Every day. Every day I want to throw in the towel. Give up. End it. Put my pen down.
You’re not a writer.
You have nothing to say.
No one cares.
Don’t kid yourself.
My brain mocks and yells. Jabs and hisses.
Toss your writing utensils in the bin. Immediately. Burn them. Shred them. Drown them.
Creative doubt is an asshole. He lifts up my skirt and laughs. She spits in my eye and makes me cry. It steals my last Rolo.
I read my own writing. Open up old folders, articles, and notebooks, and dredge up the past. I obsess over bad commas and misused words and undeveloped thoughts. I do it all. I read, I reread.
On bad days, it’s all shit. Drivel that should have never seen day. On great days, it’s better than I’ll ever write again. I used to be a genius. Those good old days.
There are affirmations posted on my corkboard, scrawled on my whiteboard, written on a folded up piece of paper in my wallet.
I am an author. They say.
I am a screenwriter. They scream.
I am confident. They affirm.
I am a talent. They encourage.
Somewhere, somehow, I turned into one of those people who recite affirmations. In my youth I thought this was only for granola eating, crystal feeling, astrology reading nutters. Oh wait. That’s me too. But seriously, guys, granola is tasty. And affirmations, I think they work. One day.
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
~ Sylvia Plath
Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I sob. Sometimes I stare blankly at the ceiling while laying on my living room floor listening to Bon Iver. Words! Come to me! Come to me in some sort of order that will make doves cry and fireworks burst in harmonic succession. And yes, it’s always Bon Iver in these scenarios. Their sad melodies merge with my melancholy.
There is a point in each project tackled where I doubt. Like clockwork. It bleeds out of the ink and taints the text. It’s the wall that rises in front of you. The block. That wall you have to kick down. Karate chop. Blow to smithereens.
(There’s a word I’ve never written before. Smithereens. It looks strange on paper. Or has it already been diseased by doubt?)
So, how do you do it? How do you tell doubt to fuck off? To stop coming round. To give back his key.
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
~Vincent van Gogh
I have no answers. Which is an answer in and of itself.
I read prose by Anais Nin, Tom Robbins, or Margaret Atwood. Or some other prolific writer. I wrap my head around their wondrous words. Get inspired by their rhythms. Tell myself they too have doubt. And look! Books! Published, bound pages!
I find validation from friends, from past praise, from previous accomplishments. I dance. Oh, do I dance. James Brown. Get on the Good Foot. And again. And again. I run. I walk. I watch movies. I make myself smile. Because if you make yourself smile, happiness is the reflex response. And happiness trumps doubt. Right?
Doubt is a bitch. It halts the process. But it feeds the process. It helps the process. It makes you stronger. I know this and I don’t know this. I forget it. I deny it. I keep going. Forcibly keep going.
This is the life I chose. This is the life of a creative. This is what I tell myself before I pick up my pen. That I’m supposed to feel this way. And this will, of course, all be crap tomorrow.
“The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.”
~ Colette
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