ways.  I know just stating my need for this change does nothing, but it feels important to express it, as it is what I can sense.  I have no way to alter the decisions others make around my work, and have had no real advice to help in finding a way forward.   I am feeling worn away each day, and I am holding on.  I need to move forward, and I am sick of working at it without reward, but to fail, to give up and accept nothing will ever change, that would destroy me.  Even choosing to just keep writing without trying to get published would be utterly self-destructive.  I do not know if I should be writing this, but it is the truth.  I just feel so lost, and I am not sure what to do to change things, but I do not know how to survive things as they are and have been and seem insistent on remaining.

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