Lifebook 3 | Indecision & Creative Inertia

Months on end now, since the waning days of last summer, I had been battling what can only be described as typical Libran indecisiveness, which in turn leads to stasis and creative inertia. Write that much coveted all-American novel? Write short stories? Earnestly try to finally break into writing comics and graphic novels – which believe it or not is harder to than getting a novel published these days. Or simply say goodbye to fiction for a while and simply focus on journalism and blogging, which have become so much easier to do. Needless to say it was a very low point for me in terms of my muse and actual productive writing, but also just before my musical activities had ramped up.

As Autumn had begun to transition into Winter, I’d convinced myself that it was probably best if I go on indefinite writing hiatus and focus all of my creative energies into my band and other musical projects in the works. At the time I had also come to realize that quite simply and rather bluntly: I was a lazy coward not built for the misery that comes with writing prose fiction, in general, and novel-length fiction in particular. Added to that were the demands for solitude a writer requires, especially of book-length fiction. That’s simply something I cannot answer to currently – I have a day job and a family that has school-aged children. But also, and I’m not quite sure what happened, or when it happened, but I’ve surmised that my recent years of, first being a short fiction editor, then going from that to focusing on pop culture journalism and other regular non-fiction writing activities, all if that has perhaps had a certain adverse effect on my passion for the grind of writing prose fiction. I am the classic case of the writer being obsessed with stories, yet not obsessed enough with the selection of words with which to tell them, or at least not the whole process of that task. During that time, I had essentially said to a writer friend that writing non-fiction is so easy because it’s easier to master the truth of reality (objective) than the lies of fiction (subjective). Not to mention that in recent years I’ve had a preference for reading and writing microfiction. Yet still it seemed I’d become timid as well, afraid of my own muse and afraid to fall short of the lofty goals I’d had set for myself.

Apparently I need to write when I am the least bit or not even concerned with external approval and validation. Simply writing for the love and fun of creation and storytelling. When I am not anticipating an audience at all, aside from myself and perhaps some select reader friends, there’s probably a whole lot less anxiety involved.

All that said, I’ve had plenty of time to mull this crap over and here’s what I’ve come to realize: I’m not going to – I can’t – stop being a writer, despite music being my original and primary love and artistic purpose. Even while on hiatus from writing I continue to dream up characters and stories. And I’d never abandon the best of my old ideas, and new ones arrive like always, even if at a reduced rate of frequency in recent times since my mind and creativity have obviously been elsewhere of late.

Well, now I’ve reemerged from that period of stasis and I have a lot of work to do. There’s a plan and new mode of operating I’ve put in place to help better facilitate productive writing. But I’ve rambled on long enough, so I’ll leave this at to be continued for now . . .

Talk more later.