In Which There is Much Agonizing

I finished writing the first draft of the novel that I talked about here. It's...

Fuck. I don't know man. I had this idea to write about how it was, how it felt to start with an idea and to finish a first draft and I've got nothing. My thoughts all circle the same thing: The fucking thing is going nowhere. I've still got a shit ton of work to do on it before I can send it to people who will reject it and then I've got to deal with all the fucking self-doubt bullshit that attacks when the lights go out. What shit. 400 plus pages of work. And how much of that has any hope of escaping the grist mill of agent, editor, publisher? Will it be the same? Is it good enough now? Who the fuck knows? So much fucking work lies ahead. It's painful to think about. How much of the shit am I going to junk myself, for one reason or another? Why in the shit did I decide that I wanted to do this with my life instead of just churn out innocuous and trite journal articles for psychology in some fucking animal lab at some faceless university somewhere? 

Because fuck me that's why. 

I find this senetiment a lot amongst writerly folk with whom I converse. It's not quite masochism, but it's close and, worst of all, it's not a choice. It's something you have to do. It must be done. All choice is abrogated in the matter and the only recourse is to get about it. The fucker is life consuming. The force of it is so great that you begin to think that there is something wrong with you. Every passing face, in the grocery store, at work, the laundry mat, the gas station screams at you to write it down. You find yourself imagining the story arc of the chubby/cute barista at the Dunkin' Donuts you frequent after Mass. You come up with all the history that led to the new family across the street moving in when you over hear the mother on the cell phone saying, "They going to come up here and try to get my kids again." Then, you take all that shit, all that weight, all that life that pours out of every fucking soul on the planet and you neglect your own to tell their stories.

I sent the kids across the street to play with the neighbor kids while I watched them over the top of the laptop screen. They played basketball and threw sticks and played in the playhouse there. A woodpecker and a jay occupied the same weeping willow tree outside my window this morning. I've subsisted on coffee and energy drinks all day because I've been trying to order my thoughts on here, in this post, into something coherent. For what? To what end? 

Don't ask yourself those questions. They rarely find answers and even when they do, that shit isn't pretty.

Tomorrow I'll go back to work at the high school. I'll go in early, getting into the building at 6 AM, go to the room, set up my laptop and put in my earbuds, go through my pre-writing rituals and start typing.