Nail, meet head

[serai]

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

-- Mark Haddon




Most of my life I've wanted to write. Now and then, I've done it. Taken up pen and paper (or keyboard) and scribbled down ideas, or outlines, or even finished stories. I've tried a number of art forms - music, drawing, various forms of object creation - but none of them has felt as satisfying, as full, as writing. When it's there, when it flows, it seems to run over me like a river, sweeping me away in a current that's partly exhilirating, partly frustrating, and partly frightening as hell. I never feel in control when I write, rather it feels like something has me in its grip, and I have no choice about what I'm doing. It scares me.

And the idea of being a writer scares me. I mean, trying to make a living at it. If the experience of writing is as crazy and elusive as it is for me, how could I ever depend on it? My Muse doesn't keep orderly hours, and He won't respond to schedules and deadlines. I know, I've tried. He just walks away, with a flirty smile over His shoulder - Later, babe. And I don't know that I want to change that. Part of the charge, the rush, the orgasm of writing for me is the unexpected nature of it. If it became work, in the sense of what I do to pay the rent, I'm afraid I'd no longer love it the way I do. It's the difference between having a lover and having a husband - the one you hanker after, and keep hoping he'll call, and the other you get used to, you start noticing his bad habits, and every now and then you wish he wasn't around. I don't ever want that to happen with my Muse.

So what's the answer? I know I want to write, meaning I want it to keep happening. I love the tingle that starts in the back of my mind, the glow that surrounds a germinating thought and starts it flaring like the light of Galadriel's phial, the uh oh, here IT COMES that makes me leap for my keyboard, hoping I won't lose a single word in the time it takes for my computer to boot up. It's why I carry a notebook around, and why I have one by my bedside to open in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed and only partly in the world, trying to estimate a halfway straight line of words in total darkness. There's nothing like it - certainly sex has never come anywhere close for me (but that's a whole 'nother essay). I love writing, I can't resist it, and so I guess that makes me a writer.

And like Haddon says, it's a lot like being gay (as I understand it, since I'm not gay). It's something that's always been there, hiding in plain sight. Years it's taken for me to realize it, that this isn't just a silly impulse I indulge now and then, that it's part of who I am, an indelible part, maybe the most important part. Maybe this is the majority of who I am, and because of my cursed lack of confidence and general feeling of worthlessness, I've never been able to see it. Maybe my deficiencies in other things, things that most people take for granted so easily, aren't just really big holes proving I'm not as good as others. Maybe those holes are there to make room for THIS, so big a thing that it can't co-exist with anything that would distract me from it.

Is this why I can't keep a steady job, or my mind on the boring day-to-day? Is this why lovers burn out so quickly on me, why I've spent so much of my life sleeping alone, and why I feel so lonely even when I'm not alone? And if it is, what am I supposed to do with that knowledge?

Ah man, I don't need a midlife crisis right now. CRAP. But maybe I do. Maybe this is exactly the right time for this kind of shit. Argh.



Quote (and crisis) courtesy of princessofg. As Daffy Duck would say, "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!"

Comments

[laurelgardner.livejournal.com]

"Is this why I can't keep a steady job, or my mind on the boring day-to-day? Is this why lovers burn out so quickly on me, why I've spent so much of my life sleeping alone, and why I feel so lonely even when I'm not alone? And if it is, what am I supposed to do with that knowledge?"

I think this is just what life is like for an artist. I understand the loneliness; I go through life feeling like my soul is opened warm and wide to the world, but is everywhere met with hard shells of distrust and (worse!) apathy.

I've given up on lovers. Luckily I believe in soulmates (nay, I've SEEN them before my eyes), and I know no one but my soulmate could possibly keep up with me.

"Maybe my deficiencies in other things, things that most people take for granted so easily, aren't just really big holes proving I'm not as good as others. Maybe those holes are there to make room for THIS, so big a thing that it can't co-exist with anything that would distract me from it."


Also, I believe I understand this. They tell me I'm attention defecit, though I think that's a horrible name for it. To me, it feels like having three arms and one leg. I'm socially defunct though I know I'm a great friend, I'm a poor student though I'm smart and hard working, I'd lose my own head if it wasn't attached to me, I'm disorganized, I fail to understand details, directions, etc., I stutter and speak too quickly or too loud.

But sometimes, when I'm enjoying some music, or writing, or a sunrise, feeling as if my soul is too big for my body, and no one else around me seems to get it, I just want to scream, "Can't you see? Can no one else see?" People are open books to me, their fears, their hopes, their motivations, but everyone else is blind.

"Most of my life I've wanted to write. Now and then, I've done it. Taken up pen and paper (or keyboard) and scribbled down ideas, or outlines, or even finished stories. I've tried a number of art forms - music, drawing, various forms of object creation - but none of them has felt as satisfying, as full, as writing. When it's there, when it flows, it seems to run over me like a river, sweeping me away in a current that's partly exhilirating, partly frustrating, and partly frightening as hell. I never feel in control when I write, rather it feels like something has me in its grip, and I have no choice about what I'm doing. It scares me"

Have you read any of Thomas Harris's thoughts on writing? He's the author of "The Silence of the Lambs," and he talks about how he doesn't create his stories, he just uncovers them. I really think that's how it is. Stories are alive, they are the ones in control.

Do you ever feel like the world of art is more real than the world you live in? I know I do.

[pandorashobbit.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm silent lurker-type-person. But I had to say that I completely agree with you. I've come to the realization that all I really want to do is write, but trying to make money from it so scary. I can definately relate to the crisis you're going through. I'm begining to think I'm going through a quarter life crisis because of this.

I can relate to not having a steady job either, the only job I've ever had was working at a community theatre on a play. I know I need money and should get a job, but I can't see myself working in a regular 9 to 5 job. I know I'll probably end up a starving artist sharing a loft with my friends. But I'm cool with. It's the outside world that seems to have a problem with it.

And like you, I don't want it to ever feel like work. I've written things that have felt that way and it's easy to tell when something has been struggled over. I don't like that. I know the second it starts feeling like work and loses it's fun and passion, is the second I have to pack it in. I just hoped to God that day never comes.

and why I feel so lonely even when I'm not alone?

I understand completely. I sometimes feel more alone in a crowded room, than I do in my room by myself. I guess that just comes with the territory of seeing things in a way and with a light much different from most people.

[willow-wode.livejournal.com]

Yes. You never want to be a writer. No one in their right mind WANTS to be a writer, because of exactly these kinds of things. You're either a writer or you're not, it's hard-wired and inescapable--and escape is tempting. But you can't run away from what you are, not forever.

But making a living as a writer? That is another thing altogether. It usually means that you have to give up a lot of the things that can make words into art. Mostly in the name of 'market'. So it begs the question--is the monetary gain ultimately worth the cost?

What a choice. Yarg.

Storytellers used to be welcomed into homes, put by the fire and fed, looked at askance when they got odd, but cherished, nonetheless. Ever feel as if you were born in the wrong damned place and time? *snort*