Last month or so, I wrote a post about how I felt my dreams had changed. I talked to my husband about it and he protested that I was letting myself die. He didn't want me to give up my dreams and die inside, to shrivel up and become a worm and a shell of a woman.
It was then that I realized that writing had become work. It was unpleasant, something I dreaded doing. As an English major, I have over 4 years of university writing under my belt, not to mention the thousands of papers for high school, middle school, and elementary school. Writing had been morphed into something I hated. Rather than writing what I wanted, I was reduced to a hack, churning out papers for grades and crossing my fingers that they would stick. My last semester, I wrote a 110 page screenplay, a 30 page paper, and a 115 page novel for my finals. Throughout the year, I averaged about 6 papers a week of 1-2 pages each. That's a lot of output, especially for a bed-ridden pregnant woman who lost 20 lbs in 2 months.
Somewhere along the line, my muse took a hike, my drive went kaput, my... everything was gone. This is actually my first foray into writing for a long time. I'm working on getting my freedom of expression out, coaxing my muse and telling it there aren't any scary term papers out here. It's been high-stress for so long, writing, my means of escape, became a chore and a burden. It wasn't fun, I didn't want to do it at all. I'd rather give up that dream that sacrifice what little talent I have left in pursuit of some kind of worldly accolades. I don't need to publish a book... right now... it'd be nice just to want to write, to have an idea I'm passionate enough about to sit down and write.
And if that makes me a bad person, so be it. If that means I'm wasting my talent, then good for me, it's my talent to bury. I refuse to be bullied into strangling m soul because if I did that, it would die forever and there would be no comeback. If that means I have to be a diesel mechanic for the rest of my life, then cool. If that means I massage people for a living or cook or go to a trade school and a Bachelor's is as high a degree as I obtain, than so be it. I am trying to salvage what is left of my desires without feeling like I'm wasting my life, and I assure you my life would be wasted if I took up the pen in pursuit of anything else.
I don't want to resent my books, my few pleasures that give me extreme comfort in this life. I never want to get to the point where I despise the printed word, where I seek comfort in the mundane and abstract over literature, but that's where I'm headed right now. I know life is not about enjoying yourself, it's about capitalism and the American dream, that you can't pay for food or housing with passion, but I don't want to get to the point in my life where suicide is a happy alternative to waking up. I don't want to look at my job and feel as if it sucked my soul through my nostrils and breathed it into corporate exhaust.
Baby steps. First the blog, then the book.
It was then that I realized that writing had become work. It was unpleasant, something I dreaded doing. As an English major, I have over 4 years of university writing under my belt, not to mention the thousands of papers for high school, middle school, and elementary school. Writing had been morphed into something I hated. Rather than writing what I wanted, I was reduced to a hack, churning out papers for grades and crossing my fingers that they would stick. My last semester, I wrote a 110 page screenplay, a 30 page paper, and a 115 page novel for my finals. Throughout the year, I averaged about 6 papers a week of 1-2 pages each. That's a lot of output, especially for a bed-ridden pregnant woman who lost 20 lbs in 2 months.
Somewhere along the line, my muse took a hike, my drive went kaput, my... everything was gone. This is actually my first foray into writing for a long time. I'm working on getting my freedom of expression out, coaxing my muse and telling it there aren't any scary term papers out here. It's been high-stress for so long, writing, my means of escape, became a chore and a burden. It wasn't fun, I didn't want to do it at all. I'd rather give up that dream that sacrifice what little talent I have left in pursuit of some kind of worldly accolades. I don't need to publish a book... right now... it'd be nice just to want to write, to have an idea I'm passionate enough about to sit down and write.
And if that makes me a bad person, so be it. If that means I'm wasting my talent, then good for me, it's my talent to bury. I refuse to be bullied into strangling m soul because if I did that, it would die forever and there would be no comeback. If that means I have to be a diesel mechanic for the rest of my life, then cool. If that means I massage people for a living or cook or go to a trade school and a Bachelor's is as high a degree as I obtain, than so be it. I am trying to salvage what is left of my desires without feeling like I'm wasting my life, and I assure you my life would be wasted if I took up the pen in pursuit of anything else.
I don't want to resent my books, my few pleasures that give me extreme comfort in this life. I never want to get to the point where I despise the printed word, where I seek comfort in the mundane and abstract over literature, but that's where I'm headed right now. I know life is not about enjoying yourself, it's about capitalism and the American dream, that you can't pay for food or housing with passion, but I don't want to get to the point in my life where suicide is a happy alternative to waking up. I don't want to look at my job and feel as if it sucked my soul through my nostrils and breathed it into corporate exhaust.
Baby steps. First the blog, then the book.
