I'm confused

I have been away and have been busy in the last week, which is why I haven't posted for a while. And in the last week I have also been doing some soul-searching regarding my career.

No, I don't doubt my decision regarding the pursuit of a fiction writing career. But I have been thinking about the execution.

I don't believe a person needs a fine arts undergrad or post-graduate degree to be a good writer. But I also don't approach my writing with the same technical understanding of the craft as someone with a BFA. I don't approach a story thinking about the technical aspects, such as how to raise the personal stakes for my protagonist or with how to create tension.

I don't contemplate how I create conflict and with whether there is enough conflict for the main character to overcome.

I just write. And when I finish, I look at it and re-write it and re-write it until it feels right to me. (Or I get totally tired of it.)

Writing is hard and involves a lot of effort. That effort is quite personal to me. But I don't feel that someone reading my fiction is somehow peering through a looking glass into the deepest reaches of my soul. I don't feel vested in my stories in that way. They are fiction. They are make-believe. I am real. And I am somewhat removed from my fiction as a result.

I love some of my characters. I hate some of my characters. Actually, some of my characters are me. But they are fictionalized accounts of me -- vested with my best traits or the best of characteristics that I wished I had. And again, they are not me.

Perhaps it is because of my lack in introspection and knowledge of the technical aspects of the craft that is standing in the way of my career advancing. Perhaps that is why I don't have an agent -- the partials display my imperfections for all to see.

I don't know. And because I don't know, I have no idea how to proceed. What do I do? What must I do to improve?

I am not so discouraged as I am at a loss. I am confused. I don't know what to do next. I just know I have to keep trying.

And so I will.

And so should you.