I've been writing a lot lately. Not because I have more to say than I usually do, or because I want to tell people anything. I do it because I need to. I need to write every day, and I've promised myself that I will, even when I don't feel like it.
I'm a perfectionist, or at least I have those tendencies, and that quality is very good at throttling creativity. I self-edit, I reject as not good enough, I criticize my words before I can even get them out. But good writing doesn't start out that way. It doesn't erupt fully formed and float softly like a million perfect snowflakes onto the page (or screen). Some of it's crap, and some of it's OK, and there are a few flashes of really good in there. So you weed out the crap, replace it with more crap, nix that, put the shiny bits of really good aside, try to add to that, end up tarnishing it, scrap that (even though it wrenches your heart and guts because you know it's great, but you also know it just isn't working), start something new, polish and add and cut and trim and change ad nauseum, until you have something completely different and maybe OK.
It's messy and completely chaotic, and I have a very hard time living with and accepting mess and chaos. But I also need to write. It's something I've always needed to do, and I lost it for a good while there. I just didn't do it, because I was too busy working so I could pay the rent or trying to figure out how to make an unworkable relationship work. I didn't have the energy. And I lost the faith I once had that I could do it--not necessarily an "it" that would win a Pulitzer or that even more than five people on the planet would like. Just something that was part of me and that was probably, maybe OK.
And I think I can do that, with a little more practice.
Posted by thevieve at August 9, 2005 9:25 AM