The Worst Writer: Seven Days of Highs and Lows
Hello dear readers! Another week has passed and more writing has been accomplished, but to say this week has been full of ups and downs would be an understatement. For starters my cat got sick again which sent me into a full downward spiral and perhaps one of the worst writing days I’ve had in while. But then on the flip side the following days after that I had some of the strongest writing days I’ve had in an even longer time. Why must my brain be so fickle? Why must it be so easily tossed around by the whims of life like a leaf in the wind? Let’s dive into it.
The Lows
So as I said my cat got sick again. This has been a persistent issue for the last few months where she has been struggling to get food down and keep it down. After a series of vet visits and tests, the conclusion was that she has irritable bowl disease or some form of gastroenteritis. Because of that we put her on a special diet and things started to look up for about a month, but after we had our guests last week things went south again and she stopped eating.
Our cat Lucy is about 16 years old now and has been with us for five of those years. She’s definitely getting up there in age, especially for cats, so it’s not abnormal for these sorts of things to start occurring as they are nearing their end of life. This is obviously not an easy thing for me to think about and I’ve found myself increasingly on the verge of tears whenever I let myself dwell on it.
So when all of this started happening again I really wasn’t in a good place. Still, I went to the library to try and write and lo and behold the writing was quite literally the worst. I couldn’t conjure up a single pleasant thought (shocker) and I found myself constantly distracted by thoughts of my cat. This sadness and negative headspace didn’t have anywhere else to go so it bled all over my writing causing me to spiral about that too. I started beating myself up about not being a good cat dad and not being a good writer and basically just questioning whether or not I’ve ever made a good choice in my life (all of which is certainly not true!)
Luckily I’m quite well versed in this whole “bad writing day” experience by now, and after enough sulking I was able to realize that all my negative writing thoughts were really just coming from my sadness around Lucy. I packed up my laptop, called it a day for the creative arts, and started working on other things that didn’t require me to be at the hight of my emotional capacity.
We’ll see how things go with Lucy in the coming days, but you can rest assured that she will be getting so much love from me even the universe couldn’t contain it (great, now I’m almost crying again)
The Highs
NOW ONTO SOMETHING POSITIVE GOD DAMNIT!! So as I mentioned, I weirdly had some really good writing days after my really bad one. I’m talking about the kind of writing day where I get my word count in within an hour kind of good which is unheard of lately. And the best part is, I think it’s actually some really good stuff!
I think after living in my negative headspace for a while, it made the light on the other side a little more noticeable and I was able to tap into the silly and whimsical side of myself again. I think this is also in part of me allowing myself to write out of chronological order and focus on the things that I was excited to write. This may come back to bite me later when I only have the “not fun” chapters to write, but I’m hoping by the time I’m done these ones I’ll have stewed on the other ones long enough to have them become fun again.
Besides these great writing days I also went off to Aarhus for the weekend to a summer cottage! We went with four other friends and played a bunch of cozy games and ate a lot of really good food. It was super cool to see the countryside of Denmark and getting to see it with people I enjoy spending time with made it even better!
To top all of this goodness off another amazing thing is that one of me best friends, Rachael Bell-Irving, is coming out with her FIFTH BOOK in just under a month. She is hands down one of the most inspiring people to me and is the one author that I have looked to as a guiding star throughout this whole journey. She has crazy diligence and discipline, and has such a creative mind when it comes to story telling I just can’t say enough good things about her. It’s because of her that I want to do more with my own writing career and she has shown the sort of wonderful things you can achieve when you just try.
Her book is coming out October 20th, and you can pre-order it at her website here and order all of the other books if you’re looking to catch up on the series. I HIGHLY recommend it. Congrats again Rachael! You so deserve this and all the success that's coming your way.
Taking it all in Stride
So if it's not clear to you, it’s quite clear to me that I fall into a regular pattern of some good writing days and some bad writing days in a week. It can be a little tiring, but the ultimate lesson for me here is to just keep showing up, because who knows, tomorrow might hold that light at the end of the tunnel I was looking for. And no I'm not referring to Lucy! Stay away from the light Lucy! Stay away!
Thanks as always for reading my excessive ramblings. Next week I’m headed to Ontario for a wedding so we’ll see how the heck that impacts my writing! Until then, have a good one and I hope you get lovely fall weather!
Ta-ta for now!
M
Comments