(no subject)
I need to write.
More specifically, I need to write a play… for a class…to graduate…within a week. Sad thing is I don’t really know where I’m going with it… I’m not sure I like the plot or the characters or anything at all really. But my professor liked the first few pages. I’m second guessing myself a lot. It’s harder to slip automatically into Writing capital-“w” mode. I over think things more than I used to. Writing used to be something I did that let me just be myself. I can be as self-obsessed/flagellating as I wanna be, and I don’t have to think about it.
Sure, eventually I might have to edit. But who really gives a shit about that other than editors?
Apparently I do. I was shocked too. Still, I think that’s the problem. I need to stop moping and whining and planning and just fucking write already. So I’m starting.
This, this is me starting.
I’ve gone over the comic submission guidelines for a bunch of companies again, read and re-read a bunch of advice columns from writers I love and respect (Vaughn, Ellis, Gaiman, Waid, O’Malley…) and am trying my best to just WRITE. Something. Anything.
Words on a page.
Also, popmatters has an open call for comics criticism. It’s not a paid gig, but it is fairly high profile. ~2000 words a month if they want me. But I have to write that much as my proposal, my interview if you will. So I sit down with some comics.
But reading them feels like fun, not work. I should be working. Stupid brain.
And who am I to criticize this? At least they’re published. More than I can say. Had a book “in development” limbo for almost a year now… no glimmer of hope, no money, no additional prospects.
I graduate in a month and a half. I really wanted to have something… OUT THERE. Something to point to, something to use to get other jobs.
I wanted something I could be proud of.
And what did I get? Probably suckered. Maybe just forgotten. I put my trust in someone who has proven that quite frankly, they didn’t deserve it. I know times is hard, and the industry is rough, but I should have known better.
But it was too good. It was too much fun. It was too easy to do.
And now where am I? I’m stuck. Most of my ideas are halfbaked, and I overthink them. I can’t just sit down and write. I don’t know what to do about that. I know I can’t make a living at this or get published if I don’t write anything, but I can’t see to write anything because I don’t have the confidence that I used to.
It used to be that I knew, I KNEW, that I could take over the world. I KNEW I was extremely good at what I do. I also knew that I could be better, and to take advice and criticism as I got it, but I was confident that I could do this.
I COULD write, and I COULD make money off of it. Because I was that good. But now?
Now I’m not so sure. Am I really that good? Was I ever? Why haven’t the companies written back. Even a rejection letter. Why hasn’t the script that I wrote been produced? Why can’t I find anyone to work with? Why am I not done with school? Why am I even in school anyway?
All it does is stress me out.
But I have no other direction. Without that reason to wake up in the morning, I probably wouldn’t. Why get up? Why not just sleep the whole day away. Why write? It doesn’t matter. No one will read it anyway.
In a month and a half I graduate.
Will I even bother waking up then, or will I roll away from the window and sleep for 20+ hours? Because I feel like I could. Like it wouldn’t matter.
Like I accomplish just as much when I’m unconscious as when I’m not, and at least unconscious I don’t feel this constant stress, this pushing inside my skull.
Jesus, this sounds like a livejournal entry. I’m just writing to write. I need to. I need to get my fingers moving again. I need to find my narrative voice.
I need to find a reason to do something more than just sleep all day, and really that’s what this is a bout.
This is nearly 800 words. Plus a comic strip at ret-con. I wanna do 1000 a day, at least. Just to go.
I know it’s not a lot.
I know it probably won’t matter.
I know it probably won’t make a difference.
And I’m pretty sure I’m gonna fail at this too.
What other choice do I have? I don’t know how to do anything but write. It’s all I’ve studied, all I’ve done for nearly half my life. If I went back to what I did before writing I would pretty much just be finger painting and playing with ninja turtles. So there it is. I need to relearn how to write, and I need to commit to it. Because there’s nothing else I can do with my life. Writing is it.
I want it back. Without it, I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything.
Without writing I’m just going through the motions. Yeah, I can stress about classes, and graduation, and relationships, and moving, and a day-job, and rent, and friends, and everything else. I can make magic decks. I can watch movies. I can drink, I can go to parties, I can listen to every fucking CD that has ever been released. But I’m only doing these things to distract me from this:
I should be writing, and I have nothing to write.
Life is a distraction without writing. So I want it back. I don’t want to go through life dazed distracted and confused. I tried that in high school, and it left a foul taste in me that I still can’t shake. So here’s the new manifesto:
I want to be happy.
Writing makes me happy.
I want to write.
I want to be able to sustain myself writing.
If I can’t, I still want to write. Sustaining is not the goal, it is just a nice perk.
I want to be read.
I don’t want being read to be the only reason I write.
I want to commit to writing. I want to stop cheating on writing with all of these other things in my life. Yes, tv is fun. Yes, Magic is fun. Yes, DnD is fun. Yes, sex is fun. These things don’t go away, they do enrich my life. But they AREN’T MY LIFE. And that’s the essential thing.
I want to define myself. When someone asks what I do, who I am, I don’t want to say “Well, I’m an English major, I read comics, I have a long-term girlfriend who I miss, I have a few friends who I’m going to miss, I have…” I want to answer succinctly.
I am a writer.
This is over 1200 words.
I am a writer.
This is the first step.
But this is no longer something easy, this is not, to use a terrible metaphor, an escalator.
Tomorrow, I need to take another one.
In the meantime, I am a writer. Don’t fucking forget it. I’ll try not to either.
More specifically, I need to write a play… for a class…to graduate…within a week. Sad thing is I don’t really know where I’m going with it… I’m not sure I like the plot or the characters or anything at all really. But my professor liked the first few pages. I’m second guessing myself a lot. It’s harder to slip automatically into Writing capital-“w” mode. I over think things more than I used to. Writing used to be something I did that let me just be myself. I can be as self-obsessed/flagellating as I wanna be, and I don’t have to think about it.
Sure, eventually I might have to edit. But who really gives a shit about that other than editors?
Apparently I do. I was shocked too. Still, I think that’s the problem. I need to stop moping and whining and planning and just fucking write already. So I’m starting.
This, this is me starting.
I’ve gone over the comic submission guidelines for a bunch of companies again, read and re-read a bunch of advice columns from writers I love and respect (Vaughn, Ellis, Gaiman, Waid, O’Malley…) and am trying my best to just WRITE. Something. Anything.
Words on a page.
Also, popmatters has an open call for comics criticism. It’s not a paid gig, but it is fairly high profile. ~2000 words a month if they want me. But I have to write that much as my proposal, my interview if you will. So I sit down with some comics.
But reading them feels like fun, not work. I should be working. Stupid brain.
And who am I to criticize this? At least they’re published. More than I can say. Had a book “in development” limbo for almost a year now… no glimmer of hope, no money, no additional prospects.
I graduate in a month and a half. I really wanted to have something… OUT THERE. Something to point to, something to use to get other jobs.
I wanted something I could be proud of.
And what did I get? Probably suckered. Maybe just forgotten. I put my trust in someone who has proven that quite frankly, they didn’t deserve it. I know times is hard, and the industry is rough, but I should have known better.
But it was too good. It was too much fun. It was too easy to do.
And now where am I? I’m stuck. Most of my ideas are halfbaked, and I overthink them. I can’t just sit down and write. I don’t know what to do about that. I know I can’t make a living at this or get published if I don’t write anything, but I can’t see to write anything because I don’t have the confidence that I used to.
It used to be that I knew, I KNEW, that I could take over the world. I KNEW I was extremely good at what I do. I also knew that I could be better, and to take advice and criticism as I got it, but I was confident that I could do this.
I COULD write, and I COULD make money off of it. Because I was that good. But now?
Now I’m not so sure. Am I really that good? Was I ever? Why haven’t the companies written back. Even a rejection letter. Why hasn’t the script that I wrote been produced? Why can’t I find anyone to work with? Why am I not done with school? Why am I even in school anyway?
All it does is stress me out.
But I have no other direction. Without that reason to wake up in the morning, I probably wouldn’t. Why get up? Why not just sleep the whole day away. Why write? It doesn’t matter. No one will read it anyway.
In a month and a half I graduate.
Will I even bother waking up then, or will I roll away from the window and sleep for 20+ hours? Because I feel like I could. Like it wouldn’t matter.
Like I accomplish just as much when I’m unconscious as when I’m not, and at least unconscious I don’t feel this constant stress, this pushing inside my skull.
Jesus, this sounds like a livejournal entry. I’m just writing to write. I need to. I need to get my fingers moving again. I need to find my narrative voice.
I need to find a reason to do something more than just sleep all day, and really that’s what this is a bout.
This is nearly 800 words. Plus a comic strip at ret-con. I wanna do 1000 a day, at least. Just to go.
I know it’s not a lot.
I know it probably won’t matter.
I know it probably won’t make a difference.
And I’m pretty sure I’m gonna fail at this too.
What other choice do I have? I don’t know how to do anything but write. It’s all I’ve studied, all I’ve done for nearly half my life. If I went back to what I did before writing I would pretty much just be finger painting and playing with ninja turtles. So there it is. I need to relearn how to write, and I need to commit to it. Because there’s nothing else I can do with my life. Writing is it.
I want it back. Without it, I don’t really feel like I’m doing anything.
Without writing I’m just going through the motions. Yeah, I can stress about classes, and graduation, and relationships, and moving, and a day-job, and rent, and friends, and everything else. I can make magic decks. I can watch movies. I can drink, I can go to parties, I can listen to every fucking CD that has ever been released. But I’m only doing these things to distract me from this:
I should be writing, and I have nothing to write.
Life is a distraction without writing. So I want it back. I don’t want to go through life dazed distracted and confused. I tried that in high school, and it left a foul taste in me that I still can’t shake. So here’s the new manifesto:
I want to be happy.
Writing makes me happy.
I want to write.
I want to be able to sustain myself writing.
If I can’t, I still want to write. Sustaining is not the goal, it is just a nice perk.
I want to be read.
I don’t want being read to be the only reason I write.
I want to commit to writing. I want to stop cheating on writing with all of these other things in my life. Yes, tv is fun. Yes, Magic is fun. Yes, DnD is fun. Yes, sex is fun. These things don’t go away, they do enrich my life. But they AREN’T MY LIFE. And that’s the essential thing.
I want to define myself. When someone asks what I do, who I am, I don’t want to say “Well, I’m an English major, I read comics, I have a long-term girlfriend who I miss, I have a few friends who I’m going to miss, I have…” I want to answer succinctly.
I am a writer.
This is over 1200 words.
I am a writer.
This is the first step.
But this is no longer something easy, this is not, to use a terrible metaphor, an escalator.
Tomorrow, I need to take another one.
In the meantime, I am a writer. Don’t fucking forget it. I’ll try not to either.