Why I never write... and what I'm going to do about it
I spent a _lot_ of my youth writing. It was one of my favorite ways to pass the time. I started my first poetry notebook when I was all of five years old. I still have it, I do believe. About a year ago, I cracked it open and got a smile. Silly stuff, of couse, but not bad for a kid. Reading and writing, my first loves. I wrote for a decade, and aside from that first notebook, I have only a few excerpts still around.
It was in highschool that that love was betrayed. Writing for a grade was bad enough, but probaly wouldn't have coused any lasting damage on its own, but someone invented intermural writing as a competitive sport! what a NASTY little idea.
I'm not particularly competitive by nature, but when I get that bug, it's horrid. Soccer and writing were my two sports. In soccer I was center-full in a defense that was _never_ scored against for three years running. I played in the rain, in snow, in poor health. I ripped the ligaments out of my left knee, and was back on the field within two weeks of my surgery. I had no sense whatsoever! In writing I was just as obsessive, but the results were much more insidious. Soccer damaged my body in ways that I could see and feel. Competitive writing damaged my soul.
Soon I was crunching out poems, essays, paper by the truckload, it seemed,but it didn't take long for the life to drain out of it. I could make an A+ on every assignment for an entire semester, win first place in state competion, get a piece printed, framed, and displayed in the NY Museum of Modern Art, and hate every minute of it. Why? I had stopped writing for me, for the muse that gently drove me. I never wrote just for the enjoyment of putting words on paper. It had to be perfect! Every time! I wrote because it was required, because it was assigned, or because I was gonna put some other pompous, arrogant fool into second place if it killed me. And it did! I didn't realize it then; heck, I didn't even realize that I had stopped having fun until my senior year.
Then it hit me, and I stopped. Cold. The last semester of my senior year, I didn't write a word. I turned in my 'rejects' from the semester or year before. For my valediction, I tweaked a poem that I had written as a freshman. Took off for college... and Flunked out! I wouldn't write a word.
Writing home became an assignment from my parents. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't write a thank-you letter to a scholarship donor, and lost the money. I had completely turned off the fount that had begun to flow when I was a child. I had killed the golden goose. I didn't put a single word on paper for over a decade. And I had a real, if generally secret, attitude about it. By god, I wasn't gonna write for anyone's pleasure, not even for my own.
What a whacko! It took a whole decade for me to realize that I was being childish and that this attitude was not serving me. Sometime in my late 20's, I began to let myself write again, but the best I've been able to do is mere dribbles. An article here, an email there. Unless I was ranting, writing was a bit of an ordeal. My concentration was never on task. A 20-line email could take an hour or more, 'cause I was always finding something else to do: bathroom, drink, pace, edit and re-edit, etc. This difficulty continues to this day.
Sooooo.... I've let this thing go to long, get too big, and eat up some of the best parts of my life. It's become a phobia, an anti-obsession, damned near a psychosis. It's become an excuse, and it's spilling over into my abilty to communicate in general.
Blah, Blah, Blah. Whine, Whine, Whine.
OK, enough catharsis, already. I see it for what it has become. It is fear; It is failure; and it is no longerwelcome to be part of me!
I AM THROUGH WITH IT!!!
333-55555-333
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
What is thy will?
It is to write regularly.
To what end?
That I may express my inner self, and release an inner bond that does not serve me.
To what end?
That I may communicate with my brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones, that we may guide each other and share ideas on our paths toward accomplishing the Great Work.
Love is the law, love under will.
1
To this end, I commit, for one year and one day, to write in this forum, at least once per week, for at least one hour.
It matters not if it is not polished or even coherent, just that I do it. I deliberately set this as a Magickal Assignment, that I may laugh in the face of my long held resentment of writing as an assignment. I'm betting that before the end of the the year and a day, I'll meet that muse again, and won't need an assignment to enjoy the hell out of this. For now, fake it 'til I make it!
It was in highschool that that love was betrayed. Writing for a grade was bad enough, but probaly wouldn't have coused any lasting damage on its own, but someone invented intermural writing as a competitive sport! what a NASTY little idea.
I'm not particularly competitive by nature, but when I get that bug, it's horrid. Soccer and writing were my two sports. In soccer I was center-full in a defense that was _never_ scored against for three years running. I played in the rain, in snow, in poor health. I ripped the ligaments out of my left knee, and was back on the field within two weeks of my surgery. I had no sense whatsoever! In writing I was just as obsessive, but the results were much more insidious. Soccer damaged my body in ways that I could see and feel. Competitive writing damaged my soul.
Soon I was crunching out poems, essays, paper by the truckload, it seemed,but it didn't take long for the life to drain out of it. I could make an A+ on every assignment for an entire semester, win first place in state competion, get a piece printed, framed, and displayed in the NY Museum of Modern Art, and hate every minute of it. Why? I had stopped writing for me, for the muse that gently drove me. I never wrote just for the enjoyment of putting words on paper. It had to be perfect! Every time! I wrote because it was required, because it was assigned, or because I was gonna put some other pompous, arrogant fool into second place if it killed me. And it did! I didn't realize it then; heck, I didn't even realize that I had stopped having fun until my senior year.
Then it hit me, and I stopped. Cold. The last semester of my senior year, I didn't write a word. I turned in my 'rejects' from the semester or year before. For my valediction, I tweaked a poem that I had written as a freshman. Took off for college... and Flunked out! I wouldn't write a word.
Writing home became an assignment from my parents. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't write a thank-you letter to a scholarship donor, and lost the money. I had completely turned off the fount that had begun to flow when I was a child. I had killed the golden goose. I didn't put a single word on paper for over a decade. And I had a real, if generally secret, attitude about it. By god, I wasn't gonna write for anyone's pleasure, not even for my own.
What a whacko! It took a whole decade for me to realize that I was being childish and that this attitude was not serving me. Sometime in my late 20's, I began to let myself write again, but the best I've been able to do is mere dribbles. An article here, an email there. Unless I was ranting, writing was a bit of an ordeal. My concentration was never on task. A 20-line email could take an hour or more, 'cause I was always finding something else to do: bathroom, drink, pace, edit and re-edit, etc. This difficulty continues to this day.
Sooooo.... I've let this thing go to long, get too big, and eat up some of the best parts of my life. It's become a phobia, an anti-obsession, damned near a psychosis. It's become an excuse, and it's spilling over into my abilty to communicate in general.
Blah, Blah, Blah. Whine, Whine, Whine.
OK, enough catharsis, already. I see it for what it has become. It is fear; It is failure; and it is no longerwelcome to be part of me!
I AM THROUGH WITH IT!!!
333-55555-333
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
What is thy will?
It is to write regularly.
To what end?
That I may express my inner self, and release an inner bond that does not serve me.
To what end?
That I may communicate with my brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones, that we may guide each other and share ideas on our paths toward accomplishing the Great Work.
Love is the law, love under will.
1
To this end, I commit, for one year and one day, to write in this forum, at least once per week, for at least one hour.
It matters not if it is not polished or even coherent, just that I do it. I deliberately set this as a Magickal Assignment, that I may laugh in the face of my long held resentment of writing as an assignment. I'm betting that before the end of the the year and a day, I'll meet that muse again, and won't need an assignment to enjoy the hell out of this. For now, fake it 'til I make it!