Walking a hard path
For as long as I can remember, writing wasn’t simply something I wanted to do. It wasn’t about desires for fame and fortune either. Story and poetry were how I made sense of the world. Books were my friends, and in trying to wrap words around reality, I coped, and tried to understand. I think almost exclusively in words, and my whole conscious life to this point has involved me in the process of turning experience into narrative. It is not simply what I do, it is who I am.
And here I am, utterly lost and in a lot of pain, disenchanted with the process, and giving up on dreams and aspirations. What am I doing? I’m writing about it, because it is the only means I have for coping and functioning. All the way through my life, from the moment I could hold a pencil onwards, I’ve turned pain and confusion, desire and need into stories, with varying degrees of success.
When I was growing up, no one encouraged me to think that writing was the way to go. I was supposed to be going after a teaching qualification, doing something sensible. Somehow, in my late teens, I formulated the belief that it was worth going for, took a degree in English lit, and started trying to find writing related jobs. Along the way I’ve written pub quizzes, and articles, I’ve edited, and worked at the marketing end, I’ve written press releases, and custom fiction. I’ve not been especially proud nor have I taken to the ivory tower. I’ve taken the paying gigs where I could find them and I’ve tried to write things that might have some appeal. I’ve written over a dozen novels, most of them published under some name or another. I couldn’t number the short stories, articles and blog posts. Lots, basically.
The loss of belief is quite a traumatic process, and it’s been going on for some time. The slow erosion of there being any point, or any sense in it. There’s also a curious parallel process of relief going on. I’ve been trying so hard for so long to make something brilliant, beautiful, memorable and significant. I can’t do it. There’s a relief in admitting that. What would it be like to aspire to do something quietly useful passably well? An attainable goal rather than an unreachable one. It might be a good deal more useful to everyone else than this endless striving after the unavailable and irrelevant. I don’t know why I’ve carried this need to try and shine for so long. Ego perhaps. Some kind of narcissistic desire to have enough affirmation flow towards me to make up for the holes in my sense of self. Why should I be special? Why should I stand out? Why should I imagine I am capable of doing something significant? It really all comes down to ego.
That, and a desire to be loved. That’s a very heart on sleeve thing to admit, but there are a lot of things missing on the inside that I try to get round by arranging them from outside – sense of self worth especially. If I can make a good enough thing, perhaps I can overcome that feeling of innate unworthiness. That’s been the theory. The trouble is, I have never been able to make anything good enough to feel sufficient, and I strongly suspect I never could. Every measure of ‘good enough’ I’ve had hasn’t turned out to be enough when I’ve got there. Partly because there were things I didn’t know – for example that being published does not lead to being read.
I’m a bit of a Salieri. I’m good enough to properly appreciate that I fall a long way short of what’s possible and far short of where I want to be. For most of my life I’ve clung to the belief that if I could only work hard enough, push hard enough try for long enough that I’d magically turn into a Mozart. Most people are wiser than me, and figure out their limitations a lot sooner in life and get on with the business of being grown-ups. There might be a lot of relief in letting go, in giving up and walking away, and not being an author, and not aspiring, and not imagining that next year something really good might happen. There might be freedom in that and peace, and I am so very tired that these things are greatly tempting.
