Write Harder

I'm trying this again.  My last attempt to write an entry ended in unpublishable ramblings that managed to capture exactly nothing of interest.  My fiction writing tonight could probably be classified similarly, but at least I wrote -- something I've seriously struggled with lately.  Struggled with to the point of despair.  Like maybe I've been kidding myself all along.  Like I just don't have enough drive to do this.  Like I still feel the physical need to write, still suffer near physical pain when I don't, but lack the discipline to actually put ass-in-chair and do it.

It's all so weird, really.  I've always been the queen of discipline and order.  Procrastination, fear me!  Even my mind lacks the order it once had, drifting along incoherently, unable to focus on longer projects, unable to comprehend relatively simple concepts without intense effort.  Much of this loss seems to coincide with the addition of a child to our family.  Pregnancy plays havoc with brain cells, and part of me has never fully returned to my original level of mental quickness and acuity.  Chronic illness may also play a part.  I just don't know.

Here's what I do know:

I crave solitude in a way I never did before.  Don't get me wrong.  I've always been a loner who avoids large (or even small) groups and noise.  But this characteristic has intensified into an deep need, a necessity.  Quiet has become an intrinsic requirement.  My resentment toward interruption is all out of proportion.

My ability to think/write creatively has taken a major hit.  Yeah, I know.  If you don't use a muscle, it atrophies.  But it seems that when I put pen to paper these days, each thought is more inane than the last.  Originality?  An unreachable goal.

My time is not my own.  Even when it is.  Once you become a mother, you are always a mother.  It doesn't matter that your child is sleeping peacefully in another room.  Your brain has been rewired, and part of it will always be present with that other little (or not so little) person, wherever they are.

While I still love to read, there is guilt for reading when I could be writing.  I tell myself that reading is vital to developing my writing, but lying to myself is hard.  A lot of writing has been avoided by reading that book by that author that is just so necessary.

My mom identity does daily battle with my writer/teacher identity.  I have no idea why these two won't co-exist peacefully.

I have become the Queen of Excuses.  My writing sucks because I don't write, and I don't write because of, well, So. Many. Reasons.

I'm seeking accountability.  I have avoided many events and connections lately because of my non-writing status.  There's an overwhelming feeling of fraudulence that I just can't shake.  And apparently, the accountability of seeing fellow writers is something I need to make myself try to overcome everything and focus.  I'm tired of drowning in fuzzy, crowded thoughts.  I'm tired of the lack of mental clarity that medication leaves behind.  I'm tired of interruptions and noise and sickness and excuses.  I'm tired.  And still I must write.