Cat Grant's Blog: Memoirs of an Amnesiac - Posts Tagged "depression"
Do I LOVE writing?
Um... does hating it less than any other job I've had count?
I shouldn't complain. I know I have it better than most people. Not many of us have a job we can do at home in our jammies, without phones ringing every thirty seconds or some asshole boss going, "Aren't you done yet?"
I remember the days when I had a regular crap-ass job that I had to drag myself out of bed at oh-fuck-thirty for. A job that bored me so much, I spent most of the day making up stories in my head. Back then I couldn't WAIT to get home to my precious laptop and get those stories down on virtual paper. The words used to fly from my fingers.
Nowadays... not so much. I don't know if it's my usual bout of seasonal depression, or if it's just so chilly I don't feel like crawling out of my nice warm bed most mornings, but lately I've had to pull every word out of my brain with pliers.
It was so much easier when I had no one to please but myself - when getting published seemed like an unachievable pipe dream. Now, twenty-odd published books down the road, there's a lot more at stake.
People (aka, non-writers) ask me, "Doesn't it get easier the more you write?" Oh, hell, no! It gets WAY harder. There's the constant pressure to do better - both critically and sales-wise - than you did last time. The pressure to not repeat yourself.
This is an awful thing for an erotic romance writer to admit, but I've never enjoyed writing sex scenes. And now that I've written dozens of them, keeping them fresh and new is even more difficult. I mean, really, how many different ways are there to do it? I'm sure the Kama Sutra could show me a few new positions, but that's always seemed kind of... empty. I prefer concentrating on my characters' emotional connection, rather than turning the scene into a bunch of sexual circus tricks.
There are days when I look at my laptop and think, "Fuck it. I'm not into this today." Then I go out grocery shopping or do the laundry just so I can say I did something. Sometimes I get struck by inspiration while I'm driving around running errands - thank gawd for the voice recording software on my phone! Some days I stare out my kitchen window at the trees while I eke out a measly thousand or so words. Then I get up the next day and do it all over again.
But that's why it's called work, I guess. All the other four-letter words were taken.
I shouldn't complain. I know I have it better than most people. Not many of us have a job we can do at home in our jammies, without phones ringing every thirty seconds or some asshole boss going, "Aren't you done yet?"
I remember the days when I had a regular crap-ass job that I had to drag myself out of bed at oh-fuck-thirty for. A job that bored me so much, I spent most of the day making up stories in my head. Back then I couldn't WAIT to get home to my precious laptop and get those stories down on virtual paper. The words used to fly from my fingers.
Nowadays... not so much. I don't know if it's my usual bout of seasonal depression, or if it's just so chilly I don't feel like crawling out of my nice warm bed most mornings, but lately I've had to pull every word out of my brain with pliers.
It was so much easier when I had no one to please but myself - when getting published seemed like an unachievable pipe dream. Now, twenty-odd published books down the road, there's a lot more at stake.
People (aka, non-writers) ask me, "Doesn't it get easier the more you write?" Oh, hell, no! It gets WAY harder. There's the constant pressure to do better - both critically and sales-wise - than you did last time. The pressure to not repeat yourself.
This is an awful thing for an erotic romance writer to admit, but I've never enjoyed writing sex scenes. And now that I've written dozens of them, keeping them fresh and new is even more difficult. I mean, really, how many different ways are there to do it? I'm sure the Kama Sutra could show me a few new positions, but that's always seemed kind of... empty. I prefer concentrating on my characters' emotional connection, rather than turning the scene into a bunch of sexual circus tricks.
There are days when I look at my laptop and think, "Fuck it. I'm not into this today." Then I go out grocery shopping or do the laundry just so I can say I did something. Sometimes I get struck by inspiration while I'm driving around running errands - thank gawd for the voice recording software on my phone! Some days I stare out my kitchen window at the trees while I eke out a measly thousand or so words. Then I get up the next day and do it all over again.
But that's why it's called work, I guess. All the other four-letter words were taken.
