Aloha lovely readers! Please pardon my infrequent posting. My writing in general has been spotty as of late, and as someone who said her blog was one that “documented her writing journey”, I feel I’ve failed thus far in not tracking my progress the way I promised I would.
As I mentioned earlier, I was offered a job this September by Ganz, Inc. – an opportunity I couldn’t refuse considering the awesome position (Creative Writer working with online games). That being said, once I started working I naturally didn’t have the time to do all the things I’d originally planned for my post-grad self (y’know, sleep in, lounge in my pajamas, ponder the stucco on my ceiling and sometimes colour-code my writing folders). Though anxiety would occasionally niggle at me during my “time off” for not having a “real job”, my anxiety then was nothing compared to the anxiety I experienced after starting work. Suddenly, the days of stucco-gazing (aka writing with complete abandon at any time and in any place I desired) seemed far away and long gone.
The crisis I experienced once I started working was deep and dark, though I’m not going to pretend I alone am privy to this despair. I am certain that almost every young adult experiences this at some point in their life. It usually hits around the time he or she has to enter the “real world” and is quickly gaining attention as society’s new ailment: The Quarter Life Crisis.
A large part of my crisis arose with this first, extended encounter with the “real world”. While I was in school, my parents and siblings would wonder why I was rushing to graduate. “You better enjoy yourself. You don’t want to run into the “real world” too quickly. You’ll have much less time to do the things you want to do.” I scoffed at their cautious remarks. I’d grown up in an age of technological miracles. Every day someone or something exceeded human limits. What defined the “real” in this world? Nothing but the limitations one imposed on oneself. Applying this mentality to myself, I was certain I’d have an awesome life: the perfect job, the perfect home, the perfect balance between writing and occupation and travel; I’d have it all together, all at once. The real world was vast and promising.
Promising, that is, until I started a regular, permanent job and I had to suddenly navigate a world beyond my yellow room, my coffee shop discussions about life and writing, and my juvenile scribbles about hopes and dreams. Though it was an adjustment to realize I’d only have two unstructured weeks a year to travel, it was an even greater adjustment in regards to my writing. Unused to waking up at regular hours since Gr. 11, I’d fall asleep as soon as 7pm came around. I’d desperately try to force myself to write after work, against my shell-shocked body’s fatigue, feeling like it was my number one duty as a “real” writer to persevere. Suddenly writing became a chore – harder than work itself.
If only I never loved writing. With school finished early, a great job right out the gate, and no financial worry because of the hard work of my parents before me, my life should be blue skies and daffodils. I would be content, if not for my writing. I was hit hard with an unlucky combo of physical exhaustion and writer’s block.
And that’s when I started to hate writing.
I’m ashamed to admit that I stopped scheduling writer’s meetings and missed deadlines for Live In Limbo; those once-fun activities were now painful reminders of my incapable, mundane, uncreative existence.
Suddenly lost passion feels similar to losing one’s God. It is that grave. It is waking up one day and realizing that some constantly definitive aspect of yourself is absent and, no matter how hard you try, only a cold, unfeeling door presents itself to you – closed and inaccessible.
Finally, I decided that I’d give up on writing because it had given up on me. I could only stare at a closed door for so long until I started to feel like writing’s desperate, psycho ex-girlfriend. I let go.
The next day, I started thinking of supplements to a life without writing. So, I wasn’t going to be a world renowned author. Now what would I be?
Perhaps the best part of this experience was discovering other options. I could no longer define myself solely as a writer. Within a few weeks, I remembered that I was also an editor, a student, a volunteer, a planner. I could still be involved with the literary world, just not in the way I’d initially planned. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, by suddenly losing my main focus, I realized that within my month or so of stucco-staring, I’d lost sight of everything else I was and could still be.
And you know what the funny thing is… weeks after I’d broken up with writing, I met with a friend for a writing session – one that had been organized well before the crisis occurred. I was reluctant to meet and eager to finish the session before it even began. While he was critiquing my work, I pitied his waste of breath, knowing I could never write the book we were discussing because I was no longer the writer I’d imagined myself to be.
Until he said, “I’m really curious to know more about this character”. And suddenly, for the first time in a long time, I was curious too.