Genuinely hating the fact that people have to look really closely at art to see whether it's AI or not and like, zooming in and pointing out the little bits that don't match.

Because like, it's really fucking hard for me to calm down on obsessive details and trying to make everything perfect and make sense, to make sure that every lock of hair has an invisible follow line.

I get so bogged down in details that I ruin my art and the only thing that's been able to save me so far is to repeat to myself that no one fucking cares if this doesn't match up perfectly. But they do now. Everyone cares. We are zooming in on artworks and pointing out things that could have just been overlooked as human error.

Machine generated art means I feel like I'm not allowed to have human error any more. I have to be pixel perfect. I can't just vibe. I can't even imply.

And I think about that and become too exhausted to even start.

suic/de + self h*rm cw

ive been just listening to one song on repeat thinkinh about music produces who died specifically killed themselves and reading the comments on their songs afterwards we all really do love each other even if we dont know each other even if we've never met it's so easy to be sad over a life lost esp seeing it from someone your age.. and maybe we want to say it's only valued bc he put something out in the world but everyone contributes somehow someone out there is going to miss your music or your art or the jokes you tell or remember how kind you were once and even if they wont cry over you they're still gonna miss you even just a little when we hear someone died we send our regards we think about them we pray for them even when we didnt know them bc any life lost is sad and people feel sad and we love each other even when you dont feel loved even when you think nobody cares strangers will feel for you even the people who love you the wrong way will be moved bc they still loved you and idk it's weird people just miss things that are gone i think we all know life is precious and wonderful and sacred and good even if we dont think our own is which is hypocritical ig idk idk it feels weird sometimes sometimes i think i dont care about anything that im too apathetic and mean but i cry over a stranger dying i think i can do that for people closer idk i have a hard time thinking about now and the future i just avoid and run away from anything and dont care how it will bite me in the ass until its biting its such a shit habit im trying to fix idk

i feel so detached from everything and everyone i dont feel real sometimes not like a real friend or a real person or a real part of any family but ig whenever i wanted to die in the past it was never about whether people would be better off w/o me or not i just couldnt care less and maybe that's cruel not caring whether you hurt people or not but i cant even make myself care about being awful like that idk

i put things off bc i cant be bothered to care and everytime someone asks what im afraid of its something like "im afraid i'll never be happy" but that's not even true bc if i could live unhappily like this forever i probably wouldnt mind but it's the fact imso apathetic w life itself and the only thing im afraid of is disappointing people im not going anywhere in life bc i avoid thinking about my future bc i dont care but i do care about pissing off and disappointing everyone around me and i just get mad bc like i stopped caring forever ago idk how everyone could watch me give up on school senior year literally doing nothing and not caring and not one person reached out the summer before senior year i tried to kill myself and all i got was my parents saying its cruel to want to hurt yourself when people love you and awkwardly asking how im feeling the next few weeks after it felt so stupid having them corner me to talk and asking if i ever thought of hurting myself when i was wearing a hoodie in the middle of the summer bc i actually this is too embarrassing to say but whatever

i just feel like such a failure rn ik im not and im actually okay w putting stuff off to start at a later date even though it's all happening bc im a loser who cant care enough to get easy things done but the thought of telling [people] and disappointing them/pissing them off is too scary to me idk what im gonna do i always get an urge to just run away from my problems but that's stupid idk how to tell people i just dont have any passion or motivation bc i just suck sorry i keep telling myself to try harder but i dont idk how to start caring about my life bc i dont think people wi take it as an excuse to say "sorry i cant be bothered to care about my future bc frankly i wouldnt mind if i was just hit by a truck tomorrow or any day now" idk i keep trying to be better about things and like i said idrc that im starting even slower than im already going i just dont have excuses for why and ik nobody is gonna listen to them anyway i think i just wish i had parents i could talk to even if we just fought or something theres just no communication

idk im not in a bad place tbh im not thinking about killing myself or disappearing or anything im just sad w myself im always disappointing myself and setting myself up in bad situations on purpose for no reason other than idk somethings wrong w me or something im not that worried about my distant future ik it will all be okay my chest has just been really tight and sad lately and ive been thinking a lot none of this is anything serious or anything that needs to be worried about

[DONT RB] ok so there’s no way for me to talk abt this that isn’t gonna make me look like an absolute dumbass but im in the middle of a creative existential crisis and i rly need help figuring it out :•( this is gonna get SUPER LONG so im putting it under a readmore. thank u to anyone who reads this!!! and double thank u to anyone who can give some input / advice, i rly rly appreciate it. im sorry abt the length!

aight so for some background.... ive been drawing n writing poetry for abt 5 yrs now and both of those things r rly important to me. in school im an english major w a creative writing minor (for the poetry) and i work as a graphic designer (for the art) so ive been growing a lot as an artist and writer esp in the past 2 yrs and im kinda workin towards one or the other (or ideally both somehow!) as a career. one of the biggest dreams ive had since i started seriously pursuing both of these hobbies 5 yrs ago is to publish a book of poetry that i design / illustrate myself, and also to have a portfolio online where ppl can read all of my poetry and see all of my artwork (both professional / work stuff but also archives of all of my sketchbooks since those r rly important to me!!!) and maybe even make some sort of online shop where ppl can buy my art (stickers, keychains, etc!) and my poetry books!

that sounds pretty simple right? WRONG!!!!!! why? bc im a fucking idiot! and there are several dumb things i do that make this dream completely impossible for me to achieve! love that for me!

so for starters... ive been posting (almost) all of my art and ALL of my poetry online for all 5 yrs ive been creating it. that’s bad because:

ive hardly ever used my real name (which i would want to use for the book / shop / portfolio), it’s been under my usernames / aliases that go along w them (p*pe, pep, pea, etc and related usernames that shall not be mentioned) and i started going by my real first name only abt a yr ago, but still maintain those usernames for the most part in conjunction w my real name

my work has been primarily been posted to d*viantart and tumblr which aren’t exactly the most uh... professional places to do that. not that there rly are many i guess lmao but still

my online persona on these platforms is rly like. lax and loose which is Cool And Quirky when brought into a professional setting if it’s done right i guess.... but im just immature and unprofessional. i swear all the time, i shitpost constantly, im incessantly tmi? and that’s not even it like it’s just a whole mess!

SO there’s that whole set of problems and like im just concerned because... i stopped posting art online last yr for the most part and a lot of the old stuff that’s on dA (since that was rly where i did it most) is bad and not worth sharing like that anyways, so im not as worried abt that. but my poetry.... i still actively post that online in all my messiness and candidness here and like. it’s rly not that hard to find me? like if u copy a poem of mine and put it in google it’ll pull up my dA right away! and that’s like.... GOD i just am embarrassed for anyone irl to see that or for that to be connected with my irl / professional self in the future, but i don’t want to stop posting my work there (or here!!!!!) bc the community is so supportive and ive made some rly good connections / built a lot of traction over the 5 yrs ive been doing it. (PLUS for the online portfolio i wanna do specifically... i kinda want to post all of my art and poetry there, like everything ive ever done (specifically poetry, ive written almost 500 poems over the 5 yrs ive been doing it!), but i feel like that’s not rly the most professional thing to do and idk how to even gauge whether it is or not :-/)

but that’s not all!!!! because there’s another part to this and that is: the very nature of the content i produce is Not Good! for my art it’s not as much of a problem bc since I work as an artist rn a lot of what i make is professional, but for my personal art... a lot of that is either self portraits or my characters and a lot of my characters are like. animals. like specifically pepe (who is basically Me As A Cat).... i draw her constantly and so much of my best work is of her but it’s just like? embarrassing i guess for my ocs to take up so much of my portfolio and sketchbooks and stuff and share that. like i know everyone has characters and it’s not bad to do that and share that but i feel like ppl will judge me :-( so it’s made me rly hesitant to post stuff to my art ig for example bc i just don’t fucking know how to act, like it’s bad enough that i can’t type the way i want to and i have to type in proper caps n whatever instead bc irls i don’t know / trust as well follow me (including some ppl from work? Yikes?)....... but i feel like i can’t share my sketchbook stuff for example bc it’s all cats and my characters and visual shitposts and im uncomfy to share that bc like... im almost 20 and i don’t want ppl to think im immature or whatever? i kno i should feel like it’s my account and i can post wot i want but like. i fucking can’t bro i just can’t!!

and THEN.... my poetry. that’s the biggie bc like for my art? even tho im uncomfortable i don’t mind sharing that w ppl i know irl but for my POETRY.... it’s very easy to find like where i share that i guess? (the google thing i mentioned earlier but also its linked to my art on here and dA too... f) but i literally never actively share my writing w irl ppl unless im performing @ an open mic or workshopping in class bc im fucking terrified of the possibility of irl ppl finding my poetry. it’s almost ironic how public ive been w it online but how private i am abt it irl... it’s like im living a double life and it’s fucking terrible but it’s the only way i feel safe. bc like art is what i do for other ppl and also to destress and vent when i need a quick fix on my own time. but poetry.... that’s personal, it’s where i feel most like myself, it’s how i talk abt my life and ppl in it and make meaning of things and talk abt things authentically and Get Deep. and my literal worst nightmare is for ppl (who have the explicit ability to by virtue of Knowing Me) to read into it and Understand what im talking abt and have that power over me and see me differently for feeling the way i do or doing what i do. ive actually already been burned by this before after my mom read some work of mine that had been published irl (i don’t want to get too into it but basically i retroactively outed myself thru her reading that poem for what it was and it was Very Very Bad) and as paranoid abt it as i was before, it’s even worse now that it’s actually happened to me and could happen again at any time, esp if i decide to take my work further.

that manifests in a few ways too, like my writing is so cryptic and vague and very heavy on metaphors / symbolism and shit partially out of that deep fear and need to shield myself and my work. sometimes in spaces where i do feel comfy sharing, ppl have a hard time understanding my poetry unless i give context. online and on stage and in workshop ppl don’t rly know me outside of a context where the only thing we have in common is self expression thru poetry, so i don’t rly mind sharing more when it’s appropriate. but if i were to share my work as a book or w/e, ppl im close to (who maybe don’t always think like a poet / artist does bc they aren’t that) would want to buy it and read it and might ask abt what it means and i don’t even know what i would do in that situation. and if ppl were to read my work and see themselves / others in it, whether it is abt them or not, im scared it could genuinely damage relationships like it did with my mom.

SO UH.... idk where im going w this rly, i kno it’s long and rambly and melodramatic and im probably overthinking it and making a mountain out of a molehill and nobody even knows / cares abt me AND my work @ the same time enough to read That Deep into it. but it just fucking sucks that im so uncomfortable and insecure that i can’t comfortably fulfill literally the one single long term goal / life dream that i have. andthe thing that sucks is i can’t talk to Anybody abt this except like... my sister and brother bc they’re the only ppl i genuinely tell everything to, but they don’t have the knowledge and expertise abt art / poetry that like... my poetry prof does, for example. and my poetry prof is one of the best ppl ive ever met and the Only person ive ever met irl who respects and understands my poetry in the exact way i need someone to. she and i have been talking and she rly wants to help me publish my poetry bc she sees merit in my work and knows how bad i want to / how successful it’s been already, but i don’t know how to talk abt this to her bc im embarrassed to tell her abt posting online and being ashamed abt my muses and all that and it just!!! sucks so much bc i kinda want to publish my work @ least once before i graduate and do it semi regularly for the rest of my life? but there’s so much in my way and it’s just! FGGFHDGJGGGG

The proactive homeowner: How to stay on top of home improvement

Yesterday was an exciting day at the Rothwards household! After three weeks of demolition and construction, we installed our new hot tub. It took six men an hour of maneuvering before we managed to set the spa into placebut we did it. And we didnt break anything. Now its a matter of completing the decking and roofing, then Kim and I will be able to enjoy our remodeled outdoor oasis!

Were eager for construction to be over. Since buying our English cottage last summer, weve poured tons of money and time into a variety of renovations. Its been a non-stop construction zone. You see, during the seventeen years the previous owners lived here, they performed very little maintenance and upkeep on the home and property. When we had the place inspected before purchase, the inspector raised a lot of concerns:

The inspection report was so dire that Kim and I almost passed on the purchase. After we did decide to buy the place, I vowed that Id be a proactive homeowner. Instead of allowing things to fall into a state of disrepair, I wanted to fix everything that was broken and then stay on top of home improvement in the years to come. Today I want to share four specific actions Ive taken to try to be a proactive homeowner. Develop a Schedule for Regular Maintenance A great place to start with home improvement is to find (or create) a regular maintenance schedule. While youll definitely have projects specific to your own house (about which more in a moment), there are certain chores that ought to be done on a routine basis. Here in Oregon, for instance, gutters should be cleaned both at the start and the end of the rainy season (late October and late April). Spring is a good time to wash windows, inside and out. Its also time to clean and set up outdoor furniture. During the summer, I like to trim trees and shrubs back from the side of the house. Fall is a good time to inspect the attic and crawlspace. To create our maintenance schedule, I started with this home maintenance checklist [Google Doc] based on an article from The Art of Manliness. I tweaked the document to fit our needs, adding and removing things specific to our home. Ive also discovered that its useful to add certain recurring tasks to my digital calendar. (Im never going to remember to change the furnace filter unless I make an appointment with myself to do so.) Create a House-Specific To-Do List

While its helpful to have a general maintenance schedule to remind you of regular tasks, its even more important to keep an up-to-date to-do list thats specific to your home. I keep our to-do list in Basecamp, a web-based project-management tool that I already use for other projects. (Ive heard good things about Asana too, although Ive never used it.) You might keep your to-do list in a spreadsheet or even a spiral notebook. For each room in the house and area of the property, I keep a separate list of tasks that need to be completed. To start, I populated these lists in two ways: I went through the pre-purchase inspection report and added every problem the inspector had flagged. Some of the stuff he noted was minor. In these cases, I made sure to mark the task as low priority.Kim and I made a slow tour of our home and yard in order to catalog other projects we wanted to complete. For example, every room in the house needs new paint. Every corner of the yard needs to be weeded and re-landscaped. We refer to our to-do list constantly. Whenever we have a free weekend for home maintenance (as we did last weekendand this coming weekend), we check the list to see which tasks are most pressing and/or most appealing. Finally and this is important (if somewhat obvious) whenever we find a new project that needs to be tackled, we add it to our list. By keeping our home projects to-do list up to date, needed maintenance should never be neglected. Keep a Home Journal Before we even moved in to our current home, I started keeping a home journal to log everything we learned about the place. Honestly, its one of the smartest things Ive ever done. I keep this home journal in a Microsoft Word document. (Ive uploaded an edited version to Google Docs for you all to look at.) Every time we do major work on the house, I make an entry in the journal. Every time we discover something new about the property, I make a note in the journal. Heres a typical entry from my home journal:

Each note includes a date and the type of work done, then a narrative description giving more detail. In some cases, I document costs. Most of the time, however, we keep receipts and invoices and other documentation in a dedicated Dropbox folder, which is where the home journal lives too. This journal is mostly meant for me. From past experience, I know that Ill forget what work we did when, which usually leads to a frustrating search for documentation. With my home journal, I have all of the needed info in one place. This home journal has a secondary purpose. I want to use it as documentation if/when Kim and I decide to sell this place. I want to be able to show prospective buyers all of the upgrades we made to the house. (Note that this benefit is purely theoretical. When we sold our motorhome recently, we learned that many buyers view work like this as evidence theres something wrong with what youre selling.) On a similar note, its smart to perform periodic video tours of your home and property. These are useful not only for you but also in the event of an insured loss, such as robbery or house fire. When shopping for a house, I film every home I tour. After buying and moving into a new place, I do another pass through with the camera. Going forward, I try to do a video tour about once per year. Build a List of Trusted Contractors Over the past fifteen years, Ive learned that contractors come in all kinds of flavors. Some are cheap. Some are fast. Some do quality work. Ive also learned that its impossible to find a contractor that possesses all three traits. Two of them? Sure. But not all three. (In other words, if a contractor is fast and high-quality, shes going to be expensive.) When we started looking for homes last Spring, my friend Emma Pattee who has experience buying and remodeling rental properties suggested that I start a spreadsheet to list trusted contractors. My husband and I have done this for a while now, she told me, and it really helps. When we find somebody we like to work with (or think we might want to work with in the future), we add them to the spreadsheet. Ill send you our current list, if youd like. Kim and I have referenced Emmas spreadsheet to find plumbers and electricians. Weve also started building our own list of contractors we trust. (For instance, we love the guy who did our carport. We hired him to do our back deck project too. Hes not cheap, but his quality is amazing!) Even with a list of trusted contractors, its important to follow standard advice when hiring folks to work on your place: Get price quotes from multiple sources. Its smart to know what your options are even if you ultimately dont go with the lowest bidder.Seek referrals. When youre ready to hire somebody for a project, ask your friends (Facebook is good for this) and contractors youve liked in the past. Ive found that good contractors know who the other good contractors are, and theyre happy to recommend them.Ask for references. If you havent worked with a contractor before, request contact info from past clients. These references will be cherry picked, of course, but theyll still give you some idea of what the company is like.Check reviews on Angies List (or similar sites). View these reviews through skeptical eyes, but check to see if theres some sort of pattern. Ive been able to rule out potential contractors, for instance, because of multiple reviews complaining about lack of communication. Searching for new contractors can be a little scary. You dont want to make a mistake by choosing somebody whos too expensive or whose work is shoddy. (Or, worse, both at once!) By maintaining a list of trusted vendors, you can reduce some of the trepidation. Plus, the list is something useful you can share with friends and family! Theres No Place Like Home I also think its smart to set aside money for future repairs and improvements. One common financial rule of thumb is to contribute 1% of your homes value to a dedicated home maintenance savings account each year. After Kim and I are done with this initial round of work, well probably do so. The deck and hot tub project should be our final large home-improvement expense for many, many years. During the past eleven months, weve repaired and/or replaced every major system in this house. Sure, theres still some small stuff that needs done we want to paint each room, for instance but these jobs are minor. Theyre things we can do ourselves for cheap. Honestly, Im looking forward to some peace and quiet. Its been exhausting to live and work in a construction zone! First, though, Im going to have our house inspected again. After plowing so many resources into repairing and renovating this place, I want to have a neutral third party go back through to make sure weve addressed all of the important issues and that these issues have been handled correctly. As frustrating (and expensive) as the past year has been, we dont regret buying this house. We love it here. We want to continue loving this place, which means were going to do our best to stay on top of maintenance and home improvements. Were going to do our best to be proactive homeowners. https://www.getrichslowly.org/home-improvement/

(CW: abstract discussions of abuse, several heaping spoonfuls of new-adult angst. Also, length—this is like 2,000 words lol)

This particular story, such as it is, starts with me chatting with a very close friend of mine over Skype, and looking through my email at the same time. (Me and this friend are the type of close where we Skype once a week and they play video games or code while I browse the Internet and watch whatever they’re up to, so a certain amount of multitasking is par for the course.) I’m a big fan of StoryBundle and related stuff, so when I came across their Write Stuff 2017 bundle (https://storybundle.com/writing), I remember that I’d bought a similar bundle of theirs last year, and went to check it out.

It actually wasn’t the first time I’d looked it over. I’ve been trying to give up writing for the past several months, and been through a similar cycle several times: get fed up with the pressure of writing, decide to give up on writing altogether, feel a lot better, start thinking about writing again—without so much as opening a document or a notebook. Reading the descriptions for the bundle got me thinking about the whole pattern, and I said out loud to my friend, “Reading about writing feels like looking through an ex’s Facebook.”

Then I stopped and thought about what I’d said, because it did. That was exactly what it felt like. So I started to wonder why.

~

As a white, male, able-bodied 20-something in the United States who attended a liberal arts college and tries to be at least politically aware, if not politically active, I find the narrative of abuse survival to be one that’s ineffectual to apply to myself. Have I been in some shitty situations with people? 

…Yeah. I have. 

Have I caused some shitty situations? Without a shadow of a doubt, though I’m pretty hopeful about the idea that I’ve never been outright abusive. Certainly I’ve never been so intentionally, but intention can only get a person so far.  

I struggled for a long time with the idea that I may have experienced abusive situations in my childhood and beyond, and now I’m more or less at peace with the idea that abuse is a narrative that I don’t feel comfortable applying to my life experiences so far. I heard a lot about abuse growing up—which is good, it’s absolutely vital to spread that knowledge—but not a lot about what to do and how to go forward when a relationship is just shit, and that left me stuck for a while. It really wasn’t fun.

Still, eventually, I figured out an answer to the latter question I’m comfortable with. I don’t need to be able to prove, to myself or anyone else, that a relationship is abusive for me to want to leave it. I think more people out there need to remember that, especially because the myth of needing proof is often used by abusers themselves.

To believe and be properly sympathetic to people who had undergone abuse, I had to understand that their concerns were not my concerns—that I am not, in my head, part of the “survivors of abuse” identity group. Anything else was harmful to me, and both disrespectful and detrimental to the people I might encounter during my attempts to be a good ally.

Abuse, at the moment, isn’t a helpful way for me to frame my relationships. Negativity and toxicity, on the other hand, absolutely are. I started feeling a lot less anxious when I started applying more shades of subtlety to my emotions and experiences.

~

Time and circumstance can change relationship dynamics a lot. Lately, I’ve reconnected with a friend whom I’d labeled “toxic” pretty vibrantly in my head, and whom I’ve got a complicated history with. I turned the idea over in my head for months, dismissing it as a bad idea with more and more reluctance each time. In the end, fairly sure of the reasonableness of the idea, I followed through on the impulse to contact them online. Turns out the friend was not only still happy to hear from me, they were in a much better place than they’d been back when I cut off contact. And I’m in a better place now, too. They don’t test my boundaries anymore, and even if they did, I’d feel much more sure about enforcing them.

Having this friend back in my life has been enjoyable and enriching. Another source of support in life is always welcome.

I’ve made some new friends, too, and both reconnecting with sour friendships and making new ones that I’m okay with require a certain amount of emotional resilience. I’ve been trying to cultivate a strong sense of self-worth, agency, and self-reliability independent of those friendships, and it’s been helping.  

I’m not quite sure what to call the more welcoming side of those efforts, though. Tolerance, forgiveness, and patience all have different undertones. I think it’s somewhere between the three, and I’m still testing out the way those nuances shift depending on the specific circumstance. And they all start with an awareness of my own limits, and the feeling that I’m always allowed to stop and walk away.

~

Anyway, this was a story about writing. Setting boundaries for yourself is important, I thought, as I considered where the thought of “writing as shitty ex” had come from. If I kept shying away from writing all this time, then maybe it really was a toxic relationship.

The problem is, writing isn’t a person. I don’t ascribe very hard to any one particular class of thought or pedagogy when it comes to writing, either, so as far as I can tell that isn’t the difficulty. It’s still possible that outside influences are building up and forming an unpleasant imagined persona, like an unwelcoming audience. But for a little while now, I’ve been trying to curtail instances of random exposure to the displeasure of strangers, and by now that influence has noticeably lessened. So what was going on?

When I thought about it in those terms, it wasn’t too hard to reach a perplexing conclusion: I’m in a bad relationship with writing, and I’m the only person in that relationship.

I’m all the moving parts. Just me. Which led me to wonder, what am I doing to myself that I haven’t consciously realized?

~

I recently started tutoring a couple of kids in creative writing through Skype call. (Someone thought it was a good idea to put an advertisement on a freelancing website, instead of a tutoring-specific one, but that’s another story, and one that I know very little about.) The first couple of lessons were a little bit awkward, until one of the parents clued me in to the idea of working through prompts in class, instead of assigning things and providing feedback. Then a couple of online resources mentioned the idea of working along with the kids on exercises, so I tried that, too.

I would’ve figured it was a bad idea, putting them on the spot or accidentally showing off, but so far both strategies seem to be working. It’s been good to show that even a teacher can’t think of everything on a tight schedule, that what I come up with is imperfect or incomplete. And better still, I’ve gotten into the habit of waiting a little longer for answers, continuing to ask prompt past the first, dubious or hesitant response. I’ve been asking a lot of “Why?”, and making games out of brainstorming. It’s been fun, and I’d like to think I’m not the only one learning.

I think I’ve forgotten how important patience is in writing, as in many other things.

~

One summer, between semesters of college, I tried living with friends. It was a lot of fun, but there were parts that were very stressful—specifically, the coming-up-with-rent part. I managed to land a decent ghostwriting job, but it wasn’t enough to keep up with bills, not by a long shot. (I was extremely privileged to have parents that were willing to come up with some of the difference, without which I would have been very ill-advised even to try.) So I tried to balance an internship or two alongside it, which ultimately led to me keeping abreast of chores and stressing instead of working on everything else.

Near the end of the summer, desperately trying to make up a huge word deficit on a ghostwriting project, I set myself a goal: 24,000 words in 24 hours. A quota of 1,000 words an hour, with permission to do whatever I wanted each hour, after hitting that point.

I managed it, almost getting to the end of the piece. I don’t think I so much as opened the document for eight weeks afterward. I blew far past the intended deadline, and in the meantime, my client moved on to greener writing pastures. I was never paid for that project.

I didn’t realize until years later that ever since then, something related to the writing part of me has felt injured—that it feels like something got sprained inside.

~

People talk about their inner editors. Whatever that particular force in my head is, I’m not sure it counts as just an editor anymore.

My editorial sense is just fine when it comes to other people. I like providing developmental edits. I’m good at line-editing and formatting. I’ve interned at a literary agency, and, as mentioned above, worked as a ghostwriter before that. I occasionally beta-read fanfic and/or critique friends’ work for fun. I like fixing other people’s writing, and I like meeting them where they are in their efforts to improve their technique.

Moreover, I’m pretty confident of my technical writing ability. I know how to put together a sentence. I’m as susceptible to typos as the next person, but otherwise my error rate is pretty low. I’ve got a working sense of structure, pacing, and style. I actually know how to format dialogue correctly, how to use a long dash and a semicolon, and the difference between a too-long sentence and a run-on.

That doesn’t mean I don’t still have a long way to go—that’s the nature of writing. (See: I write long sentences even when I shouldn’t, and I’m far too fond of italics.) But I’m not all that self-conscious about any of that, really. It doesn’t bug me.

No, I’m just completely certain of my inability to have ideas. Or, having miraculously had an idea that I didn’t immediately tear to pieces, to actually sit down and start. Or, having started, to muddle through the middle, let alone finish. Or, having somehow finished, to have the self-discipline to do any revision whatsoever.

I “know” these things just won’t ever happen—that I “can,” but that I won’t. And I “know” that I shouldn’t give up on one of my most-developed skills. But when I finally gave myself permission to give up—to move on to something I haven’t built up to be so utterly wraught—I felt a lot better. And thus the cycle began.

Even getting to that point—feeling like I deserved a chance to walk away—was in itself a kind of growth. But I think I’m ready to try moving beyond it. I’m just not sure what direction “beyond” will be in.

~

I’m slowly circling around a choice. Like water spiraling around a drain, or one of those pennies in a black-hole model at the mall. (Anyone else remember those?) I could try to break free—I’m fairly certain that I can, to whatever degree I want, though there would be parts of it that would hurt. But I don’t think I want to.

I’m not going to let writer-me take over my life again anytime soon. I don’t want to give him any power, because or the past few years he’s done the opposite of earn it. But I might be willing to get back together with him, for a bit of a trial run. The equivalent of a re-friending on Facebook and maybe catching up over coffee.

I find myself curious as to how it might go.