Honing the craft

After I wrote the previous post in this blog, I pondered it and the one before it. The subject matter of the posts were distinct, but for one common element. Neal Stephenson and Lindy West are both individuals who are paid some amount of money to write, and I'd thought about their writing in comparison to my own. My line of thinking was completely different between the two cases. As I said before, reading Neal Stephenson's book, I was painfully aware of how far beyond my own capabilities such a thing is. On the other hand, I believe I could write circles around Lindy West. These aren't some intrusive revelations for me: I've had similar reactions to many things that I've read. The only real development here was that I bothered to state as much in writing and that the two instances happened close together. That's why I don't want to emphasize Neal Stephenson in this post (I'll talk about him some other day) and it's why I hesitate to even mention Lindy West (she's not even remarkable as a bad writer, let alone a bad writer who is successful despite everything). This isn't about any individual works or their authors. This isn't about other people at all. This is about a question that's been burning in my mind. Am I a writer?

I don't know.

That's not a satisfying response, hence the burning. Still, I have nothing better. Am I a writer? Well, am I? There's a history to this line of inquiry, and actually, this very blog is part of that. I've virtually abandoned it. Oh, by "it" I mean this blog. Sorry, that was vague. See? This is part of the problem. I've read enough to be able to spot the flaws in a piece of writing, even my own. Actually putting in the time two produce writing in the first place, and then following that up by putting in the time to fix the flaws? Maybe I'm not cut out for it. I thought I wanted to be. I thought that I was sufficiently motivated. And yet, here we are. This isn't about knowledge and it isn't about style. This is about output. And that's another non-revelation. I've known this shit for years and years. I've known it for so long that it's become a part of me, that I feel as though I've always known these things, although that's probably untrue.

For some reason, when I'm pondering this subject, the year 2010 looms over me, occupying my thoughts. I don't know what to say about 2010. I don't know if I can even put what I think about 2010 into words without crying. Yeah, it's pathetic, but hey, that's my life, apparently.

I'd spent all of the previous year and half of the one before that out of school, working a job that I loved and trying to get into the University of Washington, discovering that I still needed credits I didn't have. I'd just gotten a new computer after using the same old one for about a decade. 2010 started with me going back to Green River Community College, still working the job I loved, taking easy classes, and generally having a great time. I put in an effort to write more, following through on that. I ended my old LiveJournal and replaced it with this blog, writing an epic final LiveJournal entry that was so full of joy that I concluded by implying that I was content with the life I'd had, that everything to follow after January of 2010 would just be a bonus to what was already a fulfilled life. And I really meant it. That was just January! And things kept on getting better. I kept up my aspiration to write more, working on a chemistry blog among other things. I got back into Magic. I read amazing books. I aced my classes, which meant learning a little German. I got to play computer games way too much. And with all of that, I was still able to spend time with friends. I went on an amazing trip to Island County that summer, and then that autumn I finally used my vacation time at my job and went on an even more amazing trip to Europe, something that blew away all notions of a bonus I'd had in mind when I wrote that last LiveJournal entry 10 months earlier. I was accepted into the University of Washington, so I started getting ready for that. I participated in NaNoWriMo and wrote my first novel, then closed the year out moving to Seattle and playing more computer games, anticipating that school would have me busier than ever and that my life was about to get a lot more stressful, but I was thrilled to have such wondrous experiences and to be living in Seattle with my best friend. Having a great year isn't enough to make me cry. What makes me cry is knowing that I put into writing, practically at the beginning of the year, how fulfilled I felt and how I could say that life had given me enough, and that I then went on to have a great year after that, only to look back, a few years later and think that my life kind of sucks.

And then I couldn't write anything substantial because I had school as an excuse. So I didn't. Once I graduated, I wanted to write a post about my experience at the University of Washington. It didn't happen, and it changed to a plan to write a retrospective at the end of the year. Then that didn't happen. I wanted to write about so many topics, but I put them off. I got a job and wanted to write about that, but then I ended up not doing it. I started a weekly series of articles about Magic at the Casual Players Alliance, and then I started missing weeks, then months. Now the whole thing is on hiatus. And at some point, around the same time that I reached the one-year mark with my job, I started questioning idea that I should even be spending my time writing at all. It's not that I became unhappy with my writing. Actually, my views on my own work are pretty much what they've always been: a lot of what I've written is flawed in retrospect, but there are some gems in there too. No, I don't question myself on this because of a lack of quality. And it's not entirely about the lack of quantity either, as that is something I can, in principle, address. It goes deeper.

Something about my brain is fucked up. I find myself daydreaming that I make some wonderful scientific discovery and that I found my own company. Or I become super-rich somehow, buy Wizards of the Coast, and get Magic onto what I deem to be the right track for the future of the game. Or I spontaneously spend an afternoon meditating and awaken amazing untapped potential and become some hero who fixes all the problems in the world. Mainly, I daydream that I'm financially secure and can support everyone in my family for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it even takes the form of traveling back in time, like I'll magically be a decade or more younger and also an accomplished musician, or I'll go back to when I was a kid, knowing everything I know now, and have a second chance at all the crap I didn't handle properly because I was young and inexperienced. These daydreams take all sorts of forms, but they sometimes last a long time and occupy my thoughts even while I'm performing fairly complex tasks. And then at some point, I inevitably realize that none of it is real and that I'm being silly, but it doesn't change the perverse fact that having these experiences makes me happier. And maybe I've forgotten something, but I don't think this happened in 2010, or if it did, it was comparatively rare. At some point in the past five years, I went from feeling fulfilled to wanting to trade the life I have for a different one. And it seems that writing, as something I do (or don't), and as a skill, has become entangled in this psychological struggle. Because writing is something I that I'm actually good at, or something that I convince myself I'm good at, it seems like an escape that is different from the other daydreams. It seems plausible. Realistic. And I wonder if that's healthy. So I oscillate between resolving to write on a regular basis and resolving to give up on a useless fantasy.

I started an entry. I called it "Honing the craft." I was going to lay out my plan to write something every day. That was over a week ago. I didn't actually write the damn thing, then I deleted it and made a new version today. So now what? I don't know. It's not satisfying, but it's my response right now.

For the moment, the question still burns.