I didn't want to have venting of this sort on the internet again; I guess I'm currently predisposed to self-loathing of participation in confessional culture. On the other hand, confessional culture makes sense, and people's lonelinesses and desires for expression get a-funneled this way. If the medium exists, wear it. Or some other amalgam of the cliched and the intellectual and the cliched intellectual.
I'm feeling like a conspicuous consumer this week, having bounteously purchased at the art and craft supply store and indulged in alphabet stickers, a stamping system of various fonts, and actually buying small square canvases. It feels like a stigma to buy pre-prepared canvases at the craft store, as if only students in art schools are allowed to aspire to choosing their materials, and they have to buy so much that they start out with the student-grade paint. I want to write copiously about not using adverbs. No, seriously, I was writing I want to write copiously about DIY and ephemera and the drive to make things constantly and express a ton of ideas visually and tactilely and with words.
I've been stuck in some hell in which I can't get my web designs set up. I haven't been able to put my finger on the way to orient different areas of what I am trying to accomplish or to express it and organize it on the web. I don't like writing in this state of mind. I promised myself I wouldn't write like this ever again. It sucks. It feels weak that I am reaching out like this and it sounds pathetic. Self-help insists that I edit out negative self-talk and art insists that I express the full spectrum of feelings. No matter what you choose, someone will criticize you. I'm filled with rage that I have this subjective trajectory that needs to be expressed in this medium or else I can't seem to get to the more organized, planned, and best-artciulated stuff. AND THAT'S THE KEY: I LITERALLY CAN'T GET TO WHAT I WANT TO WRITE UNLESS I DO THIS FIRST. All I do is think about the writing process. It's like a rolling process, where I have to give in and start writing this shit or the my subconscious is holding the other work on never-gonna-get-it. And now some of you may be saying: then write this privately. I'VE TRIED THAT! I WRITE IN NOTEBOOKS ALL THE DAMN TIME! AND IN GOOGLE DOCS, I'VE BEEN POURING OUT EVERY PROCESS-ORIENTED ATTEMPT AT A SELF-NARRATIVE THAT HAS ANY PROMISE OF TURNING INTO ESSAY-WRITING AGAIN. BUT: THE INTERNET IS HERE AND I APPARENTLY HAVE TO USE IT THIS WAY.
Okay, I'm typing free-wheelingly again: SO CAN I WRITE NOW?
thissucksthissucksthissucksthissucks
I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be awake in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back to sleep again and be writing nothing but A SHITTY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS. OKAY, MODERNISTS: YOU ARE NOT DEAD! MODERNISTS ARE NOT DEAD!
But really, that generation is, unfortunately, dead. And i will die too. and if you think i think this is fun, like, really,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
going to go do something else now and put this fucking post out of my misery
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Have you read The Artist's Way? I'm almost certain that you've mentioned it. If not, please, do read it. And, yes, sometimes, the mind has to be cleared of all the garbage before the writing flows. You know this. Make a "throw-away blog" somewhere for your Morning Pages. Just pour it out, let it go and know that you are just fine how you are, right now.
It'll be okay, Jill. Eventually, it'll be okay and you'll embrace what ever your new process is currently becoming and you'll write and write and write. I believe in you, Jill. Even in the down times, even in the rough times, when it feels like you'll never produce anything good or worthwhile or up to your usual standards again. People still believe in you. Trust them and give yourself to the process and it'll all work out.
Post a Comment