Monsterbeard

lauramenorah:

hate.

This relationship is never going to work.  I had such hopes.

And I’m thankful for every single person who’s been a part of it

Ugh.

Look.  I’m in a rut.  Creatively though.  Well, maybe life-wise too, but not in a bad way.  I mean I’m unemployed so that’s a rut but I’m not down about that or pissed off at myself.

So I’m in a creative rut.  And it’s been for about 3 months now.

I didn’t want to talk about it because talking about it means one of two things:

1. 1. A not-so-secret begging of people to say things like “you’re really talented” which is nice but I’m not interested in hearing it.
   2. Facing the possibility that maybe you’re NOT really talented or not that you’re not talented but just not good ENOUGH for this business.  Like if you breath it into the air that’s when it can become real and snatch you up.

I wrote that the other day, which was quickly followed by this, separately, a couple days later:

What the fuck story are you trying to tell and why can’t you tell it and why can’t you let it go if you can’t tell it because for some reason you keep coming back to this and there IS something there, I know there is, but jesus, just figure it the fuck out already.

And all just feeling incredibly creatively blocked for the better part of the past 3 (maybe 4) months, which is dumb, ok?  I mean, not to say that writer’s block doesn’t exist or whatever.

We can drag up a lot of quotes and TED talks about what creativity is and how it works or whatever, but that’s just the same solution as reading a bunch of books on writing to prepare yourself to write; essentially NOT writing by convincing yourself that it’s serving a higher purpose of writing “sometime in the future.”  Often enough that higher purpose is bullshit.

Not knocking on Gilbert or any of those things because they’re beautiful, and the efforts to express and push our creativity are awesome regardless.  Sometimes, though, I use that search for inspiration into ways to avoid the actual process of writing.

Then, when I was trying to sleep last night I had an epiphany about writing (screenplays for me, but you can put in anything):

Your first draft is like climbing Mount Everest.  It’s a long, hard trek but when you get to the top it’s amazing and exhilarating and you’ve conquered the world!

Your second draft is climbing down from the mountain.  It’s just as difficult as the first time, if not more so, with none of the thrill of accomplishment.  No one gives a shit when you get to the bottom.

Now I’m kind of realizing that’s not even all that encouraging, but it helps me to remember I’m writing for myself first, and also that you just have to put your head down and Keep Writing, and that’s what I’m trying to do.

Wrote about Precious for Filmosophy.  I even managed to use the word “shitshow.”

And, it’s a good movie.  I’d see it again.  So click over and read all about it.

filmosophy:

It’s easy to argue that you don’t want your feelings manipulated, or don’t want to ruin your day, but this isn’t Dancer in the Dark, or Requiem for a Dream.  Precious is ostensibly about hope.  Precious detaches herself from her life to dream up visions of stardom: walking down the red carpet signing autographs, being fawned over by adoring crowds.  She does the same thing we all do at sixteen and beyond: dreaming of something better.

This has been in my drafts since June 22nd, and I have no idea what it’s in regard to.  I think I was trying to be funny, but it just reads… pissy, if nothing else.

No idea, ladies and gentlemen.  I couldn’t even tell you who it could have been directed at, because there is no one.

I think it was a failed awkward sweet nothing that I never went back to.

Prepositions, huh?  What a bitch.

doctorowl:

i would be playing too much xbox 360.  my life would be more exciting, more involved, more bloody and more significant, but all because i could change it at the touch of a button. in the morning, i would still be me, without a controller.

i would be drinking too much.  i would swing upon the pendulum of my heart breaking and my fists pounding, thinking about how much i missed your face, your hands, your voice, whatever emotion those three beheld.

i would be lonely. i would only feel the hollowed part of each evening, regardless of how many, how few, would sit or not sit next to me. i would only feel, if i felt at all, the absence of you.

i would be far too tired. i would sleep without rest, and rest without any peace. fifteen minutes between lying next to you and waking the same is worth fifteen fifteen times the same amount of sleep with eyes closed but heart racing, racing racing.

This is my friend Cat, who is really more my sister.  And not writing about me, but about her very lovely fiance.

And I liked reading this because it’s how love feels when you lose it, especially “I would only feel the hollowed part of each evening.”

Mostly I liked it because it is how they do not feel, being together.  And it reminds me to believe in that, even when I don’t feel like it at all.