GB: A burnt out case

Writing is a struggle. It is a chore. I fear my life, complicated by financial burdens and emotional regret, are the dampeners to my creativity. I admire (and envy) writers who can free flow their work, who can sit down and transcribe hundreds of words to the page without thought, who can write what they feel, what they think, what they see in an internal picture show in their minds. Worse, I envy those people who can do this after a full day at work, and who have children, partners, pets and -- on top of that -- just as many commitments and stressors as I do. My life is relatively uncomplicated. There is no excuse for me not to be writing every night, for several hours at a time if I so wish... and I do, but I can't. Or at least it seems that I can't.

Have I lost the gift? Am I tired? Am I lazy?

On my bookcase is a book entitled 'A burnt out case' by Graham Greene. I've not yet read it, but the title draws my eye. I feel burnt out. I'm not. If I think energy, I feel better, even a little. It's all in my mind.

I am a writer. It is within me, a part of me just as I am fair skinned, brown haired, hazel eyed. This writing gift is something I was born with. I can't add up without using my fingers, but I can craft imaginary words to paper in a way that moves people. I believe that. I trust it. I know it.

Right now though, I seem unable to craft anything other than disjointed, passionless sentences with recycled metaphors and thin similes. The cure, I know, is to write... anything. If I can't write fiction, then I will blog. When I'm feeling more creatively limber, but not sufficiently strong enough to write fiction, I can blog the novels I read, or I can critique other people's work so that I stay connected -- my finger on the pulse, as it were.

Envy of others will serve no purpose other than to erode my confidence and further isolate my characters.

I wrote Iris in the space of a couple of hours. That is the last piece of writing that wrote itself. Codee is work, fulfilling, worthwhile, demanding and joyful work, but work. He doesn't flow to the page, he doesn't reveal himself in picture and metaphor. He's recalcitrant, brooding, stubborn and childlike. Writing Codee is like writing a third year university philosophy essay when you've only studied mid level high school. He and I aren't on the same level. He's smart. He's crafty. He's spent eight years of his life researching, reading, spending every waking hour strategising and studying... and he knows I haven't.

Only I can connect with him in a way that will bring him to the page, and I am doing that, slowly. Right now there's more research and planning than there is writing. I'm trying to catch up. I'm impatient to return to the flow. I want him to tell me what to do, but he can't until I know it for myself.

I miss writing in the flow, the zone. I miss being surprised by what appears on the page. I miss the startling revelations that come about only when the fingers move faster than the mind, when the conscious brain switches off and the subconscious communicates directly with the keyboard. I miss startling out of a writing sessions with hours passed and a wealth of fictional experience laid out before me that I never knew existed in my mind or elsewhere.

Despite all this, tonight I wrote some blog reviews, replied to a critique response and I wrote this. It may not be Codee, but it's writing. It's progress. I feel better for having done it.

I am a writer. I write. Everything is practice. Everything is worthwhile. I trust in that.