Friday, June 3, 2011

WRITER'S GUILT IS A REAL THING

I haven't written anything on here for awhile, and it's actually mostly due to the fact that I haven't had anything to write about and not because I'm lazy (though it is a little because I'm lazy, since I have about six partially written blog posts that I could have finished if I'd really wanted to). Which shouldn't be a problem since no one's forcing me to write anything, and frankly it would be a little weird if they were, considering the type of babble I usually post. Although, if someone was holding a gun to my head and making me write about plots to kill dolphins and being ganged up on spiders, then that would absolutely be something to write about.

But it is a problem. Because I suffer from a scientifically proven condition known as Writer's Guilt*. I could blame it on Catholic Guilt, based on the fact that I went to Catholic schools, but to be honest, my lack of guilty feelings were the biggest obstacle I faced when I went to confession so that I just ended up inventing things that I probably did but couldn't remember and definitely didn't feel guilty for. I also didn't feel guilty about lying to the priest, though if I'd thought about it I probably could have used that for my next confession to save me from making more stuff up. So even if I wasn't an atheist I was probably never cut out to be Catholic.

Whatever the cause, my Writer's Guilt is very real - I've even written about the profoundly terrifying effect it can have - and it extends to every writing project I undertake. I go through phases where I'm inspired to write and everything comes so incredibly easily that I can't actually not write to the point where it distracts me from anything else I attempt to do. Then it passes and I am left with unfinished projects that taunt me with all their lack of posts or dangling plotlines and I feel like I should be working on them even when trying to work on them just leads to me staring at a computer screen and checking Facebook and email every thirty seconds so that I'm at least doing something. And fiction is the worst. Because then there are characters who are stuck in limbo, waiting for me to send them on their way and for some unknown reason that is definitely no reflection on my own personality, many of my characters tend towards the violent and if I ever found myself in a situation where one of them came to life then I really don't think they'd be all that happy with me, especially since I seem to abandon them in the middle of unresolved and often stressful situations that can't be good to be stuck in for long periods of time. Really, it has to bad for their mental health and I am COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE because I'm not writing them out of it.

So anyway, I wrote this to alleviate my guilt because it's easier than rescuing a fictional character from a bad situation.

*There's a 99.99% chance that it is not really scientifically proven and I did, in fact, just make it up, capitalising the first letters so that it looks legitimate. The .01% is to allow for the possibility that I accidentally named a real condition without knowing it was a real condition. I could do a quick Google search but really, that seems like a lot of effort to go to just to write this post.

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