On (Not) Writing

I've been wanting to write lately, but I can't. It's not for lack of ideas--I already know what I want to write.I just can't make myself sit down at the computer and actually do it. This problem in itself is nothing new; I've been having it for 15 years, ever since the first time I decided I wanted to try writing a full-length thing. I did manage to get out a couple plays in that time; but I've had an idea for a novel that's been bouncing around for 10 years and the farthest I've gotten is sorta kinda most of the way through Chapter 1.

The reason I bring this up now is that, lately, I've been feeling more inspired to write. I see people around me doing creative stuff and that makes me want to do creative stuff, too. But I never actually do it. When I think about doing it, there's something that happens in my head where my brain seems to say, "Yes, we should do that. Maybe we'll do it later, but right now we want to keep playing games on the computer." I know there's some kind of deeper reason why I'm sabotaging myself, but I haven't figured out what it is. There's always the fear of rejection--that I'll actually finish a writing project and show it to people and they'll laugh at me and say it's stupid and I'm a horrible person. That was probably true 15 years ago, but I think I've mostly gotten past it. I may not be the greatest writer who ever lived, but I know I can create something halfway decent.

One theory that fits is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs(tm).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

If you're not familiar with it (or even if you are), it says that human beings have different levels of needs, and the more basic, lower-level needs have to be met before a person can get to the higher levels. Level 5, the very top, is where you basically become the person you were meant to be. That's where creativity happens. Level 3 is the need for love and belonging, and I've been stuck there pretty much my whole life.

My problems with not feeling loved enough can have their own blog post eventually. Too much to list here. But it's definitely something that I can't move past or just put aside so I can get some writing done. It's kind of ironic, because the main reason I started writing in the first place was in the hopes of expressing who I really am, in the hopes that someone might see and love that. The person who I pretend to be when I'm around (most) other people is so far removed from the person I feel like I truly am inside. My writing is that person trying to come out. And if I don't feel loved, that inside person just wants to stay inside and be sad; if you feel like no one loves you, what's the point in ever going out anyway?


Another problem for me as a writer stems from the nature of writing, particularly the nature of full-length projects. It's best summed up by this quote from Doctor Who:

If you really get down to the heart of it, one of the main reasons I (and probably a lot of other writers) write is because I want people to read my story and think it's the greatest thing ever and love me and maybe give me 10 million dollars. I think the technical term for all of that is "validation." Except I could use the validation up front. In fact, I really need validation RIGHT NOW, thank you. Writing a novel is a long and grueling process, and every single bit of validation you get happens at the very end if it happens at all. It's not like a regular job, where you may have to wait two weeks before you get rewarded with a paycheck, but at least you KNOW the payoff is coming. Writing is like being desperately hungry, and the only way to get food is to plant seeds in the ground and wait for them to grow. It's difficult to see the point in even bothering to plant the seed; because even if it does manage to germinate and grow and survive and not get eaten by insects, you'll almost certainly have died of starvation long before that seed turns into food.


It also doesn't help that I have essentially zero accountability when it comes to writing. I've tried telling myself that "Okay I am definitely going to write for x hours and produce x number of words every single day until I finish something." That works sometimes for a few days, but it never lasts. I  need some sort of literary agent or something. Someone who will expect me to write stuff and send them chapters and they'll read them and tell me how it's the greatest thing ever and they can't wait to see more and just reading what I write is sort of starting to make them fall in love with me a little, which is against the literary agent's code of ethics, but a few more chapters might make them not care about ethics anymore....