I've been counting my scars. Mainly the ones on my soul, left by characters and stories and people who've encountered them. Seared there without intent...at least, I like to think so. And I'm sure that was true for the majority. The cuts wielded by having my work rewritten by an old man whose grasp of grammar is non-existent, him arrogantly thinking he could improve on my writing...those weren't deliberately inflicted. I think I grew too close to the truth of him a few times, in the version of the book I wrote, and he had to remove what stripped him too bare. But some were aimed to crush and destroy...and I wonder, lately, if they've finally succeeded.
I've been in states like this before -- calling it writer's block and gridlock of the creative mind and getting nowhere with anything for weeks and months. I think it's part and parcel of being a writer...hell, any kind of creative person. We all have periods where you wonder if you really know just what the fuck it is you're doing. And the non-stop rejection in the film and writing community just adds to that questioning.
Plus, it's more intense, now. The connectivity and anonymity of the internet expands both the joy and pain of being creative in ways so manifold as to be like a tsunami of reactions and complaints and counter-reactions crashing over you. I'm guilty of doing this to others, I know, so I honestly have no right to make an issue of it...but my latest bout with gridlock is more than that, now; it carries something new with it...something that scares me...
Apathy.
I find myself asking, "Why bother? Who's going to care?" No question a few people will. There will always be some who support you. I've been like that with others. And maybe that should be enough. And maybe it would be if there wasn't also the vicious dismissal from people who spit on your work just because they can, and who care nothing for what that does to your whole being.
I used to be able to use anger to get past it -- at the person, at myself, at how the fates have messed with me -- but I don't feel any of that. Just...so what?
So...I don't write. I use other things to keep me distracted -- bills, laundry, reading, re-publishing books, travel, work, anything to keep from facing my inability to form a fictional sentence that sounds real.
SHIT, I hate it when I get like this. All whiny and self-involved with what are really just superficial issues. Maybe it's only burn out. I need to take a rest from writing. Do some painting. Binge-watch all of Firefly and rewatch Buffy and Battlestar Galactica's reboot. I dunno. I just know I can't focus...except on those fucking scars.
And keep asking myself, "Why bother?"
I've been in states like this before -- calling it writer's block and gridlock of the creative mind and getting nowhere with anything for weeks and months. I think it's part and parcel of being a writer...hell, any kind of creative person. We all have periods where you wonder if you really know just what the fuck it is you're doing. And the non-stop rejection in the film and writing community just adds to that questioning.
Plus, it's more intense, now. The connectivity and anonymity of the internet expands both the joy and pain of being creative in ways so manifold as to be like a tsunami of reactions and complaints and counter-reactions crashing over you. I'm guilty of doing this to others, I know, so I honestly have no right to make an issue of it...but my latest bout with gridlock is more than that, now; it carries something new with it...something that scares me...
Apathy.
I find myself asking, "Why bother? Who's going to care?" No question a few people will. There will always be some who support you. I've been like that with others. And maybe that should be enough. And maybe it would be if there wasn't also the vicious dismissal from people who spit on your work just because they can, and who care nothing for what that does to your whole being.
I used to be able to use anger to get past it -- at the person, at myself, at how the fates have messed with me -- but I don't feel any of that. Just...so what?
So...I don't write. I use other things to keep me distracted -- bills, laundry, reading, re-publishing books, travel, work, anything to keep from facing my inability to form a fictional sentence that sounds real.
SHIT, I hate it when I get like this. All whiny and self-involved with what are really just superficial issues. Maybe it's only burn out. I need to take a rest from writing. Do some painting. Binge-watch all of Firefly and rewatch Buffy and Battlestar Galactica's reboot. I dunno. I just know I can't focus...except on those fucking scars.
And keep asking myself, "Why bother?"
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