Draft four

I’m not looking for sympathy. This is just something I need to say.

It’s 8:30 on a Tuesday night. I’ve had the day off at the suggestion of a few people, but now it’s back to working on my fourth draft of a piece. I started writing properly last week. I’ve averaged a draft a day since. Not because I have a particularly brutal editor or warped view of the topic. No, the only brutal editor I need is myself, critiquing every word I’ve written. It’s torture of a special kind.

These feelings are ad nauseam. No matter what I try, I can’t turn them off. They result in tears, anxiety, more tears, and eventual resignation, plaguing the process from beginning to end. The tone makes it sound too much like a eulogy. In the bin. It sounds too dry. In the bin. It’s not cleverly interwoven enough. In the bin.

When I read other writers, their words flow other each other like the smoothest paint, creating beautiful images of thought and passion that coalesce in the most seamless fashion. And despite their talent, I see them struggle to find employment and recognition.

I sit here feeling slow. Painfully, embarrassingly slow. Feeling like a fraud once again. These days, unlike once upon a time, there are fabulous moments, exhilarating moments, where the words flow into place, create the image and communicate what I wish them to. But there are still moments that I sit here, feeling hopeless, untalented, shallow. Rinse and repeat, again and again.

Back to draft #5…