My eighth writing-related blog post in which I look at my writing strengths (and see if I have any)

I thought that after I made a post about my biggest weaknesses as a writer I should write about some of my strengths. But my current mood is such that I hardly think I have any strengths at all. It seems to me that if I had them, I would have something to show for by now. But all I have is a bunch of books that failed. Utterly. I've been writing my whole life. You'd think I'd've figured out by now how to write something worth publishing. But years go by and I'm still where I was when I started thinking about getting my books published and building my writing career. 

In all fairness, my non-writing life has not changed much since then either. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just not the kind of person who wins lottery or gets a book deal of a lifetime or whose dreams are destined to come true. I feel like I'm reaching that level of lowliness where I succumb to apathy and despair. My January euphoria has evaporated by now and with each passing day I write less and less. I know I should stop whining and pull myself together, because there are so much more people whose luck is even worse than mine and whose opportunities are even less. So let's see... my strengths... Hmm... 

I love telling a story, just narrating some bit of history or other. I always know a lot more backstory than I need and sometimes I'm interested in the backstory more than in the actual story. I think it can be said that I have a certain mastery of the language and my prose is smooth and flowing, once it's polished, of course. I love writing dialogues. I always have fun constructing them. I think I'm quite good at it too as I've had lots of practice and I think I manage to make them sound natural and lively most of the time. I love describing people and nature and I think I manage to do a good job with both. 

Of course, I may just be totally delusional, but I doubt that anyone will be bothered to stop by and tell me that, so I'll continue with my delusion, thank you very much.

P.S.

I feel I should explain myself, because I feel kind of bad that this is such a pathetic and uninspired post. But like I said before: I'm in a very low place right now and this is the reason why. I'm taking part in a literary competition organised by one of our TV channels in collaboration with one of the publishing houses - "Looking for a new childhood hero". The winner will receive 15,000 hrivnas in prize money, the winning story will be illustrated and published by the publishing house in the edition of 15,000 copies, and there is a possibility that it will be turned into a cartoon and a computer game. I submitted a story idea for my fairy-tale about "Stella, the star that returned".

Yesterday, the submission window closed and online voting began. So far I managed to get only 20 votes and I'm currently in the 148 spot, though I keep losing my position whenever another story gets another vote. The organisers encouraged us to involve our friends in the voting. I don't have a lot of friends in real life but I thought that I could try using Facebook and Twitter to spread the word and get some votes from those people I actually know or those I've been in touch with. Judging by the number of votes I managed to get, you can easily imagine how that worked out.

Naturally, I feel bitter and sorry for myself. Social networking failed me again. But worse than that, I've once again saw how very few people I can actually count on.