A Writer’s Question
One question occupies my mind as my eyes drift to the window. Moonlight seeps through the curtains, lightly illuminating the wooden floor beneath me. However, another source of light, a harsh and unforgiving light, makes me look back and face the dreaded question that I am so desperately trying to avoid.
Why do I do this? I think for what seems like the hundredth time this evening. The bright light of my laptop causes me to squint.
The manuscript, the words I so lovingly crafted this morning, stares back at me rudely and I squint again in further disappointment. The perfect but cold colour of white covers the page with uniform splashes of the contrasting colour—the words blurred as my eyelids began to droop. The familiar sight causes me to heave a big sigh in a mixture of frustration and hopelessness.
With my obsessive tunnel vision, it feels as if I did nothing but write today. Physical needs and mental breaks were seemingly unimportant and laughingly mundane compared to constructing my plot, directing my characters, and staring at my laptop for what seemed like hours as if it were going to give me advice on how to deal with this. Just like now, several questions were floating in my mind, but there was always one that haunted me like an infectious parasite eating away at any confidence I had in my writing. Perfectionism is a harmful thing.
I think back to the morning. Unlike the moonlight I see now, the sun’s rays ever so gently bathed every near object in warmth making the day so much easier to romanticize. With fresh determination, I opened my laptop and stared at the blank page. Unlike most days, the blank page spurred a rush of energy and inspiration, desperate to fill the pages with words that were my own. My hands were moving on their own, and I was in my comforting unconscious world once again. The memory of this morning causes me to despair even more, running my hands through my hair and pushing my chair away from my desk, a physical representation of the distance I have towards my own work.
What was so different then? I asked myself, scrolling upward to see the work that I had read over and over again. I hate it now. The scene I so “lovingly” created this morning was nothing more than evidence of my utter incapability.
“Take a break,” they said. “Do something else,” they told me. Everyone seemed to agree that taking a break, instead of plunging into an abyss of existential despair, was the first step to overcoming the uncomfortable mixture of writer’s block and overly present self-criticism. I enjoy this, I told myself as my finger hovered over the power button. There is a definite difference between giving up and taking a break; obvious words that I would tell any other fellow writer, but of course, the sight of my own reflection in the screen that was now dimming made all the difference. Perfectionism and self-criticism go hand-in-hand.
One question occupies my mind as I look at my reflection through the black screen of my laptop. There is no harsh white light anymore, just the comforting colour of black and the reflection of a tired writer, in pyjamas with messy hair from anxious hair-touching and the remnants of a frown, who has determined they clearly need a break.
Why do I write? I thought for the tenth hundredth time this evening. Writing is the only thing that truly feels like me, I think as I calmly walk away from my desk, laptop, and writing towards my inviting bed. Next time will be better.
Cover Photo by Saad Alawi. Edited by Madison Case.