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So, this is where I circle around what my gut is trying to say for a bit. Bear with me.
I'm going through what I like to refer to as my tri-yearly freakout. Those of you who aspire to write professionally (or who do), and perhaps those in other pursuits, will understand this one. It's that phase you go through, periodically, where you tell yourself it isn't working; where the turns of phrase don't stick together as well, where the plots turn out to be Swiss-cheesed with problems, where the writing life just plain sucks and you're looking at your life as something stygian and overwhelmingly huge, something filled with this awful chore that will just be you knotting together failures until the time for your swan song comes. That phase where the thought that repeats is your friends, separate from you, talking while you're away (or worse, gone) and having no more to say about your art than a shrug of the shoulders and a downward turn of the mouth.
The worst part of that phase isn't the doubt. It isn't the feeling, ever so melodramatic, that it's over; that this time the despair will break you and you will give up. It isn't wanting to ask for absolution or support and knowing that it can't come from outside. It's knowing that you can't stop.
That's a bit of bathos, really. My point is, I'm in that downswing of the phase where I want to give up and I want what "you have" ("you" being those who do whatever it is non-writers do after work). Tomorrow, after I sleep and do that job thing, I'm not going to be doing that; tomorrow I'll be here, editing, or writing, or doing something with my time that advances this whole dream thing, even if it's just by inches. Maybe I'll submit another story or two and hunt down an agent; those things always make me feel better. And honestly, I feel pretty good about that perseverance, even if it does feel kind of Sisyphean at times; it's been said that the key to writing isn't to write when you love it, but to write when you hate it—and while that's cold comfort, cold comfort is better than none.
And that was my once-yearly post about writer's block, folks. I promise you've got until at least next January.
I'm going through what I like to refer to as my tri-yearly freakout. Those of you who aspire to write professionally (or who do), and perhaps those in other pursuits, will understand this one. It's that phase you go through, periodically, where you tell yourself it isn't working; where the turns of phrase don't stick together as well, where the plots turn out to be Swiss-cheesed with problems, where the writing life just plain sucks and you're looking at your life as something stygian and overwhelmingly huge, something filled with this awful chore that will just be you knotting together failures until the time for your swan song comes. That phase where the thought that repeats is your friends, separate from you, talking while you're away (or worse, gone) and having no more to say about your art than a shrug of the shoulders and a downward turn of the mouth.
The worst part of that phase isn't the doubt. It isn't the feeling, ever so melodramatic, that it's over; that this time the despair will break you and you will give up. It isn't wanting to ask for absolution or support and knowing that it can't come from outside. It's knowing that you can't stop.
That's a bit of bathos, really. My point is, I'm in that downswing of the phase where I want to give up and I want what "you have" ("you" being those who do whatever it is non-writers do after work). Tomorrow, after I sleep and do that job thing, I'm not going to be doing that; tomorrow I'll be here, editing, or writing, or doing something with my time that advances this whole dream thing, even if it's just by inches. Maybe I'll submit another story or two and hunt down an agent; those things always make me feel better. And honestly, I feel pretty good about that perseverance, even if it does feel kind of Sisyphean at times; it's been said that the key to writing isn't to write when you love it, but to write when you hate it—and while that's cold comfort, cold comfort is better than none.
And that was my once-yearly post about writer's block, folks. I promise you've got until at least next January.
posted by Tyler at
11:22 PM
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