A Writerly Dilemma

Tags

blockade, clamshells, correct reflection, Echo and Narcissus, ego, fool’s gold, honesty, Kali, MySpace angles, narcissism, pearls, post-PTSD memory, rambling, Samskaras, slash and burn, unfinished business, Writer's block, WWF smackdown

Having another one of those writer’s blocks thingies.

Got heaps of posts at about 70-90% readiness, yet… it’s like extracting fingernails, getting them over the line. It’s a little bit like a WWF smackdown, but neither side is winning.

This time though, I know what the blockade is called. Definitely not a shortage of ideas or words. Nor time – ha! Got plenty of that in a job that calls for me to come in for certain hours, but actually do very little. That in itself, can be somewhat paralysing, and draws up my tendencies to indulge in laziness.

But actually, I am writing. This current working file in Word (I group them by the month) sees me on page 10 of 24. I am writing post number 7 for the month, but ahead of this one, there’s many, many pages of unfinished business.

And here’s why.

I’ve been pondering the nature of my writings, and worrying if they are just a little too self-involved/narcissistic/painting myself as the heroine or victim/not honest enough/rambling/telling stories for the sake of the telling/without a point… and so on.

Am I just writing to feed my ego?

Presently on the go, are three strands of story. Two of them have remained loose ends for most of this year. I’ve yet to sew them up and make neat seams as my mother does when she knits sweaters for my nieces.

If that’s even possible! But at least some semblance of finished. Finished for now, would be close enough…

And I fear that I’ve perhaps presented MySpace angles of my stories instead of representing things more neutrally.

Some stories I’ve written purely out of raw, hardcore, seething, ragged, painful need. The kinds of stories that, if not written and released, eventually work to implode your vital organs or make you desperately ill.

But the ones I’m writing now, they aren’t like that.

For example, the stories from earlier in my life. At the time they were very traumatic and painful and I know they inform my relationships with men and many other important decisions in how my samskaras operate.

BUT they don’t eat at me like acid. Not like the stories of assault, PTSD and depression did (and heck, who knows, there might even be more of them in there somewhere?).

And the stories I’ve humourously titled my ‘spiritual quest’ – I know they’re related somehow too, but they’re not urgent.

And I wonder if that lack of urgency makes the pointy end of truth, the poke you in the ribs and soft tissues of your body kind of truth, harder to uncover?

I’m almost finished writing the next part – sort of – but I look at all the details and it’s like I can’t see the fool’s gold from the real stuff. So much going on, what’s important? What’s not? What’s just me rambling for the sake of it?

So I edit with my slash and burn tactics. I am after all, one of Kali’s own and I wield my spurious (perhaps) red pen with detached abandon. But then, do I remove too much? That bit I thought was a little goofy or unrelated, is it really related and if so, how can I write about it in a way that counts?

Then I say to heck with it! And I write some more, letting floodgates fall away and the polluted garbage flow back to source, atop the waterways that support the real stories.

But real stories aren’t the waterways. Instead they are pearls inside the carelessly scattered clamshells littering the sandy waterway floors. I dive time and again, and fumble with my diver’s knife, prising one open and then the next to find many that are seemingly empty.

And just maybe, another fragment of the story is revealed. Or I miss it all together and I write about other things that don’t ring with truth. And I fail to notice the shining gem that will undoubtedly sing brightly once liberated and polished.

Dimmed by a shoddy post-PTSD memory (which is still not that fantastic) and also with time, they all look alike.

After all, these are clamshells I’ve allowed to close and accumulate, never thinking til now I’d have to open them ever again. They seemed unimportant at the time. Are they unimportant still?

Perhaps…

But then, what would I know? I don’t have a bird’s eye view. I can only tell my story from what I think I understand, and even then, that’s surely not the full picture.

More than anything though, I hope I do not write with a kind of avarice, feeding that part of me that, as a yogini I seek to dismantle. For that would just be folly, right?

Correct reflection I fear, is what’s missing right now…

~Svasti

In a whirl…

Tags

Batman & Robin, Confusion, Dating, Lady Luck, Men, Mexican stand-off, Murphy's Law, Relationships, Writer's block

My brain feels like a schmooshy mixture of brain, goo, mist and haze. Add a dash of confusion and its all whirly.

I’m still battling this cold/ear infection/burst ear drum. Also, there’s that bunch of stories wanting to be told. They’re confusing me at the moment however, and its blocking up the pipes again. Sigh. They want to be longer and more mindlessly detailed than I want them to be. And they refuse to be edited. So, I currently have a number of unfinished pieces of writing and we’re having a bit of a Mexican stand-off.

Which is not so bad really, except for the desire I have to create, express, to publish more bloggy oddness.

But right now my focus is a little skewed because I’m waiting to hear if I managed to get a job I really want (whilst trying not to get too attached to the idea of having it).

And… I *think* a boy might like me… which is REALLY confusing…

My life is a series of question marks at the moment. Cartoon ones, like those that used to appear over the heads of the villians in the Batman & Robin TV series. Will I get the job I want? Or like Catatonic Kid, is my relationship with Murphy really that ironic? I do wonder about that. Actually, I wonder if Murphy and Lady Luck have battles over who I really belong to. It seems a bit that way sometimes.

Then there’s this boy. Well, I suppose at my age I shouldn’t be calling grown men “boys” any longer, but its a habit that’s stuck.

He’s someone I used to work with, and I’m unclear if he likes me or not. I mean, in my experience, unless you’ve become good friends with people you’ve worked with, they don’t generally try to stay in touch once you’ve left the place of your mutual employment. And you certainly don’t go out of your way to invite them to your birthday drinks, giving them plenty of notice of the date etc. But we’re not that close, and he’s done just that.

Towards the end of my trip in Thailand, I logged on to check my emails. Like alot of people I work with, he’s a friend on my GTalk (we’re geeks!) and he started chatting to me. Since I’ve been back we’ve had a couple of other online chats as well. Then last week he invited me to the birthday drinks he was organising for himself. I mean, they’re straight after work on a Friday, near a place I no longer work at.

In the course of that chat, I discovered by the way that he and his girlfriend had broken up. They’d been together for almost as long as I’ve known him. The conversation was a little flirty I guess. And the idea percolated away there – wow, what if he likes me? But am I just imagining things?

Tonight is the night. But its not a date or anything – there will be heaps of people I know there. And maybe he’s just being friendly?

I suppose I can only go with my gut feel – even though he was with someone else, there was always a bit of a spark between us. I think anyway! Actually, I sort of need someone to spell it out for me if they like me, otherwise I really don’t get it. As a rule, I tend to think men don’t have any interest in me. So I don’t know.

But he did send me another message just today, checking to make sure I’m coming tonight. So I am nervous.

I do like him. I think he’s cute. And he’s really sweet natured too. He was one of the “safe men” I used to enjoy hanging out with and having a harmless flirt with during the time I was working out how to relate to men again. I suppose I don’t know him well enough to work out if there could be anything more than that. One of the posts that I wrote not long after getting back was about how I can’t be in a relationship at the moment.

For one thing, I simply have no sense when it comes to men, and working out what’s best for me. Secondly, as I mentioned in that earlier post, I find that men tend to flock around me once I’ve returned from retreat – energy sucking men that is. Not that I think this boy is an energy sucker at all.

But whenever I decide these sorts of things, it seems that fate has its own way with me. Its not like I really need more time to myself I guess. But I really haven’t processed all the stuff that goes with getting close to someone again. So… even the thought that someone might like me, and that I might have to face some of this stuff is a little scary.

Right now my life is still in limbo. My sister still isn’t talking to me properly. I don’t have a home of my own and I don’t have a job. There haven’t been any men in my life for the longest time. It would be nice if things started turning out for the better…

And if someone has a good cure for Writer’s Block, please feel free to pass it on!

~Svasti