I think the toughest and most dread-filled moment a writer has is the moment s/he stares at a blank page. In that moment is all the joy and possibility of being a writer but also all of the fear. We take this frightful step in the divided way people tear off a bandaid. For a time I was the hesitant one, anxious and frightened by that brief burst of pain sure to come at first tug, yet ignorant of the truth of the lasting pain of tearing it off slowly no matter how many times I completed the ritual.
Over time I came to rip it off quickly. I would sit without gathering my thoughts in full and write. What spilled from my imagination was more curdled milk than sweet milk, but the act was done and I could finally dig into the real of the story.
Over time that confidence (or was it lack of concern or fear) faded and the slow tear away rose in my mind. This is when writing resembled chore more than pleasurable work. Even then I would have occasional nights of sitting at the laptop and being tickled by a turn of phrase or excited to see the words of a conflict unfurl themselves in slow pecking succession.
My love for writing dimmed darkest at the height of my success. It isn’t that I told stories purely to be published but that I expected each story to top the last, and that is not a realistic goal. Each story is its own thing and not each will be superior to the former, the way each child will be different than yet not superior to the one birthed before him. I could not square that reality with my expectations and everything in me eroded.
That expectation isn’t gone entirely, but I am also not the carefree writer just excited to tell cool stories–not yet at least. What I am doing is falling back in love with cool stories and reading the truly shaping and meaningful ones with the person I pour my love into so that together we might find new understanding and renewed faith in what is possible in story.
And beyond.
Some Thoughts:
- I recently learned that it takes 6,693 reps (give or take) to form a muscle habit. I expect I’ll be testing that theory.
- My coffee maker is stuck on the clean cycle. No wonder they dropped the price. Folks knew it was messed up.
- There I go thinking the very worst of people. I often behave as though I am in the world of the walking dead or that of Roland the Gunslinger where I know the world is full of harriers and I and my ka-tet are the only ones I can trust to be reliable.
- My ka-tet is very small and doesn’t include most who would be called blood kin.