Friday, October 8, 2010

Writerly Anxiety


         Why would I want to be a writer?  It’s an anti-social life full of insecurities and uncertainties and most likely no money.   What would draw anyone to that?  Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but I actually feel I can’t help it.  I love reading more than most anything, been doing it since I was six, been forming opinions . . . I guess I just want to contribute to the art form I love.  But it’s been a hard thirteen or fourteen years.  At least three times I “quit” writing, hoping to use my talents and energies for something that made more sense to me and the world at large.  But I always go back.  So I say I can’t help it.
         Now that I finally put out my mystery novel Gossip Kills, people can read it if they want to.  At least there’s that.  But it took me to age 34 to get here.  Over ten years toiling with nothing to show for it.  I started to feel, when I saw myself from others’ eyes, like a bullshitter, a scammer.  All talk.  Trying to write a novel was my life.  But without something to show for it, it is just so much talk.  I’ve gotten over a lot of this discomfort now, but in the process, I may have become even more cynical than I was.   

No comments:

Post a Comment