Writing Isn't a Choice
It's either in your DNA or it isn't
As I put these words down on the screen I’m battling against the ever-present “you suck, what’s the point, no one’s ever going to read this, you’re embarrassing yourself” feeling every step of the way.
People have complimented me on my writing ability my whole life.
Yet, every time I start to write, I think: “This is it. This is the one that’s going to expose me as a fraud. Everyone’s going to think/know that I suck.”
It’s something much deeper than Imposter Syndrome.
I almost referred to the negative pre-writing thought loop as an inner voice. But it’s not. There’s no disembodied Voice of God-style monologue lecturing me about my alleged/possibly real lack of talent. Even the word ‘feeling’ doesn’t fully capture it.
Writerly self-loathing is more like a Force of the Universe. Think gravity, sexual attraction, the unavoidable death/taxes combo, etc. You can’t fight it even if you try (which I definitely have).
Resistance is futile, even when the thing you’re resisting is resistance itself.
Forcing myself to stand here (I have a standing desk, highly recommended, it’s great for your posture) and write feels like pushing the positive ends of two magnets together. The will is there, but every fiber in my being is trying to force me to do something else.
OK I’m back. After writing the above paragraph I decided to pace around my house to quote-unquote gather my thoughts and holy shit what a coincidence all of a sudden I noticed that I had to clean my kitchen sink and of course doing it some other time was out of the question. What am I some kind of slob who would allow my kitchen sink to remain unclean a single milllisecond longer than necessary?
So I stood there and sprayed cleaning spray on the sink and wiped it down, all while simultaneously being fully aware of the fact that I was doing it as a distraction/procrastination method and wondering if everyone who writes also has an immaculate kitchen sink due to the aforementioned dual procrastination/distraction impulse that I assume lives within us all while also thinking about the fact that I was going to have to write about this neurotic ruminating/cleaning combo if/when I did manage to drag myself back to my (standing) desk.
And they say you can’t multitask.
I did come back and start writing again. I always do.
I’ve taken long breaks. There have been stretches of time (months, years) where I thought that I for sure was never going to write a single word ever again.
And yet here I am, putting words on the screen.
You don’t write because you want to. Who the hell would want to do something so preposterously uncool. You write because you literally have to.
It doesn’t matter if there are literal or metaphorical Forces of the Universe working against the writing process.
Writers find a way to write.
The End.