So, writing is a slow process, unless I suppose you are a well known and already published author. A contract has 12 to 18 months on it and that’s if things go smoothly. Sometimes things don’t go smoothly.
They haven’t for me. I wish they had. More than anything I wish they had. My life is busy and rough enough. There are times I just get tired of pushing, pressing and moving forward. Sometimes I just want to give up.
Thing is I know well enough that I can’t walk away. I’ve been a writer, an unpublished one, for a very long time. I used to sit at my parents dining room table with an old typewriter when I was about 13 or 14 and write up my first stories. Mostly they were mystery/adventure because thats what I read. When I got older I tried my hand at bad high school romance, with characters unlike any I read because I always identified with rougher girls, more troubled girls than I read about.
I have always written. Writing is my outlet. Sometimes there are so many ideas that I can’t keep up. If I develop even half of those ideas I am going toe busy for a very long time. Problem is I write because I have to write but there is still part of me that really wants to share my stories but I’m not willing to give all those stories away. I did start publishing a couple of stories on line years ago, but I didn’t see it through and no one seemed to care.
Publishing is a difficult mistress. Writing is a cruel bitch to be enslaved to. But I am and I find I don’t mind it much, mostly. Sometimes though the frustration. You try to hold onto the highs but the time between them is so far it can be disheartening.
During one of those lows, when my publisher had things to work through, (life interferes most inconveniently at times) I had to walk away. I was getting irritated and frustrated because nothing was moving forward.
Creatives can’t just stop being creative though, so I walked back to the theatre. I put on another persons clothes, hair and damn four inch heels and played make believe for a little while.
It was fun and exhausting. See a writer is in many ways a homebody, this writer particularly. Oh I love being on stage, it is an amazing, adrenaline filled experience. Some of those nights though, getting myself off my couch and out of my house was a drag. The reward though… the laughter, the camaraderie, the total shedding of self to play dress up as someone totally differently.
I love being on stage. The wonderful side effect is now I feel energised and ready to write again. I’ve been able to put pen to paper on a couple of things and feel ready to push in to the bigger ones.
Sometimes you need to step away and reinvigorate the core of you.
Fragile Explosions 