Forced

Why can't I just write like me? That's all I want to do in this moment, but I am instead finding myself incapable. The writing sounds off or foreign. It sounds like attempts at being someone I'm not.

I had a voice once, or so I was told. Professors, confidants, and my wife have all identified it at one point or another. It was mine. Leave it to me, the guy who couldn't detect it in the first place, to go and lose it.

I've been away from writing for too long. So many plans were made in the last few months, plans to redirect my path toward something more profitable and bearable as a future career. Plans to do anything other than write.

I was writing. Eventually I discovered that writing wasn't something I could continue. I became afraid of it. Too afraid to try, apparently. So, here I am, a clock-punching stooge like a majority of people in the world. I've turned my back on the last year of half-hearted attempts and failure of self.

I still have ideas. There are pages and pages of notes and fragments detailing potential  stories, comics, plays, movies, etcetera. All of it is going to sit there, now because of avoidance begotten by dread. Why?

I'm going to try and break through. I don't know if this will work.

This is all I could get out tonight. Maybe I'll manage more some other time.

Return to the Life of Sisyphus

The dream has ended and the work is frozen. That line accurately describes both the status of my life and of my ailing sprout of a writing career. The development of the composing of stories has been arrested by the needs of life. I have had to return to a punch-clock job to help my wife and I recover and maintain. Once again it is time to push the boulder back up the hill and then to chase it down again, to repeat the process without ceasing.

I must admit, the work I do for my new employer could be worse, and it does pay very well, but a tiny portion of me, powered by a nagging trait carried by my unfortunate genes, demands that I dissect this new way of living and never give up on finding a reason to complain. I tire of being me, or at least that version of me. So, I've all but completely dispatched my inner self and found a way to bite down, ignore the life that moves around me, and ride out this ride known as "The Way Things Are."

I mean, it's only for now. Right?

As for creative pursuits, I'm sure that I'll find the will to continue them and to continue trying to put stuff out there for people. Eventually malaise will evaporate, giving way to partial numbness, and I'll feel okay about continuing my efforts. For now things of that sort are the last things on my mind.