Monday, June 24, 2013

Creativity According to Plath-- or, Pinterest?

I hate writing.

In the same way that I hate weight loss.  Sure, having lost weight is amazing and very gratifying.  But the actual day-in and day-out of losing weight sucks.  I started the day on a lathery high note.  I read Maclean's cover page article and got myself nice and worked up in response.  I was composing such elegant lines while drying my hair that I couldn't avoid crafting them into a letter to the editor.  Naturally this letter was tight and full of quips--just as a good letter to the editor ought to be.  I was so pleased with myself I had to read it to several people on the off-chance that Maclean's responded petulantly by not printing it.  After the dream of job offers made in response to my brilliance dissipated, I stopped worrying the sentences to death and just sent it in.

Ever since, I have been worrying sentences to death.  This is a bad thing, too, since I am on a late edition edit.  Now, I've made a mess of my novel's timing and can't for the life of me remember what I had going before I started trifling with it.  These are the days that I hate writing.  The highs are high, but, oh, those lows.  I read several different writing blogs and occasionally I can identify with the sentiments of "I write because I can't not write..." but on days like today, I just want to eat the damn cupcake; to hell with the calories.  I find I hate my own work and I don't know how to fix it.  Is writing just an act of the will? Can you continue when you've got nothing?  According to one of my Pinterest boards, Sylvia Plath said that self-doubt is the enemy of creativity. She must be right, because I went from, "I'm a witty wordsmith genius!" to "I hate my writing with the passion of a thousand flaming suns!" in the course of an afternoon.

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