The dead writer

“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.”

– Russell Baker

 

I HAVE TO BE A WRITER. There’s nothing else I can do. What else can I be? But suddenly I feel incompetent and my works seem not worth publishing. So I killed the writer without realizing when and how.

Yes, this is the dead writer writing. Creepy? No, my life is never that cool. It is just pathetically irrelevant.

The status of my blog-work:

Two write-ups merged together for similarity (read: monotony) of my ideas. Another idea titled ‘The Stalker Wins’ is stuck in my head since last October. I don’t know whether it’s better as a poem or a detailed story. So I end up writing both, still unconvinced. In short, six incomplete blogs staring back at me through the monitor. My phone has nine incomplete poems with so many many other ideas trapped in the notes section.

And now, you’ll tell me “Just get it done with it, one at a time!” But guess what? I’m not in the mood. The state of mind I had associated with each work has been diluted by bitterness. Label it ‘Writer Tantrums’.

Lack of ‘life’, ‘focus’ and ‘passion’ are the root causes of my problems. How do I fight this nothing? I hate my chick-lit crap and can’t think of anything remotely intellectual or even metaphoric themes to write on. All my opinions seem to have dried out. People exhaust me even though I gave them nothing and am empty in the first place.

And now, you’ll tell me “Go take a break. GO PARTY!” But hear me complain back: I don’t know how to have fun. Ironically, these two months are my ‘vacation break’!

I was reading an article today of a dead writer David Foster Wallace (who committed suicide BTW) in the newspaper. It started with the following quote:

“Doubt is our passion” – Henry James

                                                                                                                                          

I don’t know about you, but I realized that doubt is really my passion. I love to create doubts, entertain them and caress them till they drive me to a melancholic getaway—sleep. My waking life is spent in a dead mood desperately finding the source of all this non-existent (meaning: seemingly unreal) chaos so that I can nip it in the bud. I don’t even come close to solve anything, just hovering around adding in more petty issues to the big picture. This is not a bad feeling, it is an ugly one.

Is this post worth reading? No way! This is the most unromantic torture I have presented to you! I hate it already because it is running in circles with no conclusions. No peaceful closure, not even an engaging cliff-hanger to offer you. I could give you a made-up conclusion, but really today I don’t even feel like pretending.

Save me from myself,

Signing off,

Tame SheWolf

WORDLY WISE:

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”

– Gustave Flaubert