My fired story won’t be here today.
I have a serious case of writer’s block. Part of it’s due to the subject matter. But I’m starting to believe that a much bigger part of it is because I don’t write often enough. I do it so seldomly that it’s almost become a bit foreign to me. I need to practice my craft. I also need to read. And also do math – funny enough doing math helps me be a better writer. Writing came easiest to me when I did math on a regular basis, which was when I was in high school – I went all the way up to trigonometry. It was also back when I didn’t know I was a writer. I was just writing as a form of self-expression – not so much to be creative, not to make art. I was also writing on assignment from a person in authority – my teacher. I wrote all my English papers at the very last-minute – sometimes 2nd period computer class last-minute and turned it in in my 4th period English class and still got an A. She was a pretty strict teacher too – only one other girl got As in that class all the time like me, and she was an avid reader. She was reading thick ass Stephen King books in the 11th grade. I don’t know if he’s a hard read or not, but any book that has a lot of pages is kind of a hard read for me – as in hard to keep my attention. I was barely reading the ones that were assigned.
Writing was so effortless back then, when I didn’t think about it, when I didn’t really care about it even. When I wasn’t trying to be good but somehow it just was. That teacher was the one who told me I was a writer. Now I can’t think of a time after that 11th grade class where writing wasn’t hard.
No wait, I take that back. It was actually hard in that 11th grade class too, that is until the 11th hour. At the last minute, something always came to me. I could try to work on my writing a week or so in advance, and maybe I’d think of an idea but I couldn’t get it out, but the pressure of the last-minute always brought it out of me.
Not now. Now, when the last-minute comes, if I’m not ready, if it’s not complete to my liking, I give up at least for the time being. I haven’t given up on my fired story. It will appear here one day – maybe tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow. I have over 9,000 words already written on that story and it’s not even complete. Not to worry, I will edit the hell out of it. And some of it—those 9,000 words–is an outline, some of it is just free writing. Some of it is me expressing my frustration with this writing process, some of it is redundant as hell and then of course, there’s the actual story.
But for now, at 10:15pm I’m going to play a little Wordle (that game really makes me feel smart) drink some orange juice, eat raisins (because writing makes me want to snack) and try again…tomorrow.
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