I have no desire to write.
No, really. At this moment, right here, right now, I have no desire to write whatsoever.
If I continue to keep to my pledge to post an essay or story every day, there are going to be a lot of days like this.
I put this up here because I know that if I looked at a blog of someone who wrote what I’m writing now, I’d think to myself “oh, thank goodness…someone else who doesn’t want to write.” I’d also look at all the essays I’ve posted here—and will no doubt post in the future—where I said that they just weren’t that great, and think “oh, thank goodness…someone else who fears that most of their stuff just isn’t that much to write home about.”
I write this when I don’t want to write because if you’re thinking of writing, I’m just this guy who’s reminding you: it happens a lot. While I know that I’m fortunate in that I can tap out words when it really feels as if I have no words to tap out (hence this essay), I certainly know what it is to feel as if there’s just nothing there, and that what will therefore come to be, from a creative standpoint, shall be…nothing.
I feel this way a lot when I write. I grind out one word after another, and don’t feel as if there’s any real value to the stuff that I’m supposedly creating. I’m actually hesitant to call it “creating,” because that implies that what results from this writing is creative. It just doesn’t feel that way; instead, it feels like something that is the word “meh” made flesh.
And this is what it is if I’m going to do it every day. There will be so many days like this, days in which it feels as if the well is dry. No, even more: there are days where it will feel as if the planet of my creative being is a desert, and will never get a drop of water.
So much of being creative is still doing it on the days I don’t feel creative. I don’t know whether it’s exercise (a sort of literary version of keeping fit), or whether it’s just keeping the pump primed, even if, today, there’s nothing coming out. And it’s about doing it on days like today where it feels even worse than a dry pump, when it feels as if there shall never be anything that comes out of that pump again, ever.
It is a desolate, miserable feeling. Right now there is nothing. I turn to my usual creative spurs—lists of the things on my table, a few chords on my guitar—and I still have a head full of empty. I close my eyes, and concentrate on what I hear, and hear the television in the next room playing “Say Yes to the Dress.” There is nothing in any of these things.
There are only vast worlds of nothingness, and I sometimes wonder if these are the only worlds that I can inhabit. The rational belief that tomorrow will bring with it some sort of inspiration is lost in a vast universe of hopelessness. I have nothing.
And tomorrow, even if I have nothing, I shall write something.
No, really. At this moment, right here, right now, I have no desire to write whatsoever.
If I continue to keep to my pledge to post an essay or story every day, there are going to be a lot of days like this.
I put this up here because I know that if I looked at a blog of someone who wrote what I’m writing now, I’d think to myself “oh, thank goodness…someone else who doesn’t want to write.” I’d also look at all the essays I’ve posted here—and will no doubt post in the future—where I said that they just weren’t that great, and think “oh, thank goodness…someone else who fears that most of their stuff just isn’t that much to write home about.”
I write this when I don’t want to write because if you’re thinking of writing, I’m just this guy who’s reminding you: it happens a lot. While I know that I’m fortunate in that I can tap out words when it really feels as if I have no words to tap out (hence this essay), I certainly know what it is to feel as if there’s just nothing there, and that what will therefore come to be, from a creative standpoint, shall be…nothing.
I feel this way a lot when I write. I grind out one word after another, and don’t feel as if there’s any real value to the stuff that I’m supposedly creating. I’m actually hesitant to call it “creating,” because that implies that what results from this writing is creative. It just doesn’t feel that way; instead, it feels like something that is the word “meh” made flesh.
And this is what it is if I’m going to do it every day. There will be so many days like this, days in which it feels as if the well is dry. No, even more: there are days where it will feel as if the planet of my creative being is a desert, and will never get a drop of water.
So much of being creative is still doing it on the days I don’t feel creative. I don’t know whether it’s exercise (a sort of literary version of keeping fit), or whether it’s just keeping the pump primed, even if, today, there’s nothing coming out. And it’s about doing it on days like today where it feels even worse than a dry pump, when it feels as if there shall never be anything that comes out of that pump again, ever.
It is a desolate, miserable feeling. Right now there is nothing. I turn to my usual creative spurs—lists of the things on my table, a few chords on my guitar—and I still have a head full of empty. I close my eyes, and concentrate on what I hear, and hear the television in the next room playing “Say Yes to the Dress.” There is nothing in any of these things.
There are only vast worlds of nothingness, and I sometimes wonder if these are the only worlds that I can inhabit. The rational belief that tomorrow will bring with it some sort of inspiration is lost in a vast universe of hopelessness. I have nothing.
And tomorrow, even if I have nothing, I shall write something.
