you must be out of your friggin' mind

~ click image to make biggerer ~

The prompt today was to talking about writing: the good, the bad, the ugly.

Writing is hard. Sometimes I hate it so much. Like right now when I can’t seem to get my thoughts on paper or when it seems I have no thoughts. This happens a lot. Why, you ask. I know you do because this is important stuff we’re discussing here. I’ve lost my train of thought already.

Oh, yeah. It’s hard because all of my words suck. There they are in my brain. They seem sort of ok sitting there in my grey matter all comfy cozy and shiny bright. Then they seep out of my fingertips translated onto the page and they are weak, colorless and boring as all get out. Makes me want to barf, cry and curl into a ball in a corner somewhere. I’m pathetic, thinking this is something I can or should do. Totally pointless.

And now we’re stuck. I suck.

The cursor sat there flashing for about ten minutes while I berated myself for my inadequacies.  

Now, we’re at the part where I just put down some words just so I can say I participated in the act of writing. I read somewhere that writers are always writing even when they’re not putting anything down on paper. I’ve got that paper down. I’m writing when I watch TV, when I’m doing the dishes and when I’m driving back and forth to work. Lots and lots of really cool stuff is always being written in my brain. You aren’t going to read any of it because I struggle with the physical act of writing. The habit of writing. This part of writing isn’t very pretty. It’s hard work, really, really hard work. It makes me whine. It makes me want to drink wine.

The pressure of writing first thing in the morning before i go to work is helpful. Finite time forces me to get some words out into the world. Granted, they’re mostly not too good of words [sic] but they are physical and thus more real.

On rare occasions, I might capture a breeze raising the hair on my arms, the sunlight of a perfect day making the leaves on my dogwood glow while the squirrels frolic from branch to branch. I have once or twice written something that has made a real live person exclaim out loud in surprise. I’ve even on occasion written something I have not found too hideous. There were even a couple of times when the words just flew onto the paper and an hour has gone by where I was totally out of myself in a state of pure bliss. These times are so perfectly and painfully beautiful, such immediate ecstasy that the high is embedded in my soul the way a drug addict imprints a high that has to be continually chased even though the chances of reaching that high again are minuscule.

So, there you have it: I write for the illusive, addictive high of a few perfectly strung together words. It’s a sickness.