Muse-worthy

Current Tunes: Sipping hot tea from a plastic mug

I think as a writer you can be either inspired by the world or you can be crushed by it. Writers are observers, everyone knows this. Writers ingest the events and people of the world and translate the experience into a new one, the most important kind of experience human beings know: the story. At least, that’s what prolific, hard-working, devoted writers do. Those are the kind of writers who get inspired by the world. So I’ve got to make a choice: Am I going to be inspired by what I see in this world or am I going to be crushed by it?

Most often I’m completely crushed by the world. Poverty, torture, deceit, subjugation, manipulation, stagnation, procrastination, alienation, it ruins the soul. It’s easily surmountable for other writers with a damn backbone, or with better health, or a more stable existence. I’d mostly like to attribute it to pure motivation; that’s what gets them through the day, the writers who succeed. But I have no motivation, so it’s not as simple, obviously.

To talk about the philosophical, moral, spiritual implications of inspiration versus despair is a topic far too long for this forum. More than that, I'm not wholly convinced I'm prepared to share my perspective with the entire Internet proper. It goes without saying that inspiration is the more suitable, more desirable choice. What else needs to be said except I do not choose it because... Well, I don't suppose I really know why.

I wanted to become a writer because it used to be a magical process for me. In middle school, I knew I could form sentences according to the rules set forth by my teachers. But it took me a few times just trying for the hell of it to find out I could actually write. It was invigorating. I miss that. Writing used to be that, instead of being a chore.

Having your creativity zapped out of you can do that, I think. I have a sinking feeling that’s what happened to me. It’s hard to stay on track. I’ve heard lots and lots of professional, well-off writers talk about writing, and they all say completely different things. They all have different aesthetic values, different processes, different environments they like to write in. It’s really fascinating, learning how these people all bend over backwards just to write a book or a novel. But, despite the broad spectrum of approaches people across genres and topics take, all of these people I’ve heard talk about writing actually do have one thing in common that they say. “If you’re really a writer, you will write everyday.”

I’m not a writer. I don’t write everyday, not even close. That bugs the shit out of me. It’s absolutely horrifying, really. I want to write everyday, though, and that’s the frustrating part. At the end of the day when I curl into bed to get my night’s rest, most times one of my finals thoughts before I drift off is “Goddammit, why didn’t I write something today?” It’s heart wrenching. It’s depressing. It’s disgusting. It’s intolerable.

So why don’t I just buckle down and write everyday? The plain fact is I willfully allow other, less important events and activities to take precedence. These things override writing because they are safer, they are easier. I freely admit I avoid failure through the most common avenue traveled: I simply do not try from the start. I cannot fail if I do not try. I cannot be forced to confront my weaknesses if I do not put forth any effort. And as a consequence, I resign to mediocrity.

Distractions make it so much easier to continue this cycle of behavior, too. “I can start writing tomorrow. For now, I’ll play Xbox.” Then I sit lifelessly in a chair staring lost and alone into a screen, engaged in a false event because real ones are too frightening and too consequential to even possibly be confronted.

There are lost years of my life I cannot get back. I could have written ten or more books by now if I had just taken a few minutes to sit down and think and realize that nothing I was doing at the time was meaningful or lasting. Just like nothing I’m doing now is meaningful or lasting. At least I’m aware of it now. I can do something about it.

I remember my Dead & Livejournal accounts. I wrote some really great, really fun stuff in there. I fondly remember sitting in computer labs in Tuscaloosa writing those posts, listening to music and being completely alive in those hour-long spans. I wrote lots of stuff when I was at Alabama that I’m proud of, as flawed and naïve as all that material is. I’m proud of it because I liked it. I’m proud of it because all that material, at least what I remember of it, was honest and passionate and convicted. I haven’t written hardly anything since then that I was so purely invested in. The things I write now, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to feel.

When you write, and you’re doing it correctly, you’re achieving your maximum amount of feeling. The needle is pushed beyond the edge of measurement. You sense and perceive all facets of time and space at once. Mostly through the deception lens of memory, but that's close enough to the truth to last. It stays immediate and concrete as much as it can. I want to return to that place, where the intensity of creation redlines your consciousness and puts you into overdrive. In these precious moments, through the haze of wonderment and excitement, you can briefly turn your head to the side and see the future, crystal clear.