I don’t want to write anymore.
This is a statement I never thought I’d ever make. It’s just so anti-everything I stand for. How could I not want to do the thing that makes me me? But it’s true — I don’t want to write anymore. Or maybe this feeling that has plagued me for the past year isn’t a want, but instead a can’t.
Maybe I can’t write anymore. Maybe I have nothing left to say.
There used to be so much joy in putting pen to paper, fingertips to keyboard, staring down a blank document with all the time in the world and no idea where to begin. Now, every time I look at the empty page in front of me, I start to feel a little sick. I know what I have to do and what the end product should be, but I don’t know how to get there. How to get my fingers to take the magic in my brain and transcribe it to the page. To make it something worth reading.
The feeling started over a year ago.
When I first started writing for the Press, I had a lot to learn. I had spark, so to speak. Something that suggested I was in the right place. But there was no denying that my form was atrocious, my syntax substandard and my story pitches dull and repetitious. Some days I’m honestly surprised they didn’t bin everything I wrote those first few months.
As the days went on, things got better. I developed a voice, a beat and a succinct routine for writing. I produced some good work that year, stuff I’m still proud of now. But I also developed imposter syndrome and something my editor-in-chief at the time called perfection paralysis.
This is where it all started to fall apart.
Every piece I wrote had to be better than the last, each word more unique and every paragraph more interesting. I’d beat myself black and blue trying to make fiddly sentences “perfect,” whatever perfect even means, and if I decided a piece wasn’t good enough by the time submission came around, I’d trash it. It didn’t matter how many hours I had put into perfecting an article or how much work had gone into crafting each syllable; if I didn’t like the result, it would never see the light of day again.
It was a brutal cycle, vicious, violent and desperately discouraging to someone who used to love seeing an article make its way onto The Brock Press website.
While I’m unsure whether the craziness and chaos that permeated the life that I was living outside of the Press exasperated this condition, it only got worse as the year went on. And if that wasn’t enough, if I turned in a piece late or was short an article for the week, I’d beat myself up even more.
I don’t doubt that I wrote a handful of impressive articles last year, but even now, I still struggle to see the good in any of them. It’s a disease, and it was slowly killing me.
At the beginning of this production year, things were better. A summer away from writing had done me some good, and I was fresh and ready to try again. But it only got worse.
Last year, I could write. I might have hated everything I produced by the end, but I could get the words on the page. This year, no matter how many things I throw at the wall, I can’t make anything stick. I spend my days in silence, staring at a blank Word document with frustration brewing in my chest. It doesn’t help that outside of the writing I do for my job, I’m majoring in history and minoring in English. All I do is write, constantly.
None of it is good; all of it makes me miserable.
Once in a while, something will spark. The pieces that come from desperate, raw emotion usually flow out much more easily than other works. Perhaps it’s a form of therapy — a therapy I get paid for. Still, I struggle more than I ever want to admit.
It’s hard not to want to give up. It’s hard not to want to throw the towel in and quit. Say enough is enough.
But I’m trying — it’s all I can do.
Maybe one day, when I am far, far away from university life, my love for writing will come back to me. But like many things in life, I’m not sure if this craft will ever be the same as it once was. If I will ever look forward to a day spent in front of my computer, staring down a blank document with all the time in the world and no idea where to begin.
I hope one day I find that part of myself again. I hope it still exists. There are days I see glimpses of that girl, the one who would spend her summer afternoons scribbling in a notebook. The girl who saw poetry in every interaction, a love story in each “hello.”
Maybe I’m not that girl anymore, but man, did I love being her when I was.
All I can do is imagine she’s still out there somewhere, writing a novel or crafting an album review she could be proud of; her fingers stained with ink from her trusty fountain pen. I hope she is on an adventure far away from here. She deserved better than the abuse that slowly shut her out, destroying the passion she used to prosper in.
Even though she and I are no longer one cohesive person, and even though I’m still trying to figure out how to make myself understand that it’s okay, my love for her holds strong. She was once my most trusted friend and beloved partner. How could I ever let her go for good?
I hope a day comes when I can love the version of myself that exists without her, even if I can’t seem to right now. Maybe there is something better around the corner for me, a different version I can love just as much.
Only time will tell. Oh, how beautifully horrible and terribly exciting that is to imagine.