the real doubt.

I’m bad at drafts. I mean, I can edit. I can clean up sentences, choose new words, trim extra commas. But real drafts, the kind where you cut everything up, tear it into pieces and then put it back together again -- I have a hard time with that. Once the structure is on paper, I get attached to it. It feels familiar and I don’t want to let it go.

I have been putting off editing a piece I started over a month ago. I know it needs some mashing up and rearranging and I can’t bring myself to do it. The result is that I freeze up, change a few words, write very little, nothing new.

Here’s what I need someone to write about, for my sake: the real doubt, the kind that cripples you and fires around in your head with whips and electric fences. I am typing word after word, typing them in a row, in a line, line after line. They’re weak, contrived, I don’t like them, to be more precise I hate them. I am staring at the screen and I know: I can never be a writer. The moment the pressure is on, there are no words. I mean, listen to these sentences I’m writing. They’re pathetic. No one wants to read this. I know it’s a mistake to give voice and free reign to that critic in my head. But I have to write about it so that maybe someone else can read this and know that sometimes when you write, you hate yourself for writing.

The truth is, 99% of the time, I feel like a fake. A big fat fake. Pretending I can write and pretending I have something to say and pretending someone might want to read it. This isn’t a pity party, just real life. The mere fact that a person wants to write means they’re probably a little messed up in the head anyway.

It's easy to be disillusioned on the bad days and even on the good days. Fight through it and hold on to the crazy belief that someday you’ll produce something that you're happy with. Or, in my case, the belief that if I don’t keep writing then I’ll become crazy in the head for real.

In the meantime, keep reading until your eyes fall right out of your head.

Read things like this beautiful post on writing and doubt.

Or these words on perseverance:

Fact is, I don’t have that level of skill yet. I don’t know many who do. But I want it, and I refuse to believe it’s all just a matter of luck or inborn talent. I don’t want to merely write something that’s good enough; I want to write something that rises above being judged on subtleties or technicalities. I want a story without mercy, a story that is its own thing. I think we should all want that. I think we should all be as ruthless with ourselves as we are with the stories we read. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Keep writing.  I say it to myself every day.