This Novel Is Trying To Kill Me
crossposted from Lee Edward McIlmoyle's blog
The Constant Sea of Night… hates me.
No, really.
I have been fighting to break the back of this novel and get the first draft written for… oh heck, I can’t find the proof, but I’m pretty sure I started planning the initial ideas in 2014. That’s three years of batting the ball around and building up tension trying to get this thing written. It’s meant to be my opus, the grand summation of my meditations on human social and biological evolution.
Instead, it’s this lumbering glass behemoth, empty but huge, and the sectioning I’ve done means nothing to the little boy inside of me that just stands in awe of the fucking thing.
The reason I’m pissed off is, I can’t shake the idea that I’m meant to write this novel. It might turn out to be the most important thing I’ve ever done. It’s certainly the most intimidating and ambitious thing I’ve conceived of.
I have no one to talk to about this stuff. My writer friends are all wrapped up in their own things, too busy to spare me the headspace. I haven’t even asked, but I simply couldn’t bear to be turned down. I feel like a distance has formed around me, and no one dares to enter the zone to find me and bring me home.
The thing of it is, I’d quit and start something else, if not for the simple truth that I’m starting to fear that it’s all I know how to do: run away. I have to stick and see this through, for everyone, myself included.
So what’s the answer? I’m not sure I even understand the question anymore. The Philosophical Clown is speechless.
I’m writing this in the hope that I can look back on it in a year or three and laugh.
I hope I learn to laugh again.
Lee.
The Constant Sea of Night… hates me.
No, really.
I have been fighting to break the back of this novel and get the first draft written for… oh heck, I can’t find the proof, but I’m pretty sure I started planning the initial ideas in 2014. That’s three years of batting the ball around and building up tension trying to get this thing written. It’s meant to be my opus, the grand summation of my meditations on human social and biological evolution.
Instead, it’s this lumbering glass behemoth, empty but huge, and the sectioning I’ve done means nothing to the little boy inside of me that just stands in awe of the fucking thing.
The reason I’m pissed off is, I can’t shake the idea that I’m meant to write this novel. It might turn out to be the most important thing I’ve ever done. It’s certainly the most intimidating and ambitious thing I’ve conceived of.
I have no one to talk to about this stuff. My writer friends are all wrapped up in their own things, too busy to spare me the headspace. I haven’t even asked, but I simply couldn’t bear to be turned down. I feel like a distance has formed around me, and no one dares to enter the zone to find me and bring me home.
The thing of it is, I’d quit and start something else, if not for the simple truth that I’m starting to fear that it’s all I know how to do: run away. I have to stick and see this through, for everyone, myself included.
So what’s the answer? I’m not sure I even understand the question anymore. The Philosophical Clown is speechless.
I’m writing this in the hope that I can look back on it in a year or three and laugh.
I hope I learn to laugh again.
Lee.