Up From the Murky Depths

It's difficult to become a writer. It's even worse to get past your own demons. I know I've written about this many times before but it is a problem that plagues me every single day. In the moments that I feel strong and the darkness has crept back into the murky hallows of my thoughts I feel invincible. I know that when I get home I will sit my butt down in my chair and I will write. My fingers will fly over the keys giving birth to my words. Yet it is in the moment that I sit down that the creatures of fear and insecurity smell the fresh creativity and they come slithering from their holes and consume everything in their sights until I am left hallow and can barely bring myself to even look at my manuscript. (They just might eat that too... you never know.)

Patton Oswalt has this bit about this movie he saw called "Death Bed" and his own journey of screen writing. It's a hilarious piece of writing and if you're easily offended I'd tread lightly with his other pieces but this one is pretty tame. It mainly is his imagined story of the guy that wrote and sold the idea for "Death Bed: the Bed that Eats People," and how the author had never any doubt in his mind that it was good. Or, as Patton so eloquently puts it, even worse had his moments of doubt and pushed through them to finish the script to the horrible film.

As I struggle through this I am amazed anything ever gets published. Truly. If I ever come into contact with someone who has truly taken the time to edit their work, sent it to an agent, and had it commercially published, I want to shake their hand where I will then inevitably fall to their feet, clutching onto their legs, while I cry. My main goal to hopefully absorb their supernatural powers. If that plan fails, then I would ask them what they did. I've read a few books. All of it is the same. "Ignore your inner critic." You've met critics, right? They're loud, obnoxious, opinionated, douches; and the only way to ever silence them is to hit them with a car. So, unless I want to write a book in the vein of "orange is the new black" that isn't the route I particularly want to take.

I feel like I need to be more specific. Where track on my creativity train seems to end is when it comes to editing ravine. The men that were supposed to build a bridge failed to complete it across the expanse and now whatever attempts are made causes the train to derail and plummet to the rocky terrain below. I can't be critical with my own work. I could when I was kid, for some reason, but as an adult I'm way more fragile than I ever was as a high school student. I remember sitting at my computer for hours after inputting my written notes into WordPad and then going through cutting, rearranging, rewording, each one of my chapters without shedding a tear. It was just something that had to get done. It was just part of the process. No one ever told me, I just knew. It's only after I read books and put all the pressure on myself that I I'm scared to even try.

I wish I could go back and talk to my childhood self. It never occurred to me, until just now, that no one (other than my school teachers I guess) how to edit. It was just something I did. It was a process I picked up entirely on my own and I would remain at my desk for hours doing it. Now when I pick up the story that I edited from that time it's really quite good. The tone, the structure, the pacing. Everything. The story captured my attention that even I, who knew where the story went, wanted to keep reading. I had forgotten so many of the little things I had done.