On Being a Writer and Bi-Polar

I can't seem to get it together lately. I'm fairly sure that someone has hacked into my computers and installed an obfuscator that takes my writing and jumbles it all up until it makes no sense. No matter how much time I spend trying to sort it all back out the way I had it, the obfuscator messes it up again. Nothing I write makes any sense. I get fed up with a paragraph and just delete it; for no other reason than I can't stand to look at it. It might not be all that bad a sentence, but it looks bad to me, so it gets the axe. My prose is contrived and, well, dead. I try beating it to a pulp to force it into something that I can feel comfortable with and it disgusts me all the more.

It has been a rough summer; I'll admit that right off. Lots to do, what with re-roofing the house, taking a week-long family vacation, and just the normal summer "stuff" that eats up all your time and energy. And it's roughly the same temperature here as on the surface of Venus, so that really takes the life out of you. Lack of sleep because of insomnia, lack of energy because the nonsense work at my "real job" (I say that very tongue-in-cheek) is so frustrating that it's making me, literally, insane with dishevelment.

And there's no end in sight. At least, none that I can see. For all I know, my writing days are all behind me. I could have already written my best work and I might be incapable of writing a novel—or any more short stories, for that matter. My employer may continue to ignore me until they need something (and I need it NOW...never mind that it's taken me two months to get around to you; I have that luxury and you don't…deal with it) and let me wander around aimlessly until such time as I again become a valuable contributor to the team effort.

In some ways, having encouragement is a bad thing. If people read your fiction in a magazine, you feel pressure to not let them down with the next story. You feel like, if your next story isn't as strong as the last one, that people will feel like they've been sold a bill of goods and you're not living up to their expectations. The more encouragement you get, the more pressure you feel to be excellent.

I've tried, nay, I've sweat blood trying to slack off and give only a percentage of what I'm capable of. I always find myself going the extra mile, though, even if I don't want to. I say I'm going to just give up and, within five minutes, I'm right back at it, plugging away as hard as ever.

Only a small percentage of writers ever "make it" as professionals. There's so many great writers out there already and who are you, with your silly little stories? The ghosts of great writers look down their nose at you from their position of Lofty Literary Writer. The fact that you are also an "award-winning author" makes no difference, though it seems it should.

The resolution for this schizophrenic pity-party? Only this: