The Creative Process

A thought devolves into an idea and from that the writer spills forth a thousand sentences that never do that fundamental notion even an ounce of justice. How could it? That initial idea was genius. Its brevity a witty reminder that you have skill, but in the end, you used 85,000 words to say things that could be said in 26,000. Who cares you sold 250,000 copies last week under a pseudonym, and your real name gets to play the artsy writer, and no one knows the difference. However, you do, so you spend the next week necking whiskey sodas, vodka rum and whatever mix you can find, maybe a little codeine to take the edge off (which is a lot easier to find legally than most people would assume. ) You barricade yourself in your room and write the most surreal stories, and as you sit there reviewing each sentence (as the palpitations in your chest remind you that death is a certainty in life), you know there is no chance that this work will sell. Not unless you can travel back in time and go back to a period where slapping Dali would be seen as an artistic statement which would result in you getting a round of applause from a series of dilettantes that know nothing of the creative process. However, it is the 21st century and unless you want to be some braggart hipster coasting through Shoreditch on a novel you self-published, but claim some indie label produced it. You need to go back and see what you can salvage. Two glasses of rum later and probably twenty minutes watching a documentary on hip-hop, because hell your brain is so frazzled that at this point staying upright in that discount chair you bought off Taobao is an accomplishment. Somehow your fingers still do their job, but if Stephen King can write complete novels while wasted and Hemingway Ernest could run his entire life with at least two Cuba Libres sitting in his stomach then surely you can edit your story and rebuild it. Though it turns out that piece of literature you just turned out was worthless and then you salvage one sentence from all those words you spent the entire week writing. So next you stare at that one sentence, that initial idea that was genius now a memory that your intoxicated mind has forgotten as it dwells on those nine words that you salvaged as that second Dihydrocodeine tablet dissolves in a belly full of alcohols that are going to be the death of you. Self-loathing creeps in, and you question every artistic endeavour you have ever made. Every painting you have created sits there hanging on the wall mocking you. Every stroke saying this is not abstract art it is simply a person without talent trying desperately to believe that they are something more than a hack clinging to a fading dream that they may make something of themselves other than being a sellout that sells dimestore novels that any idiot can appreciate. Your eyes crack open, and you realise you passed out two hours ago. Drool flows across the laptop that you have been using for far too long, but you are not hipster enough to buy a typewriter. So you take another drink from that whiskey and soda that now has a cigarette butt in it that you do not even remember smoking. You wipe your eyes, and you settle down and rewrite that story. Three hours later and you finally get a chance to reread that story and while that doubt still eats at your heart you feel content enough to go to sleep and as you crawl into bed you hear those damn early-bird neighbours discussing some ridiculous notion that surely no human being could care about and you fall asleep dreaming that one day you will be accepted as a literary genius rather than that hack pseudonym that keeps selling stories you wrote while half asleep in a classroom full of underachievers.