How To Be Invisible
Farewell NaNoWriMo, though I hardly knew ye. I wrote some 7,356 words in the first week and didn’t touch it again for the rest of the month. And not because ‘real life’ came between me and my lofty writing ambitions. This is an excuse a lot of people will cite and I imagine for most of them that is quite true. For me NaNoWriMo set off some horrible internal battle. It was horrendous.
I can write this.
(Sure you can.)
No, really. Just 2000 words a day. It’ll be fine.
(Then what happened on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday?)
It doesn’t have to be ‘good.’ It just has to ‘be.’
(Then why aren’t you ‘doing’ it?)
Maybe I can’t do this.
(Of course you can’t do this! You were a fool to think you could.)
But random annoying happy 14 year olds are doing this and ‘winning…’
(Ahem. Yes…)
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’m not sure I like writing. Infact I think I might hate it. Maybe I’m not cut out for this? Maybe I don’t have the right to refer to myself as a ‘writer’ or even an ‘artist.’ Hmmm.
NaNoWriMo was only the tip of a much larger iceberg. I’m not creating anything. For the most part I don’t want to. I’ve come to hate and resent the world. There’s no joy to be had here. It’s all about “harm minimisation.” I read Julia Cameron’s books (The Artist’s Way, Walking In This World) and think, “Wow! This woman gets it.” I find her words soothing and comforting. Unfortunately at times I am so comforted in those moments that I relax and don’t do anything any more. I don’t do the exercises, I don’t do the art, I don’t do ‘the work.’ I don’t even show up. But one of the things she talks about is having a self to express, about being somebody. Cultivating experiences. Filling the artistic well so you have things to draw upon when you address the page, stage or canvas.
I think I need to do that more. Actually get out and do things, experience some sort of life, develop a self worth expressing. I see myself too much from other people’s vantage points. I need to say what I want more. I need to be more honest with people. I need to dream more and do more. But I hate dreaming. Dreaming is the first stop towards disappointment. But what is life without dreaming? It’s pretty sucky. Perhaps more sucky than this dreaming and failing. I certainly don’t feel like I have much to lose. So, wonderful. Let’s keep the expectations low. That will help. Probably.
I am traveling interstate over New Years Eve. There’s this other world waiting for me somewhere else. I don’t know what exactly. Infact I’m quite wary of it. My inner control freak is alive and well, and wants to endure experiences it can manage carefully. And actually it’s quite foolish because there is so much outside of my control. Sometimes you’ve just got to go along for the ride. But I’ve never done that. I micromanage my environment as an adult because I had to micromanage it as a kid. I feel foolish when I take chances and things don’t work out. I feel foolish when I tell someone how much I care about them and their response is unenthusiastic. I tell myself each and everytime that the chance was worth taking and that the action was noble, but I don’t really ‘feel’ it. That’s the theory of it, but the reality of it is much closer to “Well I’m never doing that again.”
I guess all I’m trying to say is that I don’t know very much… and that’s okay, hopefully.
You are not alone – I know other aritsts who experience the same thing, and even struggle with the very basics of the Artist’s Way. Part of you will always resist change, even positive change.
NanoWrimo is a huge chunk to bite off. It’s why I don’t do it – if it were half a novel, or the first 10,000 words, I might consider it. But it’s nearly an entire novel, and for me, that’s just too much.
If there is one thing only I could say I subscribe to from Julia Cameron’s work, it’s the philosophy of “one small thing.” Just do one small thing, everyday, that feels like no effort. Write a sentence. Draw a line and crumple paper. Sometimes tiny, so small that your inner critic can’t even pay attention to it.
It really has worked for me. If you ever get to Cameron’s Finding Water, it’s all about perseverance – and it really did help me out last winter. I may even revisit it.