Feeling: Musing
Listening to: Billie Holiday - The Man I Love
Reading/Watching: theology textbook

I'm feeling surprisingly wakeful and mellow.

I know I have a class in exactly eight hours, so I should be getting some sleep, but instead I'm up, clearheaded and chatty. I'm tormenting one of the Air Force Boys at the moment... he's feeling surly, so I'm being as irritatingly chipper as possible. And now he's refusing to play; he's one of those silly people who actually go to bed at normal hours.

I realized I haven't written any real fiction in quite a while. I haven't begun a new novel since I finished Don't Call Me Irwin, sent it off to publishers, and received their rejection letter nearly two years ago. I began to think about why exactly that was, when so much of my life was absorbed in writing before, and I think I've pieced it together.

1) Since I became a voice major, a large part of my creative attention has been on music.

2) My much-needed outlet for literary emotion used to be chapters for books, and now it seems to be this journal. Heh. Go figure.

3) Having something concrete like a publishing company that actually read my entire manuscript, and then turned it away, sort of pierced my happy little girl-dream bubble. This doesn't mean I'm shattered, but I am more realistic. I know if I'm going to be published, it's going to take more than a hobby to do it. I need to devote some serious time to it. Thus far, such time has not existed.

4) When I began writing in third grade, it was to replace something essential in my life. Writing made me feel smart, mature, secure, complete. I barely ever left the house, except for school and trips with my family. I had virtually no friends, so I invented characters that were my friends. I wrote different facets of myself into every story, only it was a me that was prettier, happier, better. That continued (and it helped me get really good; practice was good for me) on through high school, where I never realized how lonely I was, because at school, I had 'friends', and out of school, I had my writing, so I never thought about how all my evenings and weekends were full of computer screens, instead of hanging out with those supposed friends. Now, things are a little different. And maybe, subconsciously, I no longer have a need to fill.

and finally, 5) I've become a better writer, a better critic, and so looking back on all the work that I thought was so indescribably good, I realize how hollow and sophomoric it is. It seems silly to write something that I will look back on with disgust in a few years, which I always do, so instead I just don't bother.

Have I mentioned that I hate how all my writing is so self-conscious these days? I can't seem to get out of my own head. At first I thought it was because I was going through a stage of self-analysis and discovery, but this stage is taking frickin' forever. It's getting old, and I think now that it's rather more than that. My writing is just declining because until I can come up with a truly original idea, I won't be satisfied, and right now self-interested drivel is all I can manage. Go check out my webpage if you don't believe me: my early short stories had much more imagination and variety, like "Ugly" and "Ceiling" and "Broken Butterflies." Then they degenerated into dismal poetry and stories like "First Knight" and "Tongue Tied."

What I need is to have the summer after graduation back. I didn't work, I didn't see anyone (well, I think I saw Chris maybe once or twice), I just sat at home and wrote like mad. Then I re-read, edited, re-wrote. It was glorious. And what an amazing tension, the day I put those sample chapters and queries into envelopes and went to the post office. Like sending my little children off to kindergarten.

Except, I guess that means they all flunked out, or were expelled. Heh.

If I went back to writing full-time, it would be far too easy for me to become a hermit. Perhaps music is a better plan after all. More social, in any case.

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