A Delayed Responsibility

I stopped coming here because it started to feel like a duty rather than a release. When that happens, I wither. It’s how it has always been. Because attached to any responsibility is the possibility of failure. Of dislike. And these are things I fear. Two of my greatest, outside of death.

I’m trying to work on it. To let words flow without worry. To recapture a sense of joy in the act of creation. Of making noise even if it’s internal and on a page rather than bubbling up through my throat.

I have to remind myself regularly of the things I’ve already done. “You’ve done them already! How can you count that as a failure!” But anyone with a slightly broken mind can tell you that even in the face of logic, you’ll find a hole to scurry into. A place to throw up your defenses and ignore the realities happening outside. It’s safer to be insular, determining the outcome before it even happens, because even the imagined catastrophe is better than it potentially happening, so why not just save yourself the heartache and stay here, safe and comfy in your little anxiety hole?

So I abandoned this newsletter with no forewarning. No explanations or promises of when I’d return.

But it’s been there the entire time, simmering in the back of my head. A reminder of all the things I should be doing. All the things I’m not.

But after some time, I wondered if I was looking at this place incorrectly. If this could be a more relaxed, meandering place where I let my hands and fingers move and not worry about what comes out. If it’s compelling. If it’s well crafted. Hell, if it even makes sense.

And maybe that’s what my writing really needs lately. A place of dreaming.

Because crafting a novel is a learning process, and I’ve been deconstructing lately how I approach the methodology I thought worked. The one I’d been taught and adhered to because it felt radical and rebellious. A middle finger to the establishment of academia and the literati I’ll never be able to count myself a member of.

And the truth is that there is an exact method (at least for right now) that seems to work best for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier.

I still worry over every word. And I know that even after putting this story down, I’ll likely have to eventually unstitch it. Surgery to make room for something better, and can I ever learn not to anticipate this process with thoughts of irritation and dread? Because I always come out the other end damp and clean and feeling better for it.

And so, this responsibility, can I let it go? Can I become something else? Some great metamorphosis into someone more free. More literary. Fuck, more anything?

I am writing another novel. It must be obvious.

Because here I am, avoiding responsibility by finding and engaging with another.