soopastryheart

When your life is in molasses, it’s not the viscosity that keeps you struggling. It’s the emotional strain of knowing you’re stuck that takes its toll. The killer about sinking slowly is that you don’t realize it until you’re in waist deep. At that point, it’s so easy to wallow in your predicament and misfortunes than to fight your way out of it. Perhaps if I acknowledged the situation when I first stepped in it, it would have been easier to get myself out. But one thing I’ve realized when it comes to internal battles, it doesn’t become one until things are grave and stark and utterly hopeless.

If this blog acts as evidence, my writing as of late has been moving at a glacial pace. Well, that’s misleading because that would suggest that it’s moving at all, which it is most certainly not. There was a point in my life where the words flew at a speed too fast for my fingers to type, a time when I battled my eyes to stay open to get all the ideas out, a time when sleep was public enemy number one, erasing the stories in my head with every REM cycle. That seems like a lifetime ago now. These days, it’s no small victory if I bother to open up Word at all. Without exaggeration, it seems like a huge accomplishment if I manage to write anything more than a half a page, and a monumental success if I end up keeping it.

I used to think my version of hell meant having so many stories to tell, but not having the facility or means to tell them. Now I understand that hell means not having a story to tell at all. And do you know what’s more horrible than a writer who can’t write? I’ll let you know if I ever find an answer.

I spend half my days trying to write and the other half condemning myself for not being able to. I can’t express how infuriating it is when the writing simply DOES. NOT. HAPPEN. Or when your fingertips just hover over the keys but refuse to move. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at the monitor, earnestly and audibly pleading, “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WRITE SOMETHING.” But there is no response. The words don’t just appear out of random inspiration. We writers aren’t a vault that can spit out eloquence on demand (at least, this writer isn’t). Some days I feel like I’m going slowly insane, and that eventually I’ll just be the crazy lady yelling at a computer that’s not even turned on.

The thing about focusing so much and so hard on the fact that you’re not writing is that inevitably it becomes the only thing you can focus on. When you’re questioning yourself and your abilities on a persistent basis, that shit will shake you at your core. And when you’re your one and only critic and she tells you that everything you do sucks, eventually you get so discouraged that the ideas just stop. Your brain stops churning out plotlines and characters and longwinded soliloquies. You stop thinking about how a storyline will develop or how the theme will centralize. You convince yourself that it’s pointless to try at all. It’s a vicious and abusive cycle that I’m in right now, and I don’t know how to walk away from it. I’ve become a pretty miserable person these past few months because I’ve essentially stopped being the only person I knew how to be, and stopped doing the only thing I knew how to do. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this lost before.

The only thing that keeps me from spending my days crying in bed (though I’ve done this too) is the fact that I’m surrounded by wonderful human beings who diligently combat and contradict the words of despair that my brain throws out. Sometimes I wonder if I’m that contestant on American Idol who is reassured time and time again by her family that yes, she has talent, and yes, she’s a shoo-in, and yes she’s the next Kelly Clarkson, but is in fact, tone-deaf. But I know I’m not her, because I believe in the opinions and input of the people around me, and I know they would never blindly encourage me and set me up for inevitable disappointment. And I know I’m not her because deep, deep, deep down inside, I haven’t lost the girl who used to believe she was going do big things with her words. Deep down, I know I still think I’m the shit.

The problem, I’ve finally identified, is that I have got to stop thinking that everything I write is going to win me a Pulitzer. I’ve got to be okay with the fact that more often times than not, I’m going to write things that are downright dreadful. I’ve got to be okay with writing a thousand drafts and never be in love with any of it. I’m going to write things that are going to be laughably bad. I’m going to write things that will never be seen by another pair of eyes that aren’t my own. I’m going to write things that are going to make me question why I chose this path in life.

I also need to understand that once in awhile, I’m going to write something that really strikes an accord. One day, as long as I keep trying, I’m going to write something that people are going to want to share with others. One day, as long as I keep trying, my writing might have the same effect on someone as my favorite authors do to me. One day, as long as I keep trying, I’m going to hold in my hands, a copy of a book filled with words that I have managed to put together.

But until then, I just need to keep writing. Even if it’s wholly bad. Even if it’s chockfull of grammatical errors and clichés and broken concepts. I think the problem with my writing is that, I thought if I waited around, waited to be hit with a sudden jolt of inspiration, a Eureka moment, then I’d be able to spit out some brilliant piece of literature and everything would be perfect. I should know by now that it simply does not work that way.

It’s time to tell the pessimist in me to shut the fuck up, one keystroke at a time.