I envy these people.
Writing does not come easy to me.
Granted I should be doing it more but I’ve spent the last 4 years generally and the last year intensely working on one piece of writing and yet the damn thing refuses to finish. Now, I know and many people have asked me what’s the rush? Writing is something that requires patience and I do believe if it’s organic and true it will grow at it’s own pace. But still, it’s so frustrating to have nothing to show for years taken off to work on one thing. And then of course there’s the fear that it will never be good enough and that this will be for nothing.
Which brings me back to how I began this piece – writing comes so naturally to some. I feel like the stories flow through some people. Something similar to what JK Rowling said about Harry Potter – he just walked out fully formed from her head. These writers plot and plan the piece and bring it together with determination. They take a piece of wood and they cut out the shape and then they fine tune it and shave bits and twiddle and tweak and then viola, it’s ready.
Me? I feel like someone at a cutting board with a fish. I am hacking up a great writhing fish. And there are scales everywhere and bits of gristle and blood and slime. Each sentence is suffering and I rewrite and I rewrite and there’s a character dying and I have to resuscitate her and the prologue is shit so I have to chuck it out and the story is twisting and turning all over the place and I can’t keep it still and then nothing feels genuine so I cut that out too and the bits left that are good to work with they don’t fit with one another and I’m scaling and I’m scaling and I’m to my elbows in guts and I’ve forgotten to wear an apron and there are people yelling and all I want to do, all I want to do is dump this bloody butchered fish into a pot and cook it even though I know it’s not ready.
And oh, how I wish it were perfect the first time round. How I wish the writing could just flow out.
S.
Maybe you need a break shubs. It's no use fishing in what you feel appears to be a lake gone dry. Rather 4 years with nothing to show for it than 8. Plus you're multitalented so why not perhaps try exploring other avenues in the mean time and God willing, the stories will flow again when you're not so focussed on it. Kinda like the butterfly analogy, chase it too much and it eludes you, when you stop it comes to you. Sometimes you need to take time away and give a resource the chance to replenish itself. Good luck with whatever you decide