A blockage unreal but effective
Thursday, April 12, 2007
I want to write, but things stop me.
Distractions make my writing bad. I read good fiction and the words flow out of me, but then there are news articles and blogs to read, e-mails and fantasy novels that taint the rhythm of my own words, and I don't know how I can write except alone in a dim room, and when do I have that except on cloudy weekdays when the laundry's all done? The cat needs fed, the dog has to pee, chicken must be thawed for dinner, I need some excercise but I'm so tired, I'm so tired.
There is such joy and pain and guilt and absurdity in our lives; I want to write about it. The characters who live in my head are based on us, though, on people we know and love and hate and miss and wish we could forget, and I have this terrible fear that someone I know will recognize herself in a story and hate me for it. Like that will happen. Like my stories are being published all over the place. Like I finish stories.
So I don't write. I will regret, later, not having written, but I don't write. And my stories are dying. I wonder sometimes if I am squandering my only chance to set them down.
Posted byMJ at 2:02 PM
Dammit, woman, get out your computer and start writing! Someday we will both be alone because everyone who has read our stories will have recognized unflattering descriptions of themselves, and will subsequently disown us, but so what?! It is our job to record, after all.
Lately, I have come to tell people I am fascinated with that they need to be careful what they tell me because their life stories may possibly end up in my stories someday (or never, but whatever). Just in case...then I'm covered!