You know what sucks? Writer’s block. I’ve been stuck with this made-up-but-still-totally-real affliction all week. Look at all the deadlines I have! Writing deadlines, homework, self-imposed obligations to publish something every week, promises I haven’t fulfilled yet. On top of that I can barely make rent and I’m behind in my reading, I haven’t written my psychology term paper yet, and I’m not sure how I’m going to make it through the summer unless I find a well paying job that doesn’t exhaust me so I abandon my writing entirely. Writing is the most stressful part of my life most days. It’s also the most rewarding.

I know, I know, everyone has their different style and speed of creating sentences that craft a story. I seem to get fired up every other day to write something only to sit down and realize, I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t so much get distracted by Facebook as I’m always on it, like a bad twitch, even though I’m not actually doing anything. Remember drawing little squares on the computer desktop with your cursor? I highlight random lines of text on Facebook as though searching for patterns in the little blue highlighting box. I feel like John Nash from A Beautiful Mind, looking for clues that aren’t really there.

The best therapy for not writing is writing, which is ironic, since the only possible break from writing is to, well, not write. So I’m constantly caught in a cycle between hating everything and feeling frustrated, or overindulging in my private therapy session with my laptop, which can only result in me feeling satisfied enough to stop writing for long enough to start hating everything again. Why did I volunteer myself into this career? So I’m frustrated and my aggression levels are pretty high lately. Today I kinda-sorta-maybe finished an outline for a script I promised my contact I’d get done last week. I’m still not even remotely happy with it. Something I’ve realized though, besides the well-known fact that writers are never really happy with their own writing, is that writers are the single worst critics available. You should never ask a writer to critique writing, be it yours, theirs, or someone else’s. Writers are completely blinded by everything they know. I finished True Detective today, which I loved, but my friend hated. I look at the reasons he hated it, and I can’t believe how completely wrong he is. His criteria is inaccurate, he missed the point, he didn’t understand what the show was doing, or how it achieved its effect. Then I think about my own criteria and realize, I can judge the show by another criteria and still be so far off the mark that it isn’t even funny (keep in mind both of us are talking about the writing of the show, not necessarily the acting or direction or any technical aspect). It made me think, are writers even capable of being subjective? Can we actually approach a work and let it wash over us the way others do? Or are we too aware of the man behind the curtain? Do we know too much about the craft to really be able to look at things with fresh eyes?

The answer, of course, is yes, we are capable, but it can be difficult. I’m reading a novel and getting swept away in the quality of the sentences, the word flow, the writer’s vocabulary, and not really paying attention to the story. I have to remind myself not to think too hard. Sure, there’s a time to indulge these aspects of my ability to look at writing, but sometimes I just forget the way an average reader might approach it. Ultimately what this made me realize, is that writing is really a magical profession. We create something from nothing. We imagine characters and give them life, we form words that create meaning in someone else’s mind. We’re glorified hypnotists, in a way. Writing is therapy, but it’s hard. I try and write from my heart, pouring out my personal life for all to see, not in hopes that someone will connect with it, but just because I hope to understand something about myself. I want to express how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, my hopes, my fears, and so on. If it resonates with someone else, great.

I’m feeling better already. See? All it took was a little bit of writing. I’m finished now, so I can go not write until I’m frustrated enough to write something again. Sigh. Writing is therapy, but it’s much, much harder.