Sometimes I think I can’t be a real writer because I don’t
actually want to write most of the time. I read interviews with people who say
well of course I feel compelled to write at least an hour every day, every writer
does, and I think they do? Do they not have Netflix?
I like to follow Catherine Ryan Howard’s blog posts and
tweets because she freely admits to having announced that she was going to
write a novel and then doing absolutely nothing for seven years. This is more
my style.
(Though I’d never dream of making a public announcement
about it. It drives me crazy when people ask what I’m doing these days and I
can’t think of a way to avoid admitting the awful truth—I, um, I am trying to
be a writer. Not sure it counts if you’re not published yet. So I’m not a
writer, I’m just trying to be. I also clean rooms at a hotel.)
When I sit down to write, when the excuses have run out,
when my internet connection has failed with only three minutes left of an
episode of Doctor Who and I have stopped screaming and throwing things
at the router—when I actually open the document that contains my sci-fi novel
or my zombie screenplay or my chick-flick screenplay depending on which one
I’ve completely, utterly and permanently given up on most recently (let’s be
honest, the zombie story is going nowhere, it’s time for the secure delete on
that one)—when I look at the page, and begin reading what I did yesterday, and
realize that I’m actually going to do it, to try to write again—
It’s really very hard to express the feeling that descends.
Not despair—there’s more drama in despair. Not resignation—there would be more
productivity with true resignation.
It’s sort of the feeling one imagines you would get after
being reconditioned by Big Brother.
The Winston after Room 101 feeling.
And then I write.
Unfortunately.
