On Not Writing (1)
Posted 21 December, 2005 in writing
Like a lot of writers, I go through periods where I don’t write at all. There are various reasons why this happens, including visits from family or trips out of town. Sometimes I am working hard on a non-writing-related project, usually sewing something that never quite ends up the way I wanted it to. And once I start sewing something–in fact, once I start any project–I must finish it. If I don’t, I will lie awake at night thinking about it. Just writing about it is giving me the heebie-jeebies. I obsess about all the projects I do, and plan them start to finish in my head. While I am executing stage 1 of my plan, I am thinking about how best to tackle stage 2, and constantly reevaluating the strategy according to the present situation. This gives me pleasure. I think I might have a bit of OCD, plus I am a giant fucking nerdy-ass nerd who likes organizing things and getting things done. DONE! AARGH!
Sometimes I am just lazy, too, though. If I’ve been doing a lot of writing at work, especially if I’ve written something I’m proud of recently, I let my personal writing slide for a while. Then I berate myself and feel generally like shit until I start writing again. A writer I know once told me he hated writing. “Why do you do it then?” I asked him. “Because I have to,” he said. He meant he seriously had to, every day, or he would start feeling like shit, being grumpy and horrible and feeling like a loser. I know this feeling well.
Sometimes I am too sad to write. I stopped writing a diary regularly when I was in college and having a rough time, because I didn’t want to think about things right then, and a large part of thinking about things, for me, is wrapped up in writing them down. Now I am too lazy to start the diary up again, and I should, because my memory is getting embarrassingly bad. I generally push myself to write about things when they distress me, because it helps, and can produce some pretty decent writing, too. I wrote about the Northridge earthquake for an autobiographical writing class in college. I picked that subject because the experience had scared the shit out of me, I tried to explain to my English professor, who was a small, neatly dressed blind Indian man of about 60. “But what does this story mean to you?” he pressed me. “Did you catch a glimpse of death?”
He’d nailed it–that was exactly what had happened. I’d suddenly realized I was going to die–not right then, as it turned out, but at some point–and it had given me the fucking willies, in a major way. I was having an existential crisis! I knew it would help me to recount my earthquake experience–and it also helped me reorganize my priorities. If I was mortal, I decided, I should probably not spend so much of my life doing bullshit stuff. Even though I had a terrible time writing the piece, once it was finished, I felt much, much better. That was when I started writing regularly again about stuff that bothered me.
So what’s the matter now? Christmas. Christmas is the matter. I must get perfect gifts for everyone. But I also must get everything done on time. Which means I can’t get perfect presents, and must settle for pretty good, but slightly late presents. Which frustrates me beyond belief. And then I realize I am getting stressed out about Christmas, and I berate myself. I berate myself regularly, about a lot of things. It’s how I keep myself in line. But, despite the regular berating, I still haven’t been doing a lot of writing. Or any writing at all, in fact.
Guess it’s time for some more beratin’.