Writing Rumination
Oh wow.
Look at that.
I’m not dead.
Amazing.
And I’ve come back with my tail tucked between my legs and my head low, just because I am embarrassed for having disappeared for months… half a year? I don’t know. I’m not counting. Anyways, still doing that job-thing. The honeymoon phase wore off, still don’t have a work-life balance… I can’t sound optimistic. I’m cultivating a sense of apathy about work and writing. Maybe not creative writing, but being on this side of whatever this is as a copywriter, I didn’t expect it to be like this. That wasn’t vague. Like at all. It’s kind of weird to think about this skill I’ve essentially cultivated my whole life being what pays the bills, but the work itself is not emotionally fulfilling, and that I feel like… anyone could do it? I don’t feel like it’s a hard job. Tedious and kind of grueling? Yeah. Hard? No. Like I guess that makes it “work”. Now, emotionally, is it hard? Yeah, I come home and I’m not exactly crazy excited to write for myself.
That’s something I’ve been grappling with emotionally for months now. I mean yes, to give myself a break I had started a new job, and then I had Wasteland and then I had to move. That wasn’t exactly nine months of prime time to be writing. (lol, look, I counted—and it would be a whole-ass baby too) Somewhere between my wanting to be a writer/author in high school and like… today, I really stopped centering myself on my work. Writing, and more realistically, telling my stories was my form of escapism. It was how I self-soothed.
I ADHD’d myself into a silly rabbit hole and lost my train of thought. Trying to get back on track, though, I used storytelling to cope with my life, so I was inherently the center of my work. It was important to me to create, cover, and explore what mattered. And then I went to college and I remember my first creative writing class… I was so enthusiastic about being there, so excited, and what memory lingers with me the most? The professor, who I idolized later (ah, silly Grim), talked at length about how much he thought genre writing was pulp and trash. Only Literary Literature mattered. So, I wrote something out of my comfort zone that was, in hindsight, entirely based on genre. It was a crime thriller. It had been received with a tepid response. Then we had another opportunity to submit more writing, anything we wanted to, so I submitted the start of one of my pet projects. Again, tepid reactions. Come the level two class, with the same professor, I tried harder to elevate my genre writing. I went with straight horror. Once more, I did not receive the enthusiasm I was looking for. I think, at that point, I began to aggressively mold myself to what my professors wanted.
When I got to State and was fully into a Creative Writing program, I once more thought, “Finally, I’ll be able to express myself here”. And then I also remember a professor derisively dismissing genre. “I’m tired of reading stories about wizards and vampires. I want authentic stories about people.” He polled the class about who else was tired of the fantastic, of pulp and genre, and wanted to write REAL Literary fiction. Everyone raised their hands; even the girl I knew who was *obsessed* with Harry Potter.
Recounting this has made me sad. Putting this down here really made me look at the reality of my experiences, and the cruelty I more or less inflicted upon myself. I tried so hard to shape myself into something/someone more palatable for these professors and peers, denying myself the genuine joy I had in writing, that it killed much of the passion I had. I really regret going to school for writing. In the long run, it has done more harm than good in my life. So, I’m trying to heal myself. I’m trying to help adult-me get back to where child-me was, who lived and loved to tell stories. It’s a very long road back compared to the quick shortcut I took to get here where I am present. This will be the year I attempt to re-center myself. I am my most important reader, and at the end of my life, that’s what should matter to me. If it’s reached other people, even better. But I should be my priority.
