It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I’d like to blame it on an excess of good times, but the fact is I could have been writing for months and I haven’t been. It would be like saying I’ve been "practicing" abstinence. Somewhere I crossed a line where the strength it took to climb back on the horse was more than the horse could travel, but if I’d stayed on, I could snap the reins and write anything whenever I wanted. Now I’m stuck in the mud. Nobody hasn’t been there, I think.
But I have always been more comfortable with my drawings than with my writing. And having read over everything related to my current project over the last few days, I’ve come to several crushing realizations about it:
1) it sucks
2) it’s hacky
3) it’s unoriginal
4) it’s pointless
5) it’s timid
6) it doesn’t resonate
7) it all reflects me
No matter how good I felt about my progress, something about it always felt wrong. I didn't say anything because I didn’t know what I was doing. I don't think I've been writing.
Yes, I have been arranging words into sentences and paragraphs on the page. But I’m still in barren country because I haven’t started walking yet. I’m still too afraid and too self-absorbed to write something that could connect with anybody else. Like my writing, I feel like a sideshow. It makes me scared to see myself differently.
I’ve been afraid to travel where other people have gone because I might do it the same as them. Instead I try to sell my little spot to you because I need to believe it’s better than yours. The alternative terrifies me because it suggests that I’ve been doing things wrong for my entire life.
There’s still a part of me believes I am special because I’m David and I’m a writer. There are worlds in my head that I can’t stop from being there, even while the rest of me worries that I'll never be able to tell you about them. Maybe they’re just too personal to be shared as they are. The truer I stayed to them and to myself, the more sickeningly arbitrary it all felt. I guess if you try to bring a really deep well to the surface, it turns into a really big puddle.
For better or for worse, anybody who takes their work seriously measures their own worth against the strength of their art, because they see themselves in it. It’s pretty easy to feel worthless if you think your work sucks. How not to? But the part of me that still feels special wants to believe that the things in my head are worth sharing. Maybe not as they are, because to see these things naked diminishes them. But I’m just fine to see that world peek its little limbs out of the shadows. It doesn’t need me shrink-wrapping the woods before I realize what I’ve done. I’d rather believe this world can grow forever, maybe in the dust and corners of whole other stories, than prove that it can’t. That mystery is too precious. I would be wrong to trap it in amber.
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6 comments:
Keep in mind that what to you seems to suck, be hacky, lack originality, have no point, boil with timidity, lack resonance, and reflect you, might seem to someone else to be wonderfully creative, charming, touching, and move film-writing into a whole new epoch. The thing you always have to remember is that because you've thought about the world that you create with such intensity and for so long, you know it inside-and-out, in a way that no one else could ever do. This knowledge is wonderful because it means you can write about it, but at the same time can hamstring you because once you've thought about something for long enough, it will seem trite, no matter how unique and interesting it started out being. But it will only seem that way to you. No one else has thought about your ideas as much as you have, so to others, they remain revolutionary and amazing.
And even if this turns out to be not so revolutionary and amazing as you'd hoped, just doing it moves you forward in terms of how well you'll be able to execute your next project.
Thanks, Sean. Everything you said is true, but I feel like I *must* stop working on this story because I can feel it dying under my touch.
It was a story based entirely in visuals and feeling. I don't think I know enough about life to do it justice. I'd rather take those feelings from that world and weave them into future scripts so they don't cancel out. The world itself will be left alone for now, but honestly, this is a breakthrough. It's not giving up - I believe I can do better. Who knows, maybe I can even be revolutionary. More than I am already! ;)
Also maybe you should try collaborating with someone- either something great will come out of the space between your minds that never would've shown up when you were working alone, or you'll realize the stuff you think of is way better than what anyone else is doing and be really grateful for your ideas! I'm just sayin', I'll be around for Christmas. Come ogle my HR Giger table.
That's a good point - I've thought about it too. Here's the thing. This story is so close to the heart of me, the only time I can let someone touch it is when I'm ready to share my heart with someone else. I don't know if I'm there yet. Does that make sense? I know that sounds weird. And dude, I can't WAIT to see your H.R. Giger table. You know me too well! :D
Yes, when something's already formed it would be weird to let anyone do more than proofread it, I think. It's like stepparents!
David,
I'm coming out of the closet as a long-time lurker on your blog. I figured any brother of Eric's is a kindred spirit of mine, so I've been reading along for a while...that is, when I wasn't suffering the crushing disappointment of popping over here to see it devoid of updates. But I digress...
Every writer I know (me included!) has a time-share condo in Pooptown. We all live there for at least part of every year. Some of us stay for months (or years) on end, some just visit occasionally. And, for some reason, we all think we're the only residents.
But we're SO not.
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