Am I doing this wrong? What kind of nonsense am I posting. So many other blogs are useful, insightful, funny, even all three. I started this thing because of a YouTube video. I'm intrigued about my own corner of the internet. A place I don't have to share with anyone, or feel obligated to share. People always find you on the social web. Medium. Instagram. The website formerly known as Twitter. Knowing people who know me can see the things I post gives me anxiety. So I came here, but I don't actually have anything to say. So I do this: write a couple hundred words in which I say nothing at all. Force myself to publish it. Hope that in doing so I improve my writing or at least find a voice.
Earlier today, I was writing...something. My heart says it could be a book. My brain knows how stupid it is to think I can write a book. Regardless, I was writing it by hand because annoyingly, that's what works for me. It's a horror story set in a fictonal and stylized version of the USA's invasion of the Phillipines in 1898. Something I find more interesting than cosmic horror is eternity. The discovery or rediscovery of something we've always lived with but didn't know or didn't want to know. It's the terror of finding out that the aggressive giant squid of legend is not fictional. It's the anxiety of realizing that bed bugs aren't just a children's tale but a visible manifestation of a virus that can infect your home while you sleep. I love thinking about America at the birth of its imperialist aspirations unleashing a force it can't quell.
As I write, it sounds like I'm describing the classic mummy's curse. But the thing that feels underbaked about those storylines is where did the curse come from? What about the Egyptians allowed them to call down the power of the gods? And if the gods were capable of such curses, why were they usurped by a bland and sexless monotheism? I want to explore what it means to coexist with something more powerful than humanity.
Anyway, I was writing and felt myself forgetting every interesting word I'd ever learned and writing like a fifth grader. So I thought, "Hey what if I load up a handy thesaurus" and pulled out my phone before I was struck with another thought. Am I a poor excuse for a writer if I need to use a thesaurus? So I asked the internet via Google and found out that the answer is a definite maybe. So my imposter syndrome flares up and I start reading my writing up to this point and realize how much I'm telling and not showing and I start freaking out and can't write anymore. So I decide to go spend $20 on a single burger and fries. Seriously, why are fries $6. Is there a potato shortage I'm not aware of?
ANYWAY. What does it mean to be bad at something you enjoy? Of course there's the quote from Ira Glass, the "No one tells this to people who are beginners" one about how being creative is all about working to make your ability catch up to your taste. But how long do you work? How do you work? Do I read a all the different books on writing by Stephen King or E.B. White or Anne Lamott? Then do I spend 10,000 hours writing? Then I hope I'm maybe sort of decent at that point?
I know this is whiny. I'm fully aware life is hard and creating requires hundreds and thousands of hours of trying and thinking you're shit but continuing anyway. Otherwise, why would we love our favorite writers so much? They create not only despite it being hard but maybe because of it. I'm trying to force myself to have that dedication so that one day, maybe, I'll write something that's worth something. I would love to follow that statement with some therapy bullshit about "even if I don't, I'm still creating and that's worthwhile by itself :)" but god help me I don't actually believe that. A deep part of me needs to be successful, needs my work to be accepted and loved. It's depressing to think of a life where that never happens.
Here's to hoping I succeed. And the companion hope that I succeed sooner rather than later.