I have White Rock completely redone and yet it’s been almost a year and I can’t seem to upload the new version.
I am totally and completely shut down as a writer. And it’s my own doing. I’m not sure why anymore. Fatigue. Health issues. Taking care of my house (which is driving me into poverty). Taking care of my dogs and cats which are driving me into poverty). Oh and some loser hit my car in a parking lot and took off….the insurance wants nothing to do with it and raised my rates. (If I wasn’t a rage filled driver before…you better believe I installed machine guns to the outside of my 4runner now.)
Writing is forgotton about. Lost. And let’s not forget the other excuses…
- Oh it’s so nice you can find the time to do something creative. (Says a few idiot people in my life which I am currently not talking to anymore. I would name his ass but he isn’t worth it).
- You should really be working on finishing up the painting of the house becasue right now it looks like shit.
- The dog needs to be walked.
- The laundry is all over the floor.
- Writing doesn’t pay the bills.
- You aren’t good at it.
- Everyone else is better at things (name one here_____) than I am.
- It’s a waste of time.
- The world is going to hell and you are thinking of writing stupid stories??!
- Need to go pull the weeds in back before they kill the plants.
- I’m out of ideas.
- I’ve lost my motivation.
- It’s impossible to sell without an agent so why bother.
- Did I mention money?
**Money** Something we all need badly and never have enough of. Something that required to survive and yet the rich are literally doing nothing and getting richer by the millisecond.
Money + doing or persuing a creative venture = incompatibility. So don’t try or start. Cancel all projects and live in despair. (My current motto).
My dishwasher is broken. (By now you are thinking, boy she is mentally ill). What I mean is that…. due to home ownership and all the freaking stupid responsibilities of keeping it standing upright without the dessert consuming it…takes tremendous money, time, and effort. Since purchasing my home 3 years ago every single appliance has broken; funace, A/C, stove, refrigerator, microwave, water heater, dishwasher, sink disposal and more. The screens were all falling out. The ground squirrels are ripping up my land. Last year I paid a guy $500 to get rid of them but they all came back. The stucco is falling off. Cracks around the windows. On and on.
Hey wait, are you still telling me to sit the hell down and write goofy stories?!
Yes. Yes McKenzie because besides talking to yourself or having long converstaions with the cats, you are drying up mentally. Writing was mental sustinence. I worked out complex problems through fictional tales. I kept depression at bay. I saw the real world with new vigor and enthusiasms with clearer lenses when I wrote – even though I wrote crappy romance fiction. (Don’t expect me to flaunt myself as an exceptional writer, I’m not).
I watched the Netflix documentary about the dancing sisters who got famous on TikTok and then one went bye-bye into a cult. What struck me is that the other sister continues to create. Isn’t she beside herself with frustration, depression, grief?! How do you create through that? Do our deepest wounds and sorrows shut us down or oddly do they force us to keep trudging on. One more hill we can do it. We have nothing to prove when we are at the bottom…except to ourselves. When all the cliches I can think of are exhausted – and I tell my overly critical mind to shut up there remains one concept left.
I’m not a religious person. I don’t believe in God. But if there is a soul attached to our dried out physical corpses, maybe we’d better pay attention to it. And what if feeding our soul is more important than money, fame, social media, sisters, ground squirrels and dented 4runners?
How long can I deny my soul what it wants so bad until I’m lost for good? Because I’m getting pretty close and it’s scary.
************Disclaimer; no Artificial Intelligence was used/sought after in the creation of this post. I’m pretty sure A.I. has no soul.
McKenzie Devlin 