Listing

For about three and a half years I wrote every weekday, every morning for about twenty minutes. My benchmark was to write at least five hundred words.

I did this because I read that the key to becoming a better writer was to write every day.

Okay. Easy. I woke up early, I fought against any distractions. I stayed diligent and disciplined.

Some days I would write something 'interesting'. But most days I would just complain or spew some stream of consciousness nonsense. For the last two years of this period I worked on a novel every morning. The structure of the novel was pretty simple: is was a series of journal entries from a doctor living in Russia around 1860 as he leaves 'the capitol' and travels east into Siberia. A hopeless misanthrope he casts aside all luxuries and ruminates on his hatred of the well bred socialites he left in 'the capitol' as well as the coarse and ignorant peasants of the countryside.

I wrote three or four draft of this but it never really went anywhere. I was hoping it would be a sort of Chekhov through Bernhard with maybe some abstract folk-horror thrown in, but it just never came together.

I stopped working on it in February and moved to writing short stories. I had taken a short story class and figured it would be easier to work on (and publish) short stories. I aimed to write one short story a month. I think I got three short stories together but these too just sort of fizzled out into nothing.

It felt so shitty because I figured if I researched something and worked on it regularly for a long time it would come together. Isn't that the formula for this stuff? If I do all of those things and nothing substantial comes out of it then what does that mean? Does it mean I am an inherently shitty writer? Does it mean that I will never be able to produce something significant and whole?

So then I moved and was busy with other things so I stopped writing.

I basically haven't written much since then, so about three or four months.

There was one day where I got a good idea for a way to finish up a piece. I wrote pretty frantically for a few hours but then there was this pretty significant gap in the middle of the piece, and I couldn't get it all together.

It just wouldn't resolve unless I forced it, but I knew that that wouldn't work.

So I guess this is one question that comes up: if I am not writing that am I still a writer?

For a long time I had this sense that my only meaning in life was provided by the fiction that I wrote. That the only record of my existence, the only semi-permanent mark of me being here was what I wrote down. That the creative act justified my place on this planet and justified me consuming stuff. It set me apart from others who just go through life with no purpose, who work and consume and leave no trace and are subsumed by the black tides of time to be forgotten years or month or even days after their death. It made me better and more interesting. It elevated me and made me more than just human.

That was the idea.

This feeling, and thus the work, was born out of a sort of anxiety and existential flailing. But now that I am not writing my existence is not producing anything, so my existence is pretty much meaningless. But I don't really have this anxiety anymore. It is a strange feeling.

I just like don't care. It's like 'I'm not writing but it doesn't matter because all of these ideas I had about writing were just delusions. Like I'm not the sort of person who gets off on craft. I just want to make something so that some other person can forget their self and interface with the divine for a little while. And if I can't achieve that (and I have not been) then there is no point in writing.

So it's not that I don't really feel unmotivated to write. Not any more or less that I ever really did. It's just that I don't see the point, I guess. If I worked every day for nearly four years and in fact published less than I did when I was just writing occasionally, then why was I writing every day?

Why put in the work? Why wake up early? Why feel this anxiety?

I guess I wonder why other people write and if I lack that drive or that work ethic or creative aspect that they have. For others it seems so effortless, just a natural extension of their being. Maybe I am idealizing this. But then why is there such a struggle for my own work?

I am trying not to complain but rather putting these questions out, rhetorically.

And what would it mean (and I hope this isn't the case) if I were to never write again?

Previously I worked best when I had literally nothing going on. I was fortunate enough to have months of time where I could just spend all day reading and writing. And I got a lot done. Finished  novels. But I can't expect that those sorts of situation will happen again. It's like only eating when you have free pate de foie gras or whatever. You will starve if you don't eat bread and cheese most of the time. But I don't know. I just can't do it (?) And I am not sure why.

It isn't writer's block. I have never had writers block before. I even have ideas that I could write down! A decent amount of them. I have a story that is two-thirds finished right now. I just need to finish it up. But I just don't see the point. I just don't understand why I would. It would add nothing. I would just be another piece of piss soaked garbage placed on top of another piece of piss soaked garbage.

I want to think that I can dig myself out of this whole, write something that someone else finds interesting. Write ANYTHING that is worthwhile, or that even just I feel is interesting.

Well, and it's something else that I have always dealt with, and maybe other writers do to, although I never seem to hear them talk about: you worth as a writer is dependent on how much your publish and what others say about your work. Good writers get publication and acclaim, bad writers do not. And if you just write for yourself, then what? You just write for yourself.

I guess I just envy people who can write a story for themselves and just enjoy it and the process and can feel good about whatever they come up with. I am really jealous of those people who don't feel the need to show their stuff to someone else and get a thumbs up and a gold star and a publication in some obscure internet journal that will only be read by the Editor (god bless them). I am jealous of those people who don't get jealous of those who get awards and fellowships and book deals because I am not one of those people.

If I am going to be totally honest I just look out at those who get published and feel furious. I get pissed. I just don't understand it. But then I guess at the end of the day they are working harder than I am, have worked longer than I have and are getting the rewards.

I look at other artists, people who are making really cool stuff, or at least stuff that gets picked up and published and reviewed and I figure that there must be some fundamental difference between them and me, some attitude or vision or understanding that allows them to create great work while I can do what I have done and still remain mired in nothingness. I am not sure whether this is right or not but this is the first thought that comes to mind.

The rewards of publication have always been paltry for me. I don't know what I expect will happen but what has happened in the past is that the piece goes up, I look at it once or twice, I put the link in my blog and then? I can put the credit in my bio for the next twelve month.

I feel like a boat listing. Or just on its side.

And I am not sure what to do.

Add onto this that I have this sort of curse. It is the other thing that pushed me towards writing, but not like a good push, more like the prick at the end of a spear: I have this unshakable delusion that I will do something great. It is like this thing you get when you are a teenager or whatever - I think a lot of people get it - that you want to be famous, but then most people grow out of it pretty quick. I figured that I would have gotten out of it by now but no, it is sort of always in the back of my head. I think fifty years ago it would have been diagnosed by an analyst as a superiority complex but now I think everyone just keeps quiet about it.

Around the age of nineteen I just figured that I would have to be an important writer. Like there was no question about it, it was just what needed to happen. And so this pushes me on, or rather, by not fulfilling this I will fail at my life. It is not a goal, it is a default failure condition and it is immensely frustrating. Maybe everyone has this and they never talk about it. But it is stifling, because this ties into my inability to do something just for myself, to write just for myself. I need that thumbs up, I need whatever paltry gold star can me thrown my way to feel good about myself.

I guess it is sort of addictive and you get a little reinforcement as a kid and then you get focused on it for the rest of your life. Or at least I do. Did.