Craptastic. But Maybe Not.

I wrote an essay a couple of days ago because I wanted to get something written. Because I wanted to make some progress. Because I wanted to feel like I was still moving forward on some life purpose despite the tornado that has been my life for the last week.

And when I was done writing that essay, I labeled it "craptastic" in my brain. And on social media, so you know, it's official.

I've written before about how you should just write and try to withhold judgment until later. I've been doing pretty well with taking my own advice, although maybe I'm still judging if I'm giving my writing a "craptastic" label but then also agreeing with myself that I will read it at a later date (and decide what it actually is then).

I opened a file about two weeks ago for a fiction book I'd started working on in 2016. This was after I'd emerged from my two major surgeries and made up my mind to no longer waste my life. I'd gotten an outline down on paper, and a character list, and a setting, and various possible scenes. And then I started creating this new world in my Word document over the course of maybe two weeks.

And then I quit. I remember this vividly.

I was cradled in my love seat, trying to create a story but watching my fingers grind to a halt. And I remember sort of throwing my arms up in frustration and self-loathing.

"This sucks! I can't do this! I can't think of anything to write about, ever! Why am I even trying?!"

I closed the file and slammed the laptop shut, cried to my husband about how I can't ever seem to write, and I decided then and there that I would never write fiction. Never, not ever. The end. Forever and ever amen.

And that was that, for literally a year and a half.

A couple of weeks ago I got this weird itch to take a look and maybe see what was left. So I opened the file and started reading, mostly to see where I'd left off and maybe figure out if I might be able to make it go again. And I wasn't very far along when I sort of got lost in the world I had created. Like I was reading someone else's book.

And I kept telling myself, wow this is fantastic writing. It couldn't be mine. How is this mine? Really? This is mine? No.

I thumbed through my notes, which I also hadn't looked at in a year and a half, and was able to add about 500 words to that draft before sort of petering out again. At which point I started getting sucked back into the negativity with thoughts like: How can I possibly write anything else that good? How can I repeat what I did in those first 4000 words? How can I stretch this level of writing into a book? I can't. I just can't.

And then I walked away.

I've thought about that manuscript a lot since then, because I realized that it's the polar opposite of what I'd decided it was in 2016. And therefore I have arrived at the thesis for this blog: craptastic is maybe not craptastic. Maybe it's really not that bad. Maybe it's quite good. Maybe it's excellent, in fact.

I believe I am doing myself a disservice if I don't write at all because I always think it's terrible. Because there are times when I come back around and find that I was all wrong about myself. So I'm glad I wrote that craptastic essay the other day and I hope I can write another one soon. And then another, and another. And before I know it maybe I'll have a book worth reading.

Maybe. In 2018. That's my goal.