I…HATE…WRITING

I hate writing. Period.

That’s not true. (And, voilà! My first ever printed retraction.)

Specification: I hate starting to write.

This is true for most “writers”. (Don’t ask me to cite darn the case study, just let me feel good about myself and be part of a crowd.) That’s why there are so many books about writing. I must recommend Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. (Though, ignore the part where she admits to throwing out 50,000 words and starting over because, well, that’s what writers do. I found that part very discouraging). When We don’t feel like writing, We readabout writing. We “research” the “craft”. We try to discover a method that “works for you!”

Ironically, I think it was Anne who wrote (paraphrasing here, because I’m too lazy to look it up), “Write as if no one is going to read it.”
I found that to be the most liberating and also the most completely ridiculous statement I’d ever read. WHY WOULD I WRITE IF NO ONE IS GOING TO READ IT?! I’m a neglected Gen-Xer, with an unfulfilled ego. WordPress is my tablet from the mountain. It exists to spread my word.

My friend Anne (she has no idea I exist), in addition to being a best-selling author, also writes for her own pleasure. She jots things down, she fleshes them out, and she explores ideas only to stick them in a drawer. Weird.
I did some research, and couldn’t find which medical centre agreed to remove her ego. (In Canada, we spell centre like that, not like this: center.)

Why take the time to set up a web page and pay an annual, not insignificant web-hosting subscription fee if not for the clicks?! The comments?! The feedback?! The attention!! Come on. Even Peter Gabriel, the great thinker, wrote, “I want to be wanted, I need to be needed, I love to be loved.” (Wait, was he plagiarizing Cheap Trick?)

I feel that writing only for the benefit of the metal loops in a three-inch binder, or for a couple of kbs of cloud space, maddening and counter-intuitive. I don’t want to write it if no one is going to read it. If that makes me broken, so be it. I must navigate this world as the person I am, to do differently is a recipe for misery.

Unfortunately, my ego-driven thinking is what, for me, makes writing a Sisyphean task (he was the one pushing the boulder up the hill, right? I’m too lazy to look it up).
I sit, watching Netflix, jotting ideas onto my Google Keep widget, and then nap, or mow the lawn (these things must be done! Who has time to write?!). I…just…can’t…ever…seem…to…get…started.

I won’t/can’t (sorry Anne, and sorry Stephen King, whose On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft I also recommend) get up at 4am and write until the family is awake. I don’t enjoy the “peace and quiet” when I’m sleep deprived. I also can’t stay awake until 2am to “produce some of my best work after the family is in asleep”. I also can’t set a rigid schedule for myself; I’m rigid enough as it is. I have brain freeze when I land on an Uber Eats menu because I can’t stop vacillating between the Pho (apparently properly pronounced ‘Fuh’) and the Pad Thai. Literally, I’ll click back-and-forth and add/remove them from my cart for twenty minutes or more.

Yes, I am seeing a professional, though I don’t believe we’ve ever discussed Pho (Fuh).

Miserably, my brain auto-creates a cruel loop. I get what I consider to be my most creative ideas either in the evening (while watching Netflix “When you should be writ”—shut up!), or late at night when I’m suffering from insomnia. But when I’m sleepless, I avoid any deep-thinking activity, like writing. (See? I have all the great writers’ symptoms, just none of their output.) I even have a little notebook by my bed. Do I use it? Never. Why? Because: “Oh, my God, this idea is so great, there is no way I’ll ever forge—”

Morning.

Poof.                                                                                                   

Even now, I am sitting on a tiny island, in a provincial park. There is not a soul for kilometers (in Canada we use those, not miles). I have no internet connection (MS Word is locally hosted). I brought my laptop with me specifically to get some writing done. I started one thing (a new chapter of a memoir I’ve been working on since I don’t remember when), then quit. I considered started another thing (scripts for a return to stand-up comedy, from a collection of undeveloped ideas on my Google Keep widget) and quit. Finally, here I am, writing about not writing.

All this flipping and flopping brought me to a point where, as I finally started to flesh out this silly idea (bless you, Dear Reader), my computer popped up a warning, “Avertissement! Système > Alimentation et batterie > 19%!”
My computer is configured in French (I live in Quebec. Many of us work in French here and have IT specialists who configure laptops in their native language.) Translation: Moron! In the time it took you do produce nothing fruitful, your laptop battery drained to 19%. (AutoSave on? Check.)

Please, don’t talk to me about longhand. I hate writing longhand!! My hand cramps, I’m a lefty so my pinky smudges the ink. Anyway, just no.

Isn’t that just perfect? See? In 11 minutes, my battery will die (literally and figuratively), and my lack of production will not really be my fault. The flipside to my laziness coin (cliché, I know, but suddenly I like “writing as though no one will read it”, it creates expedience) is that once I do start on something fleshy, that I enjoy kneading, I get locked in. I just go and go and go…until my laptop dies.

Then I get angry at the unfairness of it all. The chances I wasn’t given. The encouragement I never received as a child. I blame it on the world. Because, if not the world, whose faul