I want to write a blog post today, because I know it’s good for me. The thing is, I’m struggling. Maybe I’m burned out, but it feels like my words have become a hopelessly tangled heap of strings, and every string I pull brings out a whole host of strings I didn’t want to see.
So I guess the words are there (which is new for me.) It’s just that there are too many of them. Too many emotions. But hey, it’s April so it’s unlikely that a lot of you will read this post anyway. So I get to just air some words and see what comes out.
The truth is, I feel stuck. I’ve mentioned that my life by and large sucks at the moment, which is fair enough, but until recently, I’ve always had writing to give me a sense of movement. As long as I made progress on my work in progress, that was okay, because then I was actually working toward something.
But that also meant that I have been flirting on the edge of burning out for a long time. And by a long time, I mean basically from March 2014. Maybe even earlier.
The thing is, that thing I mentioned before with my family member who spectacularly fucked us over… It gave me a good old shove into the abyss, and now I’m here with no idea about how to get out.
And if I’m honest, I might actually be self-sabotaging.
See in the aftermath, I tried to sit down and write, because I know it’s good for me. Because I need to feel like at least something is moving in the wrong direction and…. Nothing. Like… even the notes I’d left for myself to guide me toward the end of the story feel like some other parson wrote them. When I think about writing right now, I just feel… numb.
And I hate it. So instead of writing, I spent the most of the past month doing nothing. It’s not that I’m lazy per se. I’m still working, editing for people, formatting for people…that sort of thing. But when it comes to doing something for myself, something that could actually get me climbing out of the abyss again, I basically stare at the ladder out and do nothing.
Maybe I’ve been knocked down one time too many. And although things are starting to go a bit better, I don’t feel better. I feel like life is right there, dancing around and waiting for me to get onto my feet so it can hit me in the face again. And honestly, I don’t see the attraction of it.
Three years.
Three whole fucking years of this shit.
Two weeks ago was the third anniversary of getting my rights back from Etopia Press. So yes, it’s almost exactly three years since everything went to hell, because the crap with Etopia was the start. And man, I fought. I fought like a lion. Things went bad and I wrote more.
But here I am now, and I don’t know if I have anything left. Because everything I do feels like I’m just setting myself up for more harm.
So I do nothing.
I stare without blinking and fill my hours with nonsense. Not reaching for the ladder out of the abyss because I don’t want to face whatever is waiting for me up there.
Because that’s one thing I can say about being down here. If I don’t think about it too much, the paralysis is at least peaceful.