Do I take myself too seriously about writing?

I'm an unpublished writer who's harbored a secret desire to change the world with her writing since she was a child. Recently I acknowledged that hiding from the one thing that makes me leap out of bed with joy in the morning--and I'm not a morning person, people--was an impediment to seeing my dream of being published realized. About a month ago, I finished writing, revising, editing, and polishing my first real book and am now querying for it. I'm no longer a dabbler. I'm someone who writes.

My book is the first in a three-part series. That sentence is specifically crafted. Despite how agents, editors, publishers, and the public receive my book, I will write the next two books. Why? Because I have to. I wrote the first one because it needed to be written. Because something was shifting around inside me, lurking and poking its head out, reminding me that it needed out, until I got it out. The second and third ones are in there as well. Even if my mom and dad are the only ones who read them (although I hope dearly they skip the sex scenes), my books have to be written.

However, rather than starting Book #2, I took the advice of the writer-agent-internet-borg-collective and am working on an unrelated book. Writing it is different because along the way in writing the first one, I learned about structure, conflict, tension, characterization, dialogue, and all the things that make a story good. With the first one, I fumbled, poked around, scratched my head, and revised over and over and over, until I finished what I believe is a publishable piece of work. I made the mistakes and painfully wrote and rewrote, so I don't have to make the same ones over again.

On the other hand, I made another mistake.

I realized, after having written twenty thousand words of my new masterpiece, that the feeling I had when writing the first book was not there. The story wasn't lurking. Instead, I was mechanically considering the inciting incident and plot point number one and how to make my characters three-dimensional. Things I must do, yet things that aren't the heart of the story.

I've joined the community of writer-agent-internet-borg-collective (and you know I call it that lovingly, right? It's what brought me to the final, polished version of my first masterpiece) and have become distracted by the blogs and tweets and good intentions of its members. Good thing for me that I have noticed and will put it in its proper place.

But I'm still concerned for myself. Because, here's the thing: I want to write Animal Farm, 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, and The Diary of Anne Frank (yes, I'm aware that it's nonfiction). I want to write the next paradigm-shifting masterpiece. I'm not content to create sparkling vampires. (I mean, it's kind of a clever twist on the old "vampires can't go into the sun" thing, so I'm moderately impressed, but it's not enough.) I want to create change, something that stirs my readers and makes them think.

So here's my question to myself: Am I taking this all too seriously? Is it unfair of me to categorize other work into "important" and "entertainment only"? Will I shoot myself in the foot by insisting I must add to the collective of humanity?

Don't mistake me: I don't judge other people's work by this standard. I don't read a book, don my monocle, and wiggle my fingers. "Oh, deah meh, this was drivel, just drivel. It had no substance! No raison d'être! How dare it exist! I spit upon--" Yes, well, you get my drift. I don't do that.

I fear that I need that important reason to write. That if I don't feel that it's the next Atlas Shrugged or Fahrenheit 451, I can't finish it. Yesterday, I came to a screeching halt on my second book. I felt as though it was just another story about a haunting and an exorcist and another demonic possession. It's been done before. What do I have to add? Let Stephen King write it. *Cue Charlie Brown sad music as I mope up the basement stairs away from my writing lair*

I thought and thought, and I found it. I found what I wanted to say. And I have renewed vigor about writing it. But--I wonder--am I taking this all too seriously? After all, it's the journey. Maybe my storytelling is as engaging as Stephen King and people will want to read it, even if it's been told a thousand times before.

MAYBE I JUST NEED TO TAKE OFF THE DAMN MONACLE AND WRITE.

I just don't know.