I'm not going to try and corral my thoughts into a cognizant point today. I've been stewing and mulling over so many things lately that's it's affecting my productivity. Perhaps this is infantile, but I feel like I could use a Pensieve. You know, from Harry Potter? That swirling, nebulous bowl of thoughts and memories, for when the mind grows too full. It seems to me to be something of a meta joke, or perhaps a meta wish; I assume Rowling knows the frustration and pain of having too much circling to properly focus.
Even when writing in this silly blog, I'm still struggling to find the words. I don't have anyone to impress here, and yet I still feel like I'm on display. Contorting to the shapes I hope people will find pleasing, my body like my words, shifting and collapsing like a coat of mirrors.
It's frustration. It's the sense of frustrated purpose. I have a very clearly planned story circling in my thoughts, and when the time is right it is like looking up at the sky; I know the position and path of every star. Every character orbiting each other, the way their paths cross and conflict. If only I could exist in that vacuum where nothing can interrupt this perfect conception of what I want to say!
Of course, it's not like that. The moment I wake up, I'm assaulted by unassigned, unrelated thoughts. My diet, my impending wedding, Fernando, my family. The fact that I am like a satellite myself - unmoored by a job or a tangible purpose or accomplishment.
By this point in the internal avalanche of unrelated thoughts, I'm starting to get angry at myself. Already that perfect picture of what I want to say slips away. These unrelated thoughts obscure the picture so I only get garbled bits and pieces. I sit down to write and the words take twice as long to come as they would otherwise. My characters start to feel like strangers; convoluted and unnatural, flirting the line between authentic and caricature.
It's not helped by the fact that it seems my standards for what is acceptable (read: perfect) do not mesh with what is acceptable and successful in the real world of publishing. There is a very popular, well known series that was released recently; it began as a Twilight fanfic, where it enjoyed very robust success. Sensing a profit to be made, the author essentially edited out the names of the fanfic characters and inserted 'original ones', changed a few places, and then sent the thing off to be published. Where it was fought over by publishing companies. Where it secured a seven-figure deal and also movie rights.
In a fit of curiosity, I bought this book. I wanted to see what it was exactly that created such success. In short, titillation. This book is literally nothing more than a collection of loosely connected sex scenes. These scenes are not deftly written or engaging; they're bland, rote, and in some cases, squalid. And yet it is so ridiculously popular to have gained more success than I can ever dream of seeing in my lifetime.
I'm an idealist at heart, and this does not seem fair. This woman did not agonize over every word. She did not labor of her characters, striving to make them human; both imperfect and sympathetic. The characters that populate her book are detestable; the heroine vapid and dull, the 'hero' cruel, possessive, and frankly sociopathic. She created Barbie dolls and proceeded to bend them in all manner of compromising positions, much to the glee of her readers. She did not seek to capture truth or meaning for her works, only a cheap thrill.
As you can imagine, this occupies my thoughts when I'm sitting down at my computer, struggling to write. The one that comes back most frequently is 'why even bother?' Well, because I love to write, I hastily answer myself. Yet, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to make a career out of this. I don't expect explosive fame and seven figure publishing deals, but I do want to make a modest living as a writer.
Even more to the point, I want some kind of validation. Recognition. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but anyone who says they only write for themselves is a bald-faced liar. Stories are meant to be shared. I have no wish to shout my story in a vacuum once I've penned it. I want to share it, and even more to the point, I want to see it enjoyed. I work hard to see this desire come to fruition.
Of course, when beset by this avalanche of thoughts, it becomes nearly impossible to focus. Today was the worst it's been in a long time. I was only able to write a small fraction of a scene- hardly more than 1k words. For me, that's abysmal. Frustrated with myself and my inability to focus, I put my laptop away, got in the car and went for a drive.
I wandered. I initially sought out a library I'd always wanted to visit; halfway between my apartment and the Whole Foods. I drove around where I thought it was for nearly 20 minutes but it never materialized. Perhaps symbolic? I felt on the verge of tears then. The library has long been my church, my holy place; I am more worshipful with the pages of a book between my fingers than I am with my head bowed in a place of god, knees sore and back straining.
I wanted that library. I needed to be among proof that hundreds of thousands of other writers struggled with indecision and doubt and frustrated purpose, only to ultimately prevail. I needed to be among fellow worshipers of the written word, and perhaps among them find solicitude, if not a solution.
So I went to the next best place; Barnes and Noble. It was particularly busy this afternoon, and not at all the same. The books were new -spines unbent and pages untouched- and cheery pop tunes blasted on the speakers. There was no quiet corner for peace and study. People weaved around me in the aisles, and I felt like even among fellow shoppers I was in the way, without a place.
A woman in the bathroom tried to strike up a conversation with me about a leaking faucet, and I was at a loss; what is there to say to that? 'It's such a shame that faucet is leaking!' 'Yes, quite a shame' End of conversation. No solicitude, no solution. It was as if the thought of silence was unbearable to her, so she seized the first person and thought that she came upon; me and the leaking faucet.
I'm not sure I wanted conversation. I wanted an escape, yes. I wanted a solution. I sought out the library and settled for Barnes and Noble because I was desperate for guidance. I wanted someone to tell me 'here; this is how you silence the noise. This is how you descend into focus and purpose." I contemplated buying books I couldn't really afford, completely sure they held perhaps a fragment of the answer I was looking for.
In the end, I left without buying anything. It's not that I realized I had all of the answers within me, and that all I needed to do was believe in myself or other such self-help nonsense. I just realized that my search was passive; I wanted the answer to come to me. I wandered without a specific goal, I perused without a specific need. If I'm to find that purpose and focus that I so desperately want, it's going to come when I actively leave behind my self-pity and seize it by the scruff of the jacket, rattle it around a little, and ask it why it took so long in getting here.
I came home after my fruitless pilgrimage and sat down with my laptop. I re-read what I'd written in the fits of my wandering purposelessness, and it wasn't half bad. My characters sounded authentically anxious and upset, each in their own ways. Maybe there's a lesson in there; my situation is never as bad as I think it is, perhaps. I'm very prone to overreaction. I indulge in introspection to the point of agony.
So then, tomorrow. Onward to tomorrow, another chance to get it right. I know this veers on the edge of self-help fare, but the thought is somewhat encouraging. Instead of failed and frustrated purpose, in tomorrow lies only potential and a choice; take it or leave it.
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