My Writing Sucks

I keep trying to finish one of the many pieces I have begun that are sitting in my drafts folder gathering dust, and as I read each one I think to myself, “This piece is dumb” or “Who cares?” or “My writing sucks” or some other horrible thing about myself.

The creative process is sometimes easy and glorious and joyful and fun, and sometimes it just is not. Sometimes it is like pushing a boulder up a hill wondering why the hell you are exerting so much effort for something that feels pointless, like life itself at times.

I know better than to try to finish something I have started when I am in this space, my observations at the moment tainted by my experience here in this life. These are the moments when healing is needed, and healing at times needs to take place apart and separate from the task at hand.

“But Nora, you are writing right now,” you may be thinking.

And yes, you would be correct. It’s a trick. It’s some healing magic to fool myself into thinking I am doing something else to make way for the thing I think I want to or should be doing (ie: finish unfinished pieces) instead of doing the thing I actually want to be doing, writing something new.

Dammit, as I admitted this aloud here to myself my thoughts froze up for a bit, and the flow I had found myself in started to ebb, as in big time ebb, as in “this piece is stupid” is echoing in my head.

I am still in the midst of some major shift, a shift I am thinking will be ongoing for some time. When I visualize it, I see myself in an old cement building just breaking down a wall. On the other side is a completely overgrown field with a path buried underneath it all somewhere. Machete in hand I start hacking away at the overgrowth as I start to see glimmers of the path. And then I go back to being inside of the building, exploding the wall out once more, and witnessing the enormity of the overgrowth in the field beyond.

That’s it.

That’s all I’ve got.

And this feels like enough for today.

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