Pet Monologues

So I’ve been sitting here for a solid hour and a half, maybe more, glossed over and staring at the screen in an attempt to write something without deleting it 4 seconds later. After writing over 60 pages in the past two weeks, I’d like to blame it on finals, but this has always been my problem — the failure to confidently plop down words on paper without the expectation of further failure.

It’s completely counterproductive, I know, writing and writing with nothing to show for it, which explains why my portfolio consists of a meager handful of poems and Spoken Word pieces (despite the fact that I never claim being a poet, it seems that’s all I can attest to). There’s a folder of half finished short stories I’m too afraid to touch, a collection of slightly above average blog posts for inspiration, and a love letter I wrote to an ex-boyfriend that I’d never let anyone read, but nevertheless remains one of my better pieces.

I am not a writer. I say the words aloud to hear how it sounds. I am not a writer. Writers write. I only talk about writing. I am a failed writer — a failed creative writer, at least. Newspaper articles and columns I have up the wazoo, that much is true. I am a journalist. But I am not a writer in the sense that I want to be.

It might be that writing as a journalist has impeded my ability to write creatively. I fear letting emotion flow freely through my words because I fear others will correctly interpret those feelings, and because of that I have come to fear words loaded with personal bias. Only recently I’ve been able to admit that I’m more emotional than I like to think, and as a reporter that bears all sorts of eyebrow-raising implications.

I know in part it’s because I’m afraid, period. Mostly afraid that everyone thinks I’m some emo MySpace-esque blogger who thinks she can write but can’t, which is frankly why I put so much time and effort into sounding rational and removing myself from the colloquial. I depend on the praise of others in a way that is crippling. You are my crutch, readers, especially a select few of you whose opinions matter more than they should, and I’m scared that you think I suck, quite plainly. You see, I am as needy for your hearts as I am your eyes.

At any rate, for all those reasons and then some, I’ve stopped writing — here and elsewhere — altogether.

I am not a writer. It really hurts to say those words. For a long time now, I’ve lusted after finishing a solid story, yearned for that final connection between words and essence. But I’ve realized I can’t commit. I’m too afraid to put my whole heart in it, and this stigma of being emotional stalks every sentence. I think I am being far too emotional right now, even. So until I come to terms with it, sorry. Loving something isn’t quite the same as being good at something. I just can’t commit.

So if I’m not a writer, what am I? Not occupationally but essentially speaking, that is. It’s hard to tell. All I know is: I’m not the great literary-artist-in-the-making I thought I was.

I’m just crazy Zelda who’ll never be as good as the original Fitzgerald.  

found at http://witandspit.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-not-writer.html