I just sent a message to a few friends. What I want, of course, is for them to reply that I’m not really insane. That this kind of thing is normal and happens to the best of us. I won’t believe them.
Thought I’d share it with you too, because, hey, this is my life as a writer at the moment. The other side of the coin when the writing’s not going well, when indeed you’re wondering: What’s the point of my life?
What I wrote:
I think I’m going insane. Yesterday, I accidentally overwrote all my work on a course module, then started it again, then watched myself (in a fog of something) click NO to saving the changes, and lost it again. I had a complete and total meltdown – the kind in which you pace and cry and scream and want to kill something and you even look at the dog for a millesecond before you throw your beloved thesaurus (not the pocket-sized kind) across the room hard enough to break it in half down the spine. I think in psychiatry they call this “devolving.”
And then today, I couldn’t get stuff on the laptop to work right (or maybe myself to work right) while in a coffeehouse for my supposed lunch hour, and I turned into one of those crazies you sometimes see muttering to themselves and swearing under their breaths and making loony-tune faces.
AND THEN: I somehow forgot that I was on a teleconference call, UNmuted, and proceeded to throw a fit at my computer complete with the f-bomb, and I was pretty darned audible. And it was a childish fit – completely mortifying and I can’t stop obsessing about my mortification. My cheeks are still burning up two hours later.
Something’s seriously wrong with me these days.
—
So maybe you’re thinking that my subconsious is telling me something. As if I didn’t already know that I’m veering off my best path! Yesterday as I was coming off my meltdown I ruminated as follows: I need money, and I’m only technical-writing for the money. Well then, if I’m going to work for the money, why don’t I attempt to write a romance or a paranormal or a suspense novel? I mean, if I’m working for money wouldn’t writing any type of fiction be better than what I’m currently doing?
Last night, I had to laugh (maybe there’s hope for me yet), however. I’m reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, and I happened to read this passage: …and I’ll spend my declining years in a grimy bed-sit, with my teeth falling out one by one. Oh, I can see it all now: No one will buy my books, and I’ll ply Sidney (read: editor/agent) with tattered, illegible manuscripts, which he’ll pretend to publish out of pity. Doddering and muttering, I’ll wander the streets carrying my pathetic turnips in a string bag (picture my beloved thesaurus), with newspaper tucked into my shoes…Oh God. This way lies insanity.
That’s exactly how I felt, how I have been feeling.
P.S. Later: Just discovered the teleconference session was recorded, and my fit of pique — to put it quaintly — is out there for all the muckety-mucks to hear — again.
5 comments on “INSANITY | My Poor Thesaurus”
coool
Lisa, OMG, I’m doing the kind of laughing that is the sympathy-oh-yes-I’ve-been-there kind of laughter. It all seems so screamingly awful that it is unbelievable. That thing where you wrote and lost it and then rewrote and said “no” to changes? Oh, I have done that!!!! I don’t know what it is!!! But yes, and you will not believe me, I just did it yesterday.
And the phone call thing? Just hold your head up and keep going. They might have been surprised at the f word but they will deep down completely understand. And will likely never mention it. Becasue they’ve already forgotten. No kidding.
Time out. ice cream. fancy coffee. a home&garden magazine. These are all “fix its” for what you migh be feeling. Go on. treat yourself.
I hope everything is going well with you, Lisa, since this post. This post is worrisome, though I should tell you it’s something I would _totally_ do too!
Oh Lisa! It is very, very hard, coming off a lovely year of writing and having to re-enter the world of writing for money, which is never the same as writing for love of what you are writing. No wonder you are throwing things.
Cut yourself some slack, okay? xoxoxo
what would mrs. salem say??!! (about the thesaurus i mean…..)