For me, writing is a passion, a passion that I rarely provide my self with time for, but a soothing passion nonetheless. I am sure that people reading this would say, "Well, if it is a passion then why wouldn't you want to make time for it. Shouldn't it be an all consuming beast eating your time and energy? Feasting on your social life and your sanity?" To them I would say "Snarky, metaphor using reader, that is just the problem." I go through stages, and the Libra in me won't let me actually get devoured by the muses. I go through these terrible stages as a writer and then I become depressed, making my writing depressing to read. Which then, in turn makes me more depressed and so on. I have to tear my self out of it and close Microsoft Word and go out into the world. So because of this, I am going to write tonight, about the stages of me as a writer, and why I realized that I will never become great.
When I start out, I have immense writers block. I sit and stare and nothing come out. I have no idea where to begin, what to say, I have been away for too long. It is like when you haven't seen or spoken to an old friend and at first the conversation is awkward and forced but as the time passes things begin to flow, then I have the opposite of writers block. I have so much going on in my brain that I want to work vomit all over the page. I look at a blank page and see potential in my mind, but the words to communicate that vision are just gone, jumbled with everything else that is in there. Other story ideas, where the current characters should go, what kind of weaponry will they be needing, do I have enough suspense, what about fighting, how do you write a fighting scene, I need more characters, whats a good characters name, how many windows should this barn have, is this city small or large, how will I draft a map of this imaginary realm, what is this characters motivation, how do boys think...all of these things fighting for the front attention.
As I work through all of them, finally putting my mind at ease it is many many hours later, I most likely haven't eaten, and haven't even thought about doing anything else. This is usually as far as I let it go, because the more I write the more I have to write. This is a more healthy version of writing, I take breaks rest, but my desire to go out and speak with real people dwindles quickly. I go from fun loving, lets go out, try new things, and become simply happy drinking tea, writing. People ask me to hang out and I just make excuses, I find it is so much easier to be this way when I am living alone or with family. When I have roommates, it is harder for me to seclude my self.
From there I start to become a little bit depressed. Since I am not a crazy old wealthy lady who can afford to lock her self up in her room, writing until all hours of the night, I still have to function in the real world. So as I go to work, I realize I see people differently. Where once I saw fun individuals who I consider my friends. I see people who I work with, who's lives I am not apart of. I put my self as the outsider. I make myself the martyr, who people don't understand because to engage with these people I have to not write. The characters I write become so much more interesting to me. I see traits in people and weave them into my characters. I look at life so different than I do.
But because of this depression, my work suffers, things become dark when I write and in my life. This is where my needs and desires as a Libra become sorely out of balance. I want to be with people but feel that I am not ready to enter society because I love where my writing is going. If I leave, I may not come back, however if I stay, will I ever be in society again? my Libra wonders. It is hard. I can empathize with the writers who met their tragic ends. I understand the drinking and the pain. I have only experienced it on a small scale because being social has always won out. That is why I can never expect to get anything published. I cannot spend enough time in my work to complete it to a satisfactory level, because I need the human contact that my darker withdrawn self is too selfish to give.
I love writing and will always hope and try to be one, but it will always have to be a past time, and can never be anything more to me. It is a weird revelation to have, and an even weirder one to share. However as I sat looking at the blank web page of my blog that is what came to me, and what I saw. So I figured I would share.
When I start out, I have immense writers block. I sit and stare and nothing come out. I have no idea where to begin, what to say, I have been away for too long. It is like when you haven't seen or spoken to an old friend and at first the conversation is awkward and forced but as the time passes things begin to flow, then I have the opposite of writers block. I have so much going on in my brain that I want to work vomit all over the page. I look at a blank page and see potential in my mind, but the words to communicate that vision are just gone, jumbled with everything else that is in there. Other story ideas, where the current characters should go, what kind of weaponry will they be needing, do I have enough suspense, what about fighting, how do you write a fighting scene, I need more characters, whats a good characters name, how many windows should this barn have, is this city small or large, how will I draft a map of this imaginary realm, what is this characters motivation, how do boys think...all of these things fighting for the front attention.
As I work through all of them, finally putting my mind at ease it is many many hours later, I most likely haven't eaten, and haven't even thought about doing anything else. This is usually as far as I let it go, because the more I write the more I have to write. This is a more healthy version of writing, I take breaks rest, but my desire to go out and speak with real people dwindles quickly. I go from fun loving, lets go out, try new things, and become simply happy drinking tea, writing. People ask me to hang out and I just make excuses, I find it is so much easier to be this way when I am living alone or with family. When I have roommates, it is harder for me to seclude my self.
From there I start to become a little bit depressed. Since I am not a crazy old wealthy lady who can afford to lock her self up in her room, writing until all hours of the night, I still have to function in the real world. So as I go to work, I realize I see people differently. Where once I saw fun individuals who I consider my friends. I see people who I work with, who's lives I am not apart of. I put my self as the outsider. I make myself the martyr, who people don't understand because to engage with these people I have to not write. The characters I write become so much more interesting to me. I see traits in people and weave them into my characters. I look at life so different than I do.
But because of this depression, my work suffers, things become dark when I write and in my life. This is where my needs and desires as a Libra become sorely out of balance. I want to be with people but feel that I am not ready to enter society because I love where my writing is going. If I leave, I may not come back, however if I stay, will I ever be in society again? my Libra wonders. It is hard. I can empathize with the writers who met their tragic ends. I understand the drinking and the pain. I have only experienced it on a small scale because being social has always won out. That is why I can never expect to get anything published. I cannot spend enough time in my work to complete it to a satisfactory level, because I need the human contact that my darker withdrawn self is too selfish to give.
I love writing and will always hope and try to be one, but it will always have to be a past time, and can never be anything more to me. It is a weird revelation to have, and an even weirder one to share. However as I sat looking at the blank web page of my blog that is what came to me, and what I saw. So I figured I would share.
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