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Tag Archives: writers
What happens when a writer has a nervous breakdown in the middle of edits
She plagiarizes a song like this one and puts in her own lyrics.
Yeah.
That’s what she does.
Yeah.
And she eats a box full of Costco chocolate chip mini muffins.
Yeah.
(play the video at the bottom and sing along . . . )
*****
When I wake up yeah I know I’m gonna write
I’m gonna write the book I’ve promised that I’ll write
When I go out yeah I know should be writing
But this deadline makes me freak and overeat
If I get mad, yes I know I’m gonna scream
I’m gonna scream and then go fix chapter twenty-three
And if I proctrastinate yeah I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be posting stupid tweets on Hootsuite
But I would fix 10,000 words
And I would fix 10,000 more
Just to be the girl who fixed 80,000 words
To fall down on my floor
When I’m writing yes I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the writer writing hard for you
And when the money (?) comes in for the work I’ll do
I’ll pass ***almost*** every penny on to Merry Maids
When I’m published yeah I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the writer who ‘s published thanks to you [my agent & editor & publisher]
And if I grow old well I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be still making edits on chapter twenty-three
But I would fix 10,000 words
And I would fix 10,000 more
Just to be the girl who fixed 80,000 words
To fall down on my floor
When I’m lonely yes I know I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be a lonely writer…wait, that’s me!
When I’m dreaming yes I know I’m gonna dream
I’m gonna dream about killed darlings in my sleep.
But I would fix 10,000 words
And I would fix 10,000 more
Just to be the girl who fixed 80,000 words
To fall down on my floor
For writers. On towards THE END.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.“
*******
I might add, “. . . and passing out in the process.”
*******
Not only is the way of a novel murky and ungrasp-able.
The process quite often brings me to the end of myself.
Take, for example, my current work-in-progress (WIP).
I’m following all the rules, and breaking them.
My protagonist is not me, but at the same time, she is me.
For I do not write an autobiography.
But I cannot write what I do not know.
As I plunge my characters deeper and deeper into conflicts and places they do fear most, my subconscious sojourns with them.
When these imagined illusions of my delusions break wide open, parts of me break open, too.
And so, I post this lament.
Of the parts of me which are inky and raw.
Of the parts of me which scream at the small remnants of the sane part of my mind, “Put the pen down! Before someone–namely yourself–gets hurt!”
For the other writers out there who know.
Exactly.
What.
I.
Mean.
*******
*******
BUT
even as I lament,
long-strictured parts of me
praise.
As my pen frees
protagonists and antagonists,
my grayed out, stagnant heart
breathes
Technicolor again.
*******
*******
Even as my pen
presses down, my hands
raise up.
In lament.
In praise.
*******
*******
on
towards
THE END
*******
