The Daily Struggle

I’ve noticed on Twitter recently a lot of authors talking about the challenges of being a writer. Myself not being “officially published”, I never feel it appropriate to share my own thoughts on the matter.

(At least, not on Twitter.)

Though there have been many times on this blog I’ve mentioned how life gets in the way, if I were a reader of my own material, such mentions, excuses, and complaints would grow stale and eventually irritating.

“We get it. It’s hard. Life sucks. Move on.”

Those are some of the phrases I repeat to myself each time I want to mention, yet again, how difficult life has been, how distracting; why it’s been weeks since I’ve written a post.

I won’t continue to beat this poor, dead, proverbial horse any deeper into the ground. I’m sure by now he’s at least 24 feet under. Instead, I’m going to come clean, shirk these bloody gloves off, and tell you what I really think.

Being a writer is *bleeping* hard.

Like I said, I’m not even published. I’m not even sure I should call myself one. I’m only in the querying, rejecting, revising, hoping, dreaming, scheming, daring stage. It sucks. Though I don’t find the writing community to be as cutthroat as the theatre, musical, performing arts world (I’m not sorry for that comment because it is), there are still many discouraging times.

Why?

Because being a writer means, essentially, being alone.

When you live in a world as busy as ours, with as many distractions, being alone becomes that much more of a challenge. Finding those few precious moments when you can collect your thoughts and by some miracle write them on a page is, some days, daunting. Impossible. Especially when the world is so loud you cannot even hear yourself think. How then am I ever to find enough of those moments to make something beautiful and inspiring someone will want to publish one day?

Now I’m not advocating isolation (read here). What I am emphasizing is the need to be alone, to think, to breathe, and then, at long last, to write.

Of course, that’s the ideal method. Most days its not even that. It’s just, “I’ve got a few spare minutes. I’m going to throw some words on a page, hope they stick, and when I come back to read them, pray they make some blundering sense so I can move on to the next chapter.” The best part is they usually don’t. Usually you read that mess and think, “What the–” and rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. And…

I think you get it.

For me, that’s what I’m currently, daily experiencing. It’s devastating. Torture. Agony. I feel as though I’m being dragged away from my writing each and every day, and the further away I feel, the less alive I am.

If writing is my spark, that Divine presence placed within me for a purpose only Hashem knows, and I’m not able to feed, cultivate, and nurture this spark, then I’m slowly letting it die and it feels like it’s killing me.

I won’t reinvent the wheel to describe to you what the struggle is like every day since Kalyn Josephson eloquently tweeted about it. It’s her tweet thread which prompted this rant because as I read it, I thought, “This is me. This is exactly what I struggle with. Dear G-d, there’s someone else out there like me. And if she can do it, why can’t I?”

Yes, writing is a daily struggle. You have to keep one foot in the real world and another in your imaginary world. It sucks, especially when you feel like the real world is sucking you deeper into it, you feel your grip on the other slipping more and more until it grows further and further away.

Except it’s worth it to me, even if I’m never published. To just write is its own reward.

It’s the days when I don’t get to write I feel I’m losing that reward. They are far too many. Maybe the problem is me? Maybe I just need more self-discipline? Maybe I could tweak things in my schedule, my responsibilities, my commitments to relieve this building pressure? I don’t know, but I think at the end of the day, if I, if we, all of us, just keep moving, keep trying, keep putting one foot in front of the other, we’ll make it.

If we don’t give up, we win. It’s when we stop trying we fail.

I’ll conclude with two things.

1. This post (and Kalyn’s tweet thread) hopefully explain why even writing a weekly blog post is a struggle. My priority is my novel and revising it. If I get the extra time to write after revisions, I do so here. Of course, psychologists says not to share your goals, so maybe that’s the other part of my problem? I keep sharing my goals? Whatever. My point is no matter what I promise, if any of you ever wonder, “Where is she?” keep this in mind.
2. If you want to help me continue writing — whether it be revisions, blog posts, tweets, whatever — then please consider supporting me on Patreon. Every little bit helps. Really. Knowing I have people out there who want to read my manic musings encourages me to try that much more. Though writing is its own reward, and I don’t necessarily need to be published to feel accomplished or successful, it’s only when my writing gets shared, when it inspires others, that reward exponentially multiplies beyond my wildest dreams or expectations into something far more beautiful than I could ever create.

Regardless, thank you for reading, and remember, no matter how dark life may seem, gather the sparks.