A low place

It’s 5:45 am. I woke up early to write, but it didn’t go so well. I’m in a low place—everything seems bad—the writing inane.

Question: am I wasting my time? Is it admirable to work so hard on something when it’s not very good? Great books have great stories of how they were written and the sacrifices that their authors made to complete them. But isn’t it ridiculous and delusional to try so hard, when what I’m doing sucks? I could be sleeping. I could be warm in my bed oblivious to all this anxiety.

Focus on the process, right? Let go of the end result. All good and well when the process is enjoyable. But when it’s torture and only makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s difficult to appreciate the value of the process.

It’s the language that I struggle with the most. It’s so insanely hard to get the words to flow smoothly without any awkward phrasing. Most of the time, anyway. Every now and then, they come easily. But most of the time I spew something crappy, then go over it and over it, manipulating the vocabulary and word order, adding description, revising again and again, until I think it works. Right now it all looks terrible no matter what I do. Even sections that I thought were in pretty good shape read like complete drivel.

DE-pressing!!!

Like I said. I’m in a low place.

I’ll try again later today.