If the Mind is a Garden, Mine is Currently Mulch
There is a sort of composting process in my brain that I've been long aware of, but have never quite gotten a handle on. It starts with disengaging from my own writing a bit, slowing down -- really, not writing anything at all if I'm not required to for professional reasons. What happens then are mild-but-escalating bouts of depression, anxiety and an overwhelming feeling of social disengagement, where I begin questioning everything I've ever done and whether my writing's any good at all, and begin convincing myself that everybody has just been humoring me for the past 25 years.
Then, I stop reading anything new. No novels, no major nonfiction books, very little poetry -- and even then, only in spurts, rarely whole books. Eventually, I'm down to comic books, which are evidently the only thing I can read all the time. But even then, I find myself turning away from new comics to beloved graphic novels -- this time around, it's been Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper tale, From Hell, and Garth Ennis' Preacher, which are, for all their darkness, books that evidently help rejuvenate me. (It's not an exact process. At other times, old novels have emerged as the Book I Need Right Now, but they've rarely been classics. Sometimes it's Neil Gaiman's American Gods or Neverwhere, a few times it's been Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati Trilogy. I don't know that that says anything telling about me. It just is.)
About the time this winds up, I begin pulling out of it. That I can write this at all right now is a good sign. I've been here dozens of times before, and yet every time, it's terrifying. I wholeheartedly believe I'm never going to write again. And then I have know idea what I'm going to do with my life. I rarely verbalize this concern. Intellectually, I know this feeling will pass, eventually. I know that, when it's totally finished, I'll be back on a writing jag.
Whatever the reason, and however ordinary it is, it's a feeling I detest immensely. It's beginning to subside again, a tide ebbing out. I look forward to being myself again.
***
Well. That was depressing. My apologies. The upside is that I do write for a living, and consequently, have no choice but to produce things, even if my body and brain are in rebellion. Here's a few recent things, produced during the doldrums:
*"'We Used to Be Friends': Thoughts on the 'Veronica Mars' comeback
*Gamechow shows getting hard to digest
*The architecture of music: The Duende Project, ii nub and Taylor Swift
*'We never lost control': David Bowie and Niki Luparelli
Hope you enjoy.
Then, I stop reading anything new. No novels, no major nonfiction books, very little poetry -- and even then, only in spurts, rarely whole books. Eventually, I'm down to comic books, which are evidently the only thing I can read all the time. But even then, I find myself turning away from new comics to beloved graphic novels -- this time around, it's been Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper tale, From Hell, and Garth Ennis' Preacher, which are, for all their darkness, books that evidently help rejuvenate me. (It's not an exact process. At other times, old novels have emerged as the Book I Need Right Now, but they've rarely been classics. Sometimes it's Neil Gaiman's American Gods or Neverwhere, a few times it's been Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati Trilogy. I don't know that that says anything telling about me. It just is.)
About the time this winds up, I begin pulling out of it. That I can write this at all right now is a good sign. I've been here dozens of times before, and yet every time, it's terrifying. I wholeheartedly believe I'm never going to write again. And then I have know idea what I'm going to do with my life. I rarely verbalize this concern. Intellectually, I know this feeling will pass, eventually. I know that, when it's totally finished, I'll be back on a writing jag.
Whatever the reason, and however ordinary it is, it's a feeling I detest immensely. It's beginning to subside again, a tide ebbing out. I look forward to being myself again.
***
Well. That was depressing. My apologies. The upside is that I do write for a living, and consequently, have no choice but to produce things, even if my body and brain are in rebellion. Here's a few recent things, produced during the doldrums:
*"'We Used to Be Friends': Thoughts on the 'Veronica Mars' comeback
*Gamechow shows getting hard to digest
*The architecture of music: The Duende Project, ii nub and Taylor Swift
*'We never lost control': David Bowie and Niki Luparelli
Hope you enjoy.
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