Fear is the mindkiller
Jun. 17th, 2006 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yrmencynI'm afraid. Over a year ago, I started making plans to overhaul my life and the direction it's going. It seemed like the right idea at the time, and to be honest it still does. I'm looking forward to working with other writers. I'm looking forward to started somewhat anew again. I'm looking forward to getting into esoteric conversations about rhyme and meter, imagery and metaphor. I'm looking forward to all the surrounding material, but I'm afraid, because sometimes I worry that the core is rotten. I worry that it's all a fluke. I wrote some good poems, I guess, poems that I liked and other people seem to like, but I can't help but think I'm kidding myself. I'm not much of a writer, volume-wise. I've got well less than 100 poems to my name (and that's setting the bar WAY high, just so I don't accidentally lie) -- what kind of 'writer' turns out less than one poem a week? It would be one thing if I edited and carefully revised, haggling with my inner editor over every precious syllable, but I don't. The words come out of my head, they hit the page, I'm done. I feel like I'm barely involved. I worry that I'm a fake, that I got lucky, or that even worse, I had something and it went away.
I tried to write tonight. I wanted to write, I wanted to express what I was feeling about some life stuff, and what came out was a disjointed set of meta-thoughts and a set of four short stanzas that, even as I was writing them down, I knew were cribbing their form from a song I'd just listened to. I looked back in my poetry journal just now (an actual book, not an online journal), and it's been over two weeks since I wrote. And if we're talking about something that I really felt good about, it's been six weeks, with a gap of months before that to the prior good composition. So... can I do this? Am I going to fall flat on my ass? Has my mother been right all these years, and it really is going to catch up to me? I put a good face on it, but inside I'm terrified that this is finally the obstacle I can't overcome.
I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I realize it comes off very apocalyptic, but really I'm just... resigned. Which is probably the worst thing I could possibly be right now, as it will do nothing to get me out of this, but I can't find my groove. I can't grab hold of the rope and rein in the words. And all I really wanted to do tonight was to find a way to tell a couple of friends that I love them and that I wish I had the right words to really let them know that.
I tried to write tonight. I wanted to write, I wanted to express what I was feeling about some life stuff, and what came out was a disjointed set of meta-thoughts and a set of four short stanzas that, even as I was writing them down, I knew were cribbing their form from a song I'd just listened to. I looked back in my poetry journal just now (an actual book, not an online journal), and it's been over two weeks since I wrote. And if we're talking about something that I really felt good about, it's been six weeks, with a gap of months before that to the prior good composition. So... can I do this? Am I going to fall flat on my ass? Has my mother been right all these years, and it really is going to catch up to me? I put a good face on it, but inside I'm terrified that this is finally the obstacle I can't overcome.
I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I realize it comes off very apocalyptic, but really I'm just... resigned. Which is probably the worst thing I could possibly be right now, as it will do nothing to get me out of this, but I can't find my groove. I can't grab hold of the rope and rein in the words. And all I really wanted to do tonight was to find a way to tell a couple of friends that I love them and that I wish I had the right words to really let them know that.
