Feeling Blue
I have written and not posted quite a few blog posts over the last month of silence. Nothing seems to come out on the page the way I want it to. I get halfway through a draft and decide I don't know if I actually want to post or not, so it ends up languishing in my list as unpublished.
Last week, after work one day I drove to my favorite spot down the county highway, got inspired, and sat there for an hour and a half writing on my computer until I had over three thousands words and a complete chapter of... something1. It was exhilarating. I came back feeling happy and more alive than I have in a long time. I felt like "I'm back, baby!", like my old self who regularly wrote thousands in a day. I thought I could leverage that joy and energy into getting back into writing, maybe even spend the weekend working on something, since I didn't have any obligations, which is a rarity these days.
And then nothing. It was a fluke. A one-off. I spent the weekend doing other things. Productive things, like going through and getting rid of things I don't need and reorganizing so I actually have room in my bedroom to move around again, but not writing.
Yesterday I was feeling so down and out of sorts that after work I went to the store and spent all of my budget wiggle room on junk food, took a nap on my loveseat while listening to a video essay on the meaning of classical literature, and then despite taking that nap (which normally upsets my bedtime) went to bed early. And now today I still don't feel like myself. It's not as bad as it was yesterday, but there's this general malaise I can't shake.
This morning while eating breakfast before work I was thinking about my future and goals, and about how many people in my life have told me "I'm not worried about you, you'll be published no problem." I told some writing friends a couple of weeks ago that it always feels like every time I'm finally feeling comfortable with releasing my dream of being published, my brain slaps me and says "no, you can't give up, you have to write, keep going." Writing and storytelling are part of who I am, and I can't escape it any more than I can escape eating or sleeping.
Monday I worked on a list of what's holding me back, and the list was long and felt insurmountable, and I think that's what has got me down. I want to write, I want to finish novels, I want to be like all the authors I follow on Youtube for encouragement, but I have so many things in the way. And then there's always going to be that nasty reddit user's negative response to my cry for help sitting in my mind like a burden I did not choose to pick up.
It just sucks.
Thoughts to share? I have a contact page now!
Not my challenge project, unfortunately. That one has died on the vine, and I just haven't had the courage to do my blog post about it yet.↩