This Crazy and Moody Writing Life
by Grace V. Planas
My writing life can be occasionally insane. One moment, I get the adrenaline to scurry and scrawl uncontrollably, visualizing the end product on a magazine’s page and relishing it under the clear, blue sky.
Then next moment, I find the topic nonsensical, ordinary and I am swiftly tormented by the ‘who-would-be-interested-in-this-anyway’ thought disease. I crumple the paper, toss it away and I heave a sigh.
While uncluttering my room one day, ideas flooded me, like a computer printer, it kept spewing snippets of the article I was intending to write, and I can’t help but rush to my work area to transcribe it. And when all was set, I saw an empty screen sneering at me because the details just flew away or the essence just escaped me as I pressed my butt on my swivel chair.
And when I resumed work, I suddenly remember what I wanted to put on paper earlier.
One day I found myself comfortably positioned before my desktop monitor, armed with my ‘ideas notebook,’ with clearly defined subtopics and quotes, with my fingers ready to strike the keys, then without warning the excitement goes limp, and I drown in my yawns.
Most women of my age are out in the real world, glamorously working in legitimate offices, earning and walking with pride. Although I have a degree in Accounting, I never seriously embraced it in this lifetime.
Happy in my solitude, I can survive going to the mall just once a week or converse with another human being outside my family for a couple of hours. It is enough respite for me.
I write alone. I think alone. I debate alone in the halls of my consciousness. Then I realize solitude can sometimes transform into a steel barrier, cold and rigid.
“Hard days, lots of work, no money, too much silence. Nobody’s fault. You chose it.” Bill Barich from The Writer’s Life by Carol Edgarian and Tom Jenks.
Novels, inspirational non- fiction materials, psychology and writing books as well as textbooks and piles of unfinished pieces compete for my undivided attention. The same goes for my inventory of completed articles gathering cobwebs and waiting final editing then submission.
My focus briskly shifts from reading ‘Making a Literary Life’ by Carolyn See to ‘Out of the Dark’ by Linda Caine and Robin Royston, then my mind swings to inscribing my pressing thoughts for the day.
Just when I have decided which I’d do first, ‘The Witching Hour’ by Anne Rice grabs my eyes. My choices surround me, countless and within reach. I hear them chuckling. They lure, help and distract me all together.
Next, I get a grand idea of jotting down the facts about a squabble between two of my friends, providing vivid descriptions of the filthy words and emotional outbursts. I remember the next door neighbor, coveting another neighbor’s wife and so cursed by the folks in the neighborhood. Good materials for writing,
Yet, I back out at the last minute. Too sensitive, too private and complicated, I warn myself.
There will be nights when I berate myself whether I really should go on doing this…writing that is. I think it haunts many writers, once in a while.
“I begin to wonder what I am doing with my life. Whenever I get disoriented or not sure of myself, it seems I bring my whole life into question. It becomes very painful.”
Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones.
And some mornings, I wake up so convinced of my chosen path.
In an instant, I am feeling sick and the next I am fine, sluggish, then alive, elated then despondent, slightly amusing, then sober, curious then indifferent.
Undeniably, writing has given me an additional purpose to take interest in life. I am breathing it.
Amidst this craziness and explosive transitions, I am able to miraculously gather the momentum to create written pieces that immortalize my heart as a writer.
I have to go on, I guess, in spite of the journey’s crossroads of madness.
About the Author:
Grace V. Planas is a Filipino Chinese living in the Philippines, a Homemaker and part time Freelance Writer. Formerly a Contributing Writer to Working Woman Magazine-Philippines, she writes Poetry, Psychology/Self Help, and informative as well as inspirational pieces based on research, personal and other people’s experiences. She
has had articles published in various Writing/Literary websites such as The Writer’s Life, AbsoluteWrite-The DebateDesk, HiddenTalent, The TechMag.com, SecurityArticles, Lexur, 1stHolistic.com, Prosems, and others. Contact Grace.
