A mug's game
I'm really struggling with writing right now.
Something happened to me at VP17--something good. I felt a tremendous amount of validation for what I was doing. I felt more like a writer than I have ever have. A writer masquerading as a front-end web developer, sure, but a writer nonetheless.
That feeling persisted until recently. I was writing, or editing, regularly. But in the past month, I've done almost nothing.
As a result, I don't feel quite human.
I'm not.... entirely sure what the cause of this lull is. I have some theories. It's probably a combination of multiple factors.
- My rejection by Friendly!Agent. That was a big one for me. It wasn't just a form letter to a query; this was a friend's agent taking a look at the entire package and telling me it wasn't for him. It was hearing, once again, that my story wasn't engaging--a problem I don't know how to fix.
The reason why I don't think this is the whole cause is because I did keep submitting after this. Then I went to Shadows, and I came back, and after that, it was like I was... waiting for something to happen?
- Depression. Since Shadows, I've pretty much been depressed in all the textbook ways. Disinterest in things that used to interest me, lack of motivation, sadness, a general feeling like my life is a pointless struggle to the grave.
I don't know if I'm not writing because I'm depressed, or depressed because I'm not writing. It cuts both ways, I suspect.
I do know that depression for me has often felt... anticipatory? My sophomore year of college was this way. I had a great freshman year, but when I came back in the fall of my sophomore year, it was like I was waiting for the same high I had felt the year before. And when it never came, I didn't know quite what to do with myself.
This is a very similar feeling I'm having lately. After the emotional high of Shadows, it feels like there's nothing in my life that can live up to it. Certainly not the daily struggle of telling stories--for all that, on some intellectual level, I feel like telling stories is the only thing that will help.
Oddly, throughout all this I'm not feeling introverted. If anything, I'm feeling more extroverted than usual, as if I'm hoping by spending time with people, getting out of my own head, I can try to recapture that same high.
One of the ways I know something is wrong is because I look at posts like this and it feels like a knife to the stomach. I don't know if it's because it's by Scott Lynch, or if it's because I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Some of those influences were mine--Scott, being about my age, grew up in the same SFF milieu that I did, after all. And yet... look where he is. Look how amazing his writing is. It feels effortless, to an outsider seeing the "highlight reel," for all I know that he struggled greatly with depression.
I will never be in that list.
I am a writer, not a storyteller--and telling stories is the skill that really matters.
It's not worth the struggle.
It's a mug's game
These are the things I tell myself that break my heart and stop my hand.
And yet I know the responses:
Never is a very long time.
I can't not write.
Every writer goes through this kind of rejection.
I feel like I can write, but somehow I keep turning down the opportunities to put words on paper.
My pain is not special or unique or any of these things, but it's still pain.
Something happened to me at VP17--something good. I felt a tremendous amount of validation for what I was doing. I felt more like a writer than I have ever have. A writer masquerading as a front-end web developer, sure, but a writer nonetheless.
That feeling persisted until recently. I was writing, or editing, regularly. But in the past month, I've done almost nothing.
As a result, I don't feel quite human.
I'm not.... entirely sure what the cause of this lull is. I have some theories. It's probably a combination of multiple factors.
- My rejection by Friendly!Agent. That was a big one for me. It wasn't just a form letter to a query; this was a friend's agent taking a look at the entire package and telling me it wasn't for him. It was hearing, once again, that my story wasn't engaging--a problem I don't know how to fix.
The reason why I don't think this is the whole cause is because I did keep submitting after this. Then I went to Shadows, and I came back, and after that, it was like I was... waiting for something to happen?
- Depression. Since Shadows, I've pretty much been depressed in all the textbook ways. Disinterest in things that used to interest me, lack of motivation, sadness, a general feeling like my life is a pointless struggle to the grave.
I don't know if I'm not writing because I'm depressed, or depressed because I'm not writing. It cuts both ways, I suspect.
I do know that depression for me has often felt... anticipatory? My sophomore year of college was this way. I had a great freshman year, but when I came back in the fall of my sophomore year, it was like I was waiting for the same high I had felt the year before. And when it never came, I didn't know quite what to do with myself.
This is a very similar feeling I'm having lately. After the emotional high of Shadows, it feels like there's nothing in my life that can live up to it. Certainly not the daily struggle of telling stories--for all that, on some intellectual level, I feel like telling stories is the only thing that will help.
Oddly, throughout all this I'm not feeling introverted. If anything, I'm feeling more extroverted than usual, as if I'm hoping by spending time with people, getting out of my own head, I can try to recapture that same high.
One of the ways I know something is wrong is because I look at posts like this and it feels like a knife to the stomach. I don't know if it's because it's by Scott Lynch, or if it's because I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Some of those influences were mine--Scott, being about my age, grew up in the same SFF milieu that I did, after all. And yet... look where he is. Look how amazing his writing is. It feels effortless, to an outsider seeing the "highlight reel," for all I know that he struggled greatly with depression.
I will never be in that list.
I am a writer, not a storyteller--and telling stories is the skill that really matters.
It's not worth the struggle.
It's a mug's game
These are the things I tell myself that break my heart and stop my hand.
And yet I know the responses:
Never is a very long time.
I can't not write.
Every writer goes through this kind of rejection.
I feel like I can write, but somehow I keep turning down the opportunities to put words on paper.
My pain is not special or unique or any of these things, but it's still pain.