It’s hard not beating myself up. I just went back and re-read some old blog posts, on a previous site of mine, and one of the posts was about whittling down my goals to just two. My logic (in this post) was that if I have just two they’d be easier to achieve and I would therefore feel as though I could actually accomplish something. The first of the two was, of course, weightloss, as that has become my forever journey. I have struggled with my weight since I was a kid and I probably will fight it until I die. It’s what I get for having an unhealthy apetite for sugar and a pension for overindulgence.

The second was to finish editing my book. At the time of the post, it had been only 5 years since I had finished my first novel length work of fiction. As of December 6th, 2020, it has been 11. Shoot me.

I do find it funny that I whitled this “list” down to the most daunting of all of them. I’m curious what the others could have possibly been, that these were the “easy” ones.

Much like my weightloss, I think my journey to finish editing my novel will be my white whale. I will sail the seas of my emotional instability until I can finally capture the “perfect” manuscript. Per usual pattern, I tried (once again) to wrok on it and I have become so saturated with that fucking opening scene that I don’t know if my dislike of it is my own irritation or if it is just genuinely a bad beginning. Considering I gave it to my husband’s boyfriend to read and he’s only two pages in… I’m going to assume it’s just bad. I’ve edited it countless times, it merely resembles the original one I wrote 11 years ago. For the better. And for the worst. Even if I wanted to writea new opening scene, I have read through the exiting one so many times the new draft would end up sounding exactly the same, starting in the same spot, and most likely carry the same bullshit and baggage of the previous drafts. God I hreally ate myself sometimes.

The problem with being a perfectionist is that I get so caught up in the “it’s not good enough” that I have wedged out the part of me that can identify what is and isn’t good writing. I fucking hate it. And myself.

The other thought that I have is that maybe my story just isn’t good and I’ve led myself to believe that it is. I had liked it when I first finished it, but now… I’ve changed so many things in my head or in the actual manuscript that I feel like it’s a mess. I’ve tried justifying or rationalizing charatcer choices and shoehorned other elements that it feels like frankenstein’s monster. (Ugh, enough with the metaphors, Josh.)

Part of me kind of wants to make a new outline, with the story elements, and do another NaNoWriMo style re-write of it. Worst case scenario, it’s as shitty as the one prior. Best case scenario… It’s better.

Yet even as I think of this I get lost in the technical aspect. Do I want to write it in first person, since it’s a young adult/new adult series and what I have discovered about the better selling series are typically those of the main character’s perspective. I don’t even know if my character’s personal voice is strong enough to carry an entire narrative… and if i feel that way now, doesn’t that lead me to believe that it’s weak? FUCK!

As you can clearly see, I tend to overthink and overanalyze things. It’s my blessing and my curse. Primarily, curse.

I am almost certain that the statement I am about to write has been said or thought by most American citizens today: I am exhausted. It’s the kind of tired where it feels like every ounce of energy has been sucked from my body, and all that’s left behind is the weight of my flesh and bone. In addition, my mind is just as empty, like the water skin of a lost traveler in the desert. All I want to do is enter into a 3 year coma. I am that worn out. And for what?

Writing is near impossible when you have nothing on your mind. My eyes just glare at a blank page, the ceiling, the wall, my twitter feed, willing myself to write something. Yet there is no coherent thought in my brain. And Other than the obvious happenings in American politics, I have nothing of substance to ruminate. Instead I just have my exhaustion and hollow feelings.

So, in an effort to hold myself to goals I’m writing anyway. Despite my lack of topic.

I think one of my problems is I have tricked myself into thinking that my writing isn’t as good when I do it straight through the computer. What really gets the juices flowing is holding a pencil in hand and writing out my thoughts in lead. That will bring a spark to the process. But I know that that belief is bullshit. I’ve written countless blogs and even two novel length works of fiction straight on to the computer screen. This romance I’ve draped over the handwritten process is holding me back from achieving my goals.

But also… let’s not forget the exhaustion.

Conspiracy theories are easy to believe because they give one the sense of explanation in a situation where there seems like no logical reason for what has occurred. Most are not sounds arguments but they give the believer meaning. I for one am easily susceptible to such wild takes and in knowing that, when I hear such wild reasonings, I tread with caution and asks lots of questions. However if they’re concocted in my own head is another thing entirely.

In the span of a year a slough of neurological disorders have befallen my family. My mother with her Alzheimer’s and my husband with his ALS. My father, prior to his passing, was showing signs of a similar diagnosis to my husband’s, however we never got any concrete tests. He had difficulty getting his legs to move and it was because of that that he fell and hit his head, killing him. His walking had been problematic prior to this though, which we had discovered it was built up fluid on his brain. That had been remedied by a shunt that drained the water into his stomach.

Seeing as how all this happened in such a short time makes me wonder if we had all come into contact with something poisonous enough to initiate all of this. If not, then this is all some highly coincidental shit.

My husband tries to quell the crazy by offering me reason. He wants to know if they’re all affected, why not me? Good question. Maybe it just hasn’t become readily apparent.

I keep searching for answers of when we were all together for this to happen. For a year we had lived with my parents in 2010, while the hubs and I built up enough cash to buy a house. After that the only other time was when we took a trip to Lake Tahoe. It is there that my mind makes a connection, but where we would have been “exposed” is unknown.

Logically I understand that I am just searching for reason in all this chaos. Deep down I know that life is cruel and there is no meaning to what happens. Sometimes things just work like that. I jokingly opine that “life shops at Costco” and we’re going through a jar of pickled herring. (I say that cause that sounds disgusting to me.)

That’s the alluring factor of conspiracy theories, they’re such easy answers for odd questions. And they’re hardly ever reasoned down, especially when the believer believes so strongly because it’s the only explanation for such depressing circumstances.

It’s amazing the things we believe, the stories we tell ourselves to justify our own shortcomings. As a writer (and I am being generous here) I hold this deeply held belief that where I sit to pound out some prose, dictates the quality of my writing. In the end it’s my own ability that gets me through what I’m writing. However if I have this perceived belief that it sucks or it didn’t come as easy it was all because I was sitting in the wrong place, or listening to the wrong music, or I didn’t have the correct amount of silence… It’s all nonsense. They’re just the mental gymnastics of my insecurity.

I’m sitting now in the very room and position where I previously typed countless on-line blogs and where I composed and compiled a “book” in my high school days. In this spot was where I had drafted some of my most memorable work. Even as I type this now, I know that this sentiment is bullshit. Since then I have written many other pieces that (in the moment) I had loved or perceived as brilliant, only to later deem it garbage at a later reading. And I also can’t help but notice, as I type this, that the words do also seem to flow a little more easily than previous. Coincidence, I’m sure.

My passion for writing has been rekindled this Christmas by two very “writer specific” gifts. My mother in law gave me a blank check to copyright my near-finished novel and my husband gave me a typewriter that’s almost 100 years old, and still works. Well, it mostly works in that I can punch the keys and produce letters on a page, as long as they don’t contain a 1 or a “space” in between the words I choose to stitch together. Granted, the husband bought it as a decorative piece and not as a functional one. Either way, I love the gifts I received.

An ember of “wanting to be published” has been growing ever since my husband’s diagnosis. For whatever reason, I want to produce something he can see and hold. And despite the story being about someone else entirely, I want to dedicate it to him. Even though he has been, simultaneously, my biggest supporter and my second loudest naysayer. I don’t think he ever doubted my ability to write, it was just my dedication to following through with my own goal. I like to pretend he was using this negativity to drive myself to “prove him wrong” and actually produce my novel. He just didn’t realize how insecure I am about my “talent” and how quickly I acquiesce to my self-doubt.

As these embers have started to catch, I wanted to see if it even mattered that I took my old spot in my mother’s living room, my back to the front door, clacking away on the keyboard. Does my talent or ability to write hinge on where I place myself, or is it all in my head.

If you were waiting for some sort of answer, you will find none. Because, as I have learned time and time again, it is all relative. It all depends on what I tell myself, and choose to believe, in that moment.