Everyday Nihilism
In the past year I’ve written often about my goal of writing a book; about how I’ve finally moved away from self-sabotage and granted myself the permission to write creatively (beyond blogging, that is). I originally had a goal of a ~60,000 word draft by December of 2022.
It’s now March 13, 2023 and I’m only at 40,000 words. I say “only” because I recognize that it’s still a lot of words to focus on one…thing. And yet I feel as if I’m in some sort of creative nadir that has left me feeling fallow. It’s been reflected in my reading habits as well: I’m the type of asshole who normally burns through books in record speed (a fact that infuriates my wife), but I’ve not finished a book in a few months. A reasonable person would chalk that up to the fact that I have a day job in academia where I teach writing, so it’s only natural that the well would need time to replenish.
But that’s not what I feel. I feel like that’s an easy out—almost every author I’m an active fan of has talked about how serious writers need to approach writing with conviction. Stories about sleep deprived parents writing on a typewriter resting precariously on a milk crate in their baby’s nursery, or waking up at 4 in the morning every day so that they can get their writing quota satisfied before heading out to work. And when I hear/see/read those stories, the Catholic boy in me beats himself up for his lack of persistence and the self-doubt opens the door, walks into the abandoned tenement of my brain, sits down on the torn recliner in the middle of what should be a furnished living room, kicks his fucking shoes off and relaxes cause he’s gonna just fucking chill there for a while. I imagine my self-doubt looks just like me, except with heavier eyes, completely unkempt beer and ruddy cheeks that betray years of alcohol abuse.
I don’t like the dude and it’s not like I invite him in. But when you spend three-quarters of a document feeling like you’re on fire and then you slam into a cement wall, it shakes you to your core. You start to ask THE question:
Is this some delusional fantasy?
I only wrote publicly about this book as a way to be accountable to people—I had an idea I liked and wanted to see it through. Call it “manifesting” or “secret-ing” or whatever the fuck you want to call it, but I was being intentional. Now my worry is that I’m gonna turn into one of those assholes who talks a big game about all of their grandiose “ideas” that are just mental vaporware that won’t amount to shit. That I’ll be just another dickhead who talks about these things so as to say, “well I got big shit going on too!”
I hope the fact that I’m this far in means that, if nothing else, I’ll at least finish a draft because why the fuck wouldn’t I? Why put in all of that work and just…abandon it? I’d like to think that my neuroses won’t allow me to just leave all of that shit on the cutting board. But then again, I have been known to self-sabotage, so who the fuck knows.
