Impotent Blog of RAGE - Unedited version

Yeah, so. Basically, I’m pretty sure I got fired because I have a disability. I mean, it’s not explicitly stated, but only inasmuch as the reason they gave was, “it’s not things we feel will change.” and when I pressed, “how could you know what will change after three weeks?” the response was “… We don’t legally HAVE to give you a reason after only three weeks. And this is all we’re comfortable telling you.” And in my experience, “this is totally legal.” means “if we tell you the truth, it would probably NOT be totally legal.” Like, when my landlords were kicking me out of my apartment in the middle of the month (illegal) and had the gall to tell me if I was going to stay to the middle of the month, I would just have to pay them, as normal (illegal) because they wanted to change my apartment into office space, and I stood their like a fish going, "WTF?" she just kept repeating that they were giving me exactly as much notice as was LEGALLY expected, and also  that they've known this was coming for a while, but they wanted to make sure to do it LEGALLY. So, y'know. I'm not stupid. Since I wasn’t breaking any laws, and the most controversial thing I said while there was “I hate Starbucks” I’m gonna assume they think the fact that I did not learn enough during FOUR DAYS of training is because I CAN’T learn.

Not to say there weren't issues. I know I was struggling with two things in the office, two things which I asked repeatedly could I get some help with this? I am not getting this. I know there were two very busy days in which the person who had trained me (Who the hell does four days of training?) was not in, and I had to ask the only other person in the office to help me with these things, which were not being explained to me. I also know I worked very hard to socialize and be normal and comfortable, because everybody was all, "we're one big family here, it's okay, get comfortable." except not really. But I genuinely liked the people, and I thought I was liked back. I felt like I was learning, and I was working hard, making notes on EVERYTHING, so that I could solidify things in ways that worked for me. Apparently, other people do things faster. Which, well, story of my life. I could have told them that. If they'd bothered to ask.

The ironic thing about this is not that it is actually wrong to discriminate against people with disability WHETHER YOU DO IT OUT LOUD OR NOT. Also not the fact that I was assured because the boss lady ALSO has a chronic condition, she is “more than sympathetic.” (which is bullshit, btw. People who develop chronic conditions later in life can sometimes handle it HORRIFICALLY badly, and in fact often reach a stage they have to wade through where they are suddenly faced-to-face with their own prejudices, because they are not like those people! Hell, I have a condition I was born with, and even I've had to do that.) But nine times out of ten, a person with a disability will be able to find a different way of doing something. If you tell them what they are doing wrong, and let them work that out on their own. But people are so terrified that they will actually mention something that can’t be changed, and therefore BE discriminatory (WHICH IS WRONG WHEN IT’S OUT LOUD!) and so conditioned to believe that we use our disability to excuse anything, they decide we are not worth the effort. And then the government makes everyone pay taxes to keep the housing list at a three year minimum wait, and our families go deeper in debt trying to make up the difference, and keep YOU all complaining about how lucky we are to get free money, especially when most of us are faking it anyway.

But of course, I’m probably just being paranoid. I mean, we’re always looking for excuses, aren’t we?

I hate the world.

In Which I Don't Know Where I Am But I Am Here

 (content warning: This post goes into some seriously heavy stuff about my recent experience with mental illness, and other not-pretty things. If you're sensitive to any of that stuff, you may want to skip this.)

Hello, Internet.

So.
Stuff has happened.

It's been a long time, Internet, and I feel incredibly guilty about that. The truth is, I have been avoiding this blog, because for some time I have felt that it was taking away from the fiction writing I have been wanting to do. And then I was avoiding this blog because I had no time to write anything ever. And then.

And then, Internet, the bottom sort of fell out of my world. I am currently coming off a four-month depression relapse. I won't bore you with details, but it was bad. Bad enough that there was the all-concerning Plan that doctors, counselors and psychiatrists ask you if you have, during particularly long episodes. Bad enough that I had to move houses and quit my job and am now living on ODSP with no cushion and am scared out of my mind, but I HAD to go, because things were just bad, and they weren't getting any better, and I was going to the Terrible Scary Place more often then I was doing human things like eating and sleeping. Bad enough that for the first time in my life I was eating to SURVIVE, rather than because I was hungry, or because a particular thing looked tasty. I was actually eating a meal a day, purely in order to function, because I could not summon up the emotional energy required to actually ENJOY food. I was hospitalized for a six-hour long dissociative episode. My mother was on suicide watch. I refused to allow the kids to even talk to me on the phone, let alone to visit because I was afraid of the awful things I would say to them, because I could not filter anything, and everything inside me was ugly.

We don't really talk about depression like we should. We are aware, I think, that depression affects many, many people, and that it is not the same thing as sadness, and these things are important to know, but they don't convey what happens, I mean what REALLY happens. For me, depression is like I am a little kid being lost in a supermarket. Five minutes ago, my life was fine, everything was familiar and everyone I loved was right there with me. But now it's not, and they're not, and I'm not sure how to get back to that place, because I never really know what I've done to lose it in the first place. And that's a really awful and scary thing, to know that because of some chemical trick being played on me, sometimes I feel bad for no reason, and sometimes there is a reason, and I never really know which it is, and worse, neither does anyone else. And then, Oh. And then.

I think the hardest part about that kind of depression is the amount of love and support I get. Growing up, my depression and my anxiety were mine to deal with and now, they are mine and my mother's. My brothers and sisters, all of whom struggle with it in some form or another, just aren't available to care. Which may actually be a blessing, because there are times, during that period, where you actually wish you were loved less, so people would stop telling you they know you're going to get better. Because the hardest, the absolute worst thing about depression? Is not the pain you're in. It's when the pain goes away.

For the first few weeks of a depression relapse, I am always in a great deal of pain. It's all very visible, and visceral, and noticeable, I start sleeping 20 hours a day, I either refuse food, or eat whatever is available. I take the dogs on shorter walks because I don't want to be seen by anyone trying to be nice to me. And I cry. Oh my Goddess I cry all the time over everything. And then, slowly, it goes away. It's a funny thing, about depression. There's this idea that even though we know depression is an illness, not a sadness, we still imagine it as being sad. It's not like that. When I am happy, I am aware that I have been sick, I have been depressed, and I remember that that hurt, that it was scary and it was bad and I don't want to go back there. But I don't actually know how it feels. I am wrapped in cotton wool and nothing I feel is real, and I barely feel anything at all most of the time. I am not part of the world. Happiness, however, is a vibrant and alive thing. So while I am depressed, I remember every single second of what it was to be happy, everything I had and lost, and I don't know where it is, or how I lost it, and what if I never get it back? People keep reassuring me it's there, but they are the same people who reassured me that I was so happy, while I was happy, and how could I have been, when this has always been there?

I find it's a common attitude among particularly young writers to sneer at a happy ending as taking the easy way out. I always had a darkly private giggle over that. Having been undiagnosed til I was 17, I can still say with some certainty I have been dealing with some form of depression and/or anxiety from probably eleven years old. I'm always curious as to who and where these people are that their happiness had an easy answer. My own has been so hard-won, and often, much too fleeting. There is, of course, a part of me that understands that conflict makes a story, but there's still something off about the glamorizing of misery that goes on. I don't mean people shouldn't be writing sad books, or making sad movies. I mean the fetishist that says, "I like sad things because they are more real." Sad has never felt like a real thing to me. Most of the time, sad is a trick of my brain chemistry, out of proportion to who I am and how I feel, usually brought on by nothing, and offering nothing in return for what it takes. In real sadness, you pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes, and try not to let it happen again. In depression, you pick yourself up, slowly crawl back to the world, and hope the monsters won't find you again. Another version of this is that I hate the number of people who feel that my disability have made me a stronger person, not because I don't think it has, but because I don't know why I'm supposed to be so strong when so many aren't. Is it just so that I have space inside me to be more unhappy then they do? Why would I need that, if I didn't have the thing that made me so 'strong' in the first place?

After I got out of the hospital, I stopped writing. That was a conscious decision. I had been through a rough patch, was unsure if I wanted to write anymore, at all, and that was scary to think about, because as I have previously discussed, writing has never been about what I do. It's who I am. But I gave it up. For two weeks. Then I wanted to get back to it. I missed it. I had things I wanted to do, and there are things I feel like need to be written, because they should exist, and they don't yet. I sat down to write. And promptly started screaming.

I've had panic attacks while writing before, fear of failure that creeps up without warning, makes it hard to breath, and I have to go sit in the other room AWAY from the computer for a while. This was not that. I stared at the blank doc for twenty minutes, and cried, and then I screamed. I screamed how much I hate myself, how much I hate doing this thing. How it was the only thing I ever had or ever would have. How I didn't even know who I was anymore, and how I hated that everything inside me meant so much, and so little of it was real. How I am never going to be the person I wanted to be, and nobody was even bothered by that, except me, and that meant that I am apparently the only opinion in my own life that doesn't matter. And that went on for another six weeks. Six weeks of being cut off from what mattered most to me, after nearly four months of alienating my entire family.

I don't know what to say about all that now. Things have slowed down. My world has started righting itself, but it has taken on a very different shape from what it was, and, I think, so have I. I don't know if it's a good shape or not. I mentioned above about depression never offering anything for what it takes. Last time I was in this bad a shape, I had a similar moment of suddenly knowing the truth about who I was and what that meant, and how people saw that, and how that mattered. It was not a good moment, for me, but it was an important one. I think this is another of those. I think. I don't know yet. I think the reason writing has made me angry was not, as I guessed, because it too had nothing to offer me, because that could never be true, but because I was angry about having so little to offer it. It is indeed a poor workwoman who blames her tools, isn't it? And Goddess help me, but I think maybe. Just maybe. I can do better. I don't know that, mind you.

But I'm still here. And I'm still doing this thing.

Writers finish...and I don't.

Hannah is not going to get finished.

I feel sad. Really really sad, and embarrassed to have failed, yet again, but I just don't know what else to do. I do this thing where I set goals for myself, and if one of the goals go unmet, I can't do any of it. It's a personal issue I need to work on. But working on it with my writing is turning my writing into something I really don't enjoy, and quite frankly, these are still my favorite characters in my favorite story, and I don't want to think of them in the way that I have been. I enjoy the writing that I do, but every time I sit down, it's a reminder of how much I haven't done. It's just the words giving me trouble, and then I torture myself, hate everything I've ever written, hate myself for writing or not writing, or anything else I can.

Writing is hard. Making time to write is hard, having the discipline to write is hard. Knowing your limits is hard, giving up is hard, knowing when to put it down 'for now' is hard, knowing how long 'for now' is, is hard too. I'm not a novelist, I haven't been for years, everything I've ever written in the years since Hannah is screenplay, and I don't want to give her up, and I want to write, and I do think that self-publishing is the answer. But I am torturing myself about writing to the extent where I don't have time to read. And if I don't have time to read, how do I write?

Coming back from vacation, I realized a few things. The first is the same thing I always realize when I go home from a trip: I am capable of pretty damn amazing things. It's hard to be anything but humble while you're looking the Mona Lisa in the eye, or eating pasta under the shadow of the Roman Coliseum or feeling how it's like my feet finally touch bottom in a deep pool every time I leave Heathrow airport to go into the city. It's tough to be anything besides grateful when you're on top of the Eiffel Tower and realize that the woman next to you is eighty years old, and has waited her whole life to stand next to you, here, and millions who will keep waiting, while your own life hasn't even really begun yet. But when it's over, and I can look back, remember getting lost in Paris and finding my way back on my own, remember climbing the huge Coliseum steps with my friends, instead of taking the lift, like I should have done, not because I was embarrassed, but because I didn't want to miss a second, and, without thinking, ordering food in a fancy restaurant, and eating it without asking for help or worrying about who might be staring... That's me. Mine to have, mine to keep, mine to value, as I will. I think about my family and people I have known, the ones who asked me, not how, but why the first time, and the second time both. How the world was created and filled with beautiful things, but there are people who live their whole lives thinking it's easier to not see them, and I am not one of those, and that's enough to make me feel powerful.

I am capable. But I also grew up in disability culture, and one of the problems I have is common to, well, probably a lot of us, since a lot of people I know have a similar problem: I do not know my own capabilities. It's either too much to handle, or not enough to motivate me. I started this project easily because I knew that I would do that to myself, and then, from day one, I've been doing that to myself anyway (I still blame Day One on Amanda Palmer, but, whatever.) So... Hannah will get done. And I will publish a book before the year is out. But I'm not sure, if those things will be related.

Vacation resets me. I want a reset. Not a do-over. The nasty, negative, "You didn't do what you said you would" voices in my head have effectively silenced the voice in my head that tells me where the stories are, but there are a couple little imps still left over from spring and a couple late bloomers. There are other voices, and that's been part of the problem. Hannah has changed from something I want to experience and enjoy and remember, into something I want to get through, to get to other things. And seeing as how I plan to write it in three novels, it's so much more daunting that way.

So, I'll keep working on it. In quiet, in private, in bits and pieces. And focus the rest of my energy... somewhere else. Don't know where else yet. Like I said, a couple things are clamouring for my attention, but this is not what I want to be writing right now, and if I don't write it, I feel guilty, so I don't write anything else, and I continue to torture myself (seriously, nobody told me writers were this neurotic! haha) So. Regroup. I'll wait a week. Maybe two. One of the many little imps in my head will come forward with gnashing teeth (no, not that one,) my family drama will settle down, and start again. I do mean to make something of myself, and do it in this way, but I may have overestimated myself (again), and not quite grasped what would be the best vessel for that.

It's upsetting, and it feels like failure, but that's me being neurotic. I write better in the fall, anyway. (This is actual fact, not an excuse. Spring for ideas, Summer for obsessive creative spurts, Fall for grit-your-teeth, down-and-dirty writing, and Winter for hacking the crap out of all the stuff I was previously too warm-and-fuzzy about to be objective towards. It's always been that way, it just seems too obsessive-compulsive to not at least try to change habits. I am foolish, it seems.) I'll find something else. There are a lot of something elses. When the ideas have hold of me, they drown out the negative voices so that I can be perfectly happy writing crap. Hannah's not doing that for me right now, but something else will. Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away and picking it apart, and it'll come out, eventually.

And I'll keep writing this blog. I like having somewhere to talk shop, and people who'll talk back. Writing this blog is easier than writing stories, which I never even thought possible, and it helps with that need to sift through stuff, to find the balance between who they are, and who I am, and who is more important.

I took tons of pics and videos from my vacation, and I'm going to cut them together in a massive doc-style video, if I can manage it. For now, for everyone out there who has to wait, or doesn't think it's possible for them, or just because the world is beautiful and I like being able to share it, here's some shots.


See you next week for round two?

Courage.... and Other Things I Don't Have

Yes, I owe this blog fun and exciting Euro-Adventures. I will get to that, promise. It’s just that this thing has been sitting on my dashboard for a while, and I wanted it out there, because it’s something that bothers me, and also something that I’d like feedback on, and something that I think other people should know too. So, FIRST, awkward and frustrated discussion. Then, Euro-Adventures!

Attention:
I am, as previously mentioned, a person with a disability.
I am also, as previously mentioned, an asexual person, with a disability.
Those two things? Are not related. And I hate having to say that, because it reminds me of how my mother has to tell people her daughter is smart right after she tells them her daughter is disabled. Because I know I have to say that, because to a large portion of the population, one thing cannot be true, if the other is. I also know that even when I say that, people will disbelieve me. So I will say again:

That I am a person with a disability who identifies as asexual is not a forgone conclusion. That I belong to both groups is incidental, and that both groups have been mistakenly thought, by people who are not part of that group, to denote a lack of maturation or inability to understand one’s social or physical development, does not mean I am, in fact, immature, or that I do not know my own body. The fact that I am asexual is not proof about the presence, or lack of a sexual desire in a person with a disability, or zir understanding of zir sexuality, or zir ability to express that desire, if indeed it does exist. The fact that I have a disability is, similarly, not proof that all, or even most, people who identify as asexual suffer from some kind of physical, mental, or chemical deficiency. My sexuality has as much and no more to do with my body chemistry and brain function as the average heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or pansexual individual. It is a part of me, as is my disability. It, like my disability, has a huge affect on my social interactions, and the average perception of me. They are not the same thing, nor are they part of one another.

I am oversimplifying again. The truth is, we don’t know what causes human sexuality to develop as it does, and there are a lot of factors. For years, we have been confirming and solidifying that the cause of homosexuality is largely genetic, and not a lifestyle choice. And now, there are studies that prove that identical twins can have different sexual orientations. It’s possible the specific place my brain has been damaged is directly related to sexual development. And it offers a very neat explanation. However, it’s also entirely possible I’m asexual because I was born asexual, like the other 600,000 or so people that we’re aware of who are also asexual, many, and I would wager most, of whom do not have brain damage to blame. And I dislike even giving credence to the notion that this could be anything other than simply, “I was born this way.”  In the same way my mother knew that my intelligence could only ever be relative to the perception of where my intelligence should have been, I know that my sexuality will then seem less genuine, less the real thing.


Detour with me for a sec. As previously mentioned, Hannah is an old story. Hannah is a story I wrote one summer when I was fourteen, that I just can't let go of. It's interesting to see the ways my writing style has changed, but also, it's interesting to see that my topic of interest hasn't, really, just the way I confront it. Hannah doesn't have a disability. I've explained why Hannah doesn't have a disability; I didn't want her to. I didn't want her recognized as the self-indulgence that she was, and is.  But there was a character who had a disability. Hannah's only childhood friend has a learning disability. In the earlier versions, she doesn't really get much of a mention. She's in one chapter, early on in Hannah, as a sort of juxtaposition between where Hannah is, and where she ought to be, so I wasn't explicit on the whole learning disability thing. She shows up in the second book, once or twice, when Hannah gets a boyfriend. (Hold on to that.) She's not very interesting. I feel guilty, now, at the lack of attention I paid her. Because in this version, she's very important. She's kind of integral, actually, and I'm enjoying Hannah's mucking around in her imperfect brain. I'm enjoying her there as a kind of proof that Hannah is just a kid, and I'm enjoying her for her own characterization. It's amazing to me, how easily I made the connection that she had the learning disability, another one of those things that's been there all along, but also, that I can use it to say all the things that Hannah, so desperate to be taken seriously, won't say. It is such a change, to be so fearless, now, and come right out and say it. Hey. We are everywhere. Sometimes, it's not our story. Sometimes, we have a place in your world too. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it makes me feel better about so many things. Mostly, it makes it easier that I can't do that nearly as much as I'd like to.

I know why I made her so vapid and boring before. Firstly, I don't have a learning disability. Some things haven't changed. I didn't want to get it wrong, so I was afraid to do anything with it. But I know many people with learning disabilities, am friends with many people with learning disabilities, so I feel confident in a way I didn't when I was young, in my ability to treat this character like she is as real as someone I know, and not disappear her disability entirely. In the second book, she's not as quirky, she becomes sort of vapid and shallow and boring and kind of the media version of teenage girl, the one we’re supposed to understand is an accurate and general representation of ‘average.’ I know why that was too. It's not because I went all sexist, though there might be some sexism in there. It's because I started the second Hannah in high school. To give you an idea of what high school was like for me, I began the second book at sixteen. By sixteen I was vocally out, had to be just to dodge all the questions and comments thrown my way. I said to my very best friend, "I'm going to write another Hannah book, only this time she's our age. And she has a boyfriend." Her response was, "Good. She needs one." I said, "What? The last time we see her she's eight." So the next words out of my friend's mouth were, "Well, you need one. So it's good you're writing about that stuff." There were, of course, vapid shallow people of all sexes making these demands/accusations, but I could at least understand the boys' complaints, (mainly, ‘why can’t you be flattered, so I can get what I want?”) But with the girls, I just thought they were really that stupid.

Which brings me back to my original point. Someday, when I can get it all out, I am going to sit down and explain to you all about the many and varied forms of asexual discrimination. We're going to talk about all the courses on peer pressure they teach you in grade 6 and up, and how it feels to role-play a 'situation' and have your friends roll their eyes at you, and teachers ask you to, "really, try to be honest." while you stammered your way through it, confused, trying to figure out what was so damn funny about all this, and what these people wanted from you, and why those decisions were supposed to be so hard. when everything inside you says that is a clear not going to happen situation. We're going to discuss, at length, how often I hear the word 'unnatural' in reference to me, and how many asexuals through history have been branded pedophiles and secret perverts, and how it feels to have friends who won't touch you, not because they think you're gay or anything, just because they know everyone else does, and okay, you know, not having a boyfriend is fine for YOU, but OTHER PEOPLE would like to have the cute boy know they're available, okay? We'll talk about how it feels to love someone who believes you incapable of love, how it feels when everything you do or say is proof that you are not who you say you are, because we don't have words for love, devotion, desire, attraction, and passion that do not translate to sex to everyone but me. We'll talk about what happens when I go to the doctor's office, and how I have bisexual and gay friends who tell me I don't understand what it's like, to have people think those things about them, all the time. Not that I'm dismissing the trials of the other people on the sexuality spectrum. But we are more than just natural allies. We are fighting the same battle, and one day, I will have the words and courage to explain that in such a way that someone might even understand.

For now, the only thing I can say is this: I don't write asexual characters. It has taken me roughly twenty-three years to write characters with disabilities, and I know why that is. I know that is because I was always so afraid to be recognized, so afraid I didn't matter enough to be allowed to talk about this, that I wasn't disabled enough for my views to count, that I was 'too negative'. That is not why I don't write asexual characters. I can acknowledge the same fear, of course, I know part of it is that sometimes, the label doesn't quite fit me, though it's closer than any others, and I certainly don't want my asexual experience speaking for anyone else's. And there's the problem. I don't write asexual characters because to the wider world, we still don't exist. We are temporary asexuals if we're victims of rape (we are damaged), we are asexual if we have secret fetishes and can't have sex any other way (we are sick), or if our sexuality is so abnormal we need to hurt people to get what we want, so we bury it until it erupts and we claim another victim (we are evil). Does this line of thinking not seem familiar? Nobody speaks for us, not yet. We have no place in popular culture. In an oversexed world, we hold no interest. In every TV show or movie or book, if a character has no interest in romance, the audience is on the edge of their seat, waiting for the change. I don't write asexuals because I know, if I did, no one would believe it. I know that, because I know the number of people who still don't believe me. I know an even greater number of people who know exactly how I feel about sex and love, and still believe I am the only asexual person in the world. Being asexual isn't about doing nothing, where everyone else is doing something. I admit, I have some problems with sex. All the problems I have with sex stem from the pressure I received to be anything other than what I am. People are bored with me. I had someone say to me once, "Obviously, you're going to have someone someday. You talk all the time about not having one." I don't write asexuals because I know exactly how little people want to hear from us. I know exactly how hard it is to read and understand, and what a disappointment it is that that doesn't change. I know, because I am that disappointment. And I do feel lonely sometimes, but if I ever said that, people would start waiting for the change, all over again.

Think about this: I am a het asexual. Lots of asexuals are at varying points on the Kinsey scale, but I'm pretty comfortable with the knowledge I am more het than most. How do I know this? Because everyone I've ever been attracted to has been male. How does an asexual describe attraction, though? When I say attraction, I mean, the people I see who are pretty are both male and female, but there is something particular about pretty men. There is something internal that says ‘wow’ in a different way than when I see a beautiful woman. It is not a sexual desire kind of 'wow.' It is more a 'let me stand next to you, look at you, and commit you to memory." Or sometimes, "please be my friend and find me interesting, because I am fascinated by the fact that I find you interesting, that is special and rare."

I don't know how to explain it. I know it's different from sexuals, because of the blank looks I get, but that's all I know. When I was in college, there was a boy I liked. We had lunch together once, and he asked me out in a very sweet and vague way, and I never took him up on the offer, even though I very much liked him. It wasn't fear that made the decision. I just liked him too much to want a relationship. I liked being his friend, and his smiling at me and liking my writing and seeing me a certain way, I didn't want that way to change. When I told a friend this, she said, "but he likes you back!" and I said, "I know. But if he pursues me, I might have to do something about it. I might have to go out with him, and do the whole girlfriend thing, and then there's the whole explaining the 'no-touching', and even if he understood that, there's still the fact that we would be different.'" And she said, "that's the point." And that's when I knew I lost her, so I just said, "Not to me."

I don't write asexuals because we don't have words to explain ourselves.Nobody really wants to know anyway, they want to get to the good part at the end where we get fixed. I don't write asexuals because I don't want to feel like I’m taking something away from the thousands of other people in the world who are all differently asexual and probably more comfortable with it than I was taught to be. I don't write asexuals because we're boring, we're not wanted, and nobody even believes we exist, and selfish as it sounds, I want people to read my writing, and like it.

So, I don't write asexuals. I want to. J. M. Barrie wrote asexuals, and they called him a pedophile. I don't have that courage. In his book, Little White Bird, when Peter Pan transforms from bird, to boy, he looks at his reflection, sees he doesn't have wings and says, "I suppose I can't fly?" And as soon as he says it, it's true. The moment he doubts, it's over, and he spends much of the book looking for a way back up. I feel like that, sometimes. Everything I've ever done that people said I shouldn't have been able to do, was easy for me, because I knew other people had done it. But I'm a fraud. This is different. I know there are asexual voices in literature, but they are rare. Somebody, someday, is going to have to give us more, make us real to people. And I may be one of the only people who could do that (working on the assumption that 10% or less of the population are asexual, and 10% or fewer of those are artists) and I don't, simply because I believe I can't. Because nobody has shown me how. I don't know if that will change. For now, to the asexuals, I'm sorry. I can't. To myself, I am doing the best I can. To everyone else, it's working. Are you happy?

Maybe in another 20 years, hm?

Cross-Section of Self-Esteem

Observe:

This is a small sample of what goes on in my head, while writing, say, the average Hannah pages. In no particular order:

1. Oh, I hope I can get more writing done today than yesterday.
2. How do I spell that again?
3. Shoot. I've mentioned this person before. What was his name again? *roots around to find it*
4. Four hours writing? pfft. Easy. I'll do five hours tomorrow *A.N: this doesn't work. don't do it!*
5. Wow. That was actually really good. Celebratory tea break!

This is a small sample of what goes on in my head, while editing, say, the last screenplay I completed.

1. What? (sometimes I throw scenes in just to hit the page requirement. Sometimes I can't decipher my own shorthand. Sometimes I don't realize how much time I have spent on useless exposition, or how little exposition I've actually written.)
2. Y'know, for a writer, I am actually crap with words.
3. Oh my God. I am capable of so much better than this!
4. THERE IS A PLOTHOLE YOU COULD DRIVE A TRUCK THROUGH 70 PAGES IN WTF WAS I THINKING?
5. ...This is still not as bad as that thing in '07. We have hope.

This, dear readers, is a small sample of what goes on before I hit the "publish post" button on this blog.

1. I'm stupid.
2. Nobody cares what I think.
3. Other people are so much better at this than I am. (In my defense, this is actually true. True, but irrelevant.)
4. I can't even spell. (Very true. Seriously. Thank Goddess I have such lovely people in my life, who can actually do this for me.)
5. It's not that I don't deserve to have an opinion. It's that it's a stupid one, and people shouldn't be forced to listen to it.

You see the problem, yes? There is a slight disconnect between what is going on in my brain, and what I think is going on in my brain. Sadly, I do not know which is accurate. It terrifies me to think I could write something really good, and hate it, just because I wrote it. Because Due Date is coming up fast, and, without a traditional publisher, editor, or marketing team, my success depends on how good I think I am, because it's up to me to convince other people. And I get really nervous when I think about that, because I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it.

Logically, I know that I have readers. People read this blog and like it, and link it in places I never expected them to. I thank you for that, by the way. I also know that self-loathing is the cornerstone to any artistic pursuit, and that part of the reason this blog is so nerve-wracking is because it is true. It isn't things wrapped up in story form that are meant to entertain, it's who I am and what I think. Seriously, you should see the anxiety-ridden nightmares after each rage post. As I discussed in my earlier posts, oftentimes, even among friends and family, who, regardless of my many and varied issues with them, are not such terrible people, generally speaking, I am seen as far too Other to have a valid opinion on anything. I am too different for my thoughts and feelings on any particular thing to have any bearing on anyone else's life. I know that is not true, but subconsciously I seem to have accepted this as truth. It does make writing difficult, as we are supposed to 'write what we know' and I certainly can't make the worlds I invite you into any more 'normal' than the one I inhabit. Perhaps this is my failing as a writer.

It has taken me years to get to this point, but honestly? I love editing and rewriting. I do. I love it because that is the point where I look at what I've done and I go, "oh hell, this sucks." And then I fix it, until it stops sucking. My dear love asked me recently, as I was whining and complaining about first drafts, as I am wont to do, (as we have clearly seen) how did I know when it was worth saving? Why continue on if it's going to be this hard? It's not something I can explain. I get through the first draft, and then I know. In the end, the finished products are mine, but the stories come from in the ether, and they are gifts. When I'm finished the first draft, I can see whether I'm going to be able to use the gift I've been given the way it's intended to be used. That's the best way I know to explain it. Hannah has been through enough incarnations, and each incarnation improves, and I know the story is there. The story is not the problem, it's my ability to write it that waxes and wanes. So I don't know, until that first draft is done, and I can see what sort of thing I'm working with. There've been scripts and novels where I get through three or so drafts and go, "I have no idea what I'm saying." And I have to put it down. Sometimes twenty or thirty, sometimes a hundred to a hundred and fifty pages in, I have to go, "Whatever this is, I'm not up for it." That sucks. Anyone who's been through that, you know. Anyone who hasn't, go pat yourself on the back for your brilliance. I am in awe of you, fortunate one.

There's a quote in one of the most amazing books on writing in my possession, Elizabeth Ayers' Writing The Wave. I'm serious, pick it up, wherever you can, and do everything this woman tells you to do. It's that good. Anyway, at one point, she quotes Michaelangelo, who said, when someone asked him if carving the statue David was hard, that it wasn't. He just carved everywhere the statue wasn't. Ayers says, as writers, we have the harder job. First, we make the marble. Then we carve it. So I always need to see what manner of marble I am working with. And Hannah has already been made in so many versions and shaped so carefully over time, and I understand it, and I know that it's worth something, so I keep going. And I can't wait til I can look at this latest incarnation and go, "That goes out, that stays in." It's exciting. Like having a baby when you get those charts like they have at a hospital, and you go, "and now its eyelids are forming, and now you can see its fingers and toes..."

A couple summers ago, I was putting the finishing touches on a script that I had been tinkering with for omgtwoyears. For Hannah, that's young, but for a screenplay, it was astronomical. And my dear love was feeling anxious and uncertain, because he had the arduous task of telling me when it sucks. It could have destroyed our relationship (this job has, in fact, destroyed relationships in the past), but after much hand-wringing, he was suitably honest, and told me where I was messing up, where I was not being enough, where I was being less than I was capable of being. And thus, he commenced in fretting, and reminding me that he actually had no idea how I do what I do, and I was obviously not required to listen to him. And I thanked him profusely, and then I got better. It's very rare to find a draft-reader who can help me to get better, as most are intent on reassuring me I don't suck. Which, come to think of it, is kind of like how, when I present my asexual, non-relationship-seeking self, people hurry to inform me, and others around me, that I absolutely could get a boyfriend, if I wanted one. In case I didn't already know that. Whatever, it's rude and unhelpful, and I have made mistakes and people have not been right for the job, but I'm fortunate now, and worry about that less. Fortunate, and doomed to rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

I keep going because I can't not do it, but not because I have any particular faith in myself that it will pan out. I'm a stubborn fool. This is just how it is, just what I do, and I don't know if I can make that worth somebody else's while or not. So I really want to take a second to, again, thank any readers I happen to have, for listening, for wanting to listen, for helping me to improve, and for knowing what I talk about, when I need to be introspective and talk about The Artist's Journey for a second. I know I don't suck as much as I think I do, sometimes, but the only reason I know when I'm actually good is when somebody else says so. So, thanks. And while I have you, um.

Is there a point at which the intense self-loathing goes away? Or is this just one of those, "square your shoulders, learn to deal with it" kinda things? Because this is really getting old.

Le Shame

So.
Let's get honest. It's March 16th and I... well. I've written a grand total of around 10 pages. FAIL. RL stuff is kicking me in the butt, and life is getting exhausting. I have faith, though. I'm going to hit my stride somewhere in the next week, and maybe even be able to make up for some of the lost time. Or, at any rate, stop losing it. Ugh. I think I'm just getting old. RL never used to be so busy. I used to have the time to sit down and focus.

I am blaming it on the music. I am of the breed of writer who needs music to write. And the playlist I picked out isn't fitting what I'm writing. Or maybe it's because it's spring. A funny thing happens every spring. Stuff wakes up and lilacs come out and all that jazz, and I get new ideas. Lots and lots and lots of shiny, new, distracting ideas. It's very inconvenient. Also, ten years ago, I didn't have a job. Also, do you know how hard it is to self-publish? Holycrow.

So yeah. The thing is, I'm not off to a good start. I mean, I've started, so there's that. I think - I hope - that I can still make the deadline. Thinking like a businessperson is pretty heavy stuff, not something I'm used to, and I'm hoping now that I have things down a bit (did you know 10 pages on googledocs is actually 20 pages when properly formatted? Yes! Did you know the original Hannah document is 200 pages, and that's without proper formatting? Crap.), I can stop distracting myself and get down to business. I've also noticed some amazing parallels between me at fourteen, and my politics and what I was writing, and what I am writing now, and how that reflects the way I still feel. More on that later.

For now, hanging head in shame, and keeping it down to get some work done.

xfingers for me.