Writing…

I’m having a hard time writing at the moment. It’s not a lack of ideas, it’s more a lack of passion. I discovered writing when I was in my teens and loved it. I felt compelled to write down my every idea, thought and feeling. I kept a diary, I wrote most days. It wasn’t a choice, it was as natural as waking up, as natural as eating.

I wrote thousands of stories and seven novels, I wrote reviews and articles that appeared in magazine all over the place, but I wasn’t ready to share my fiction. I wanted to keep it for myself. I didn’t edit hardly any of it because I hate editing.

Then one summer, lacking ideas for my latest novel, I decided to edit the ones I had already written. I worked my way through all of them, and then again. Pretty soon I’d been editing for two years, and hadn’t written anything. For me editing takes the passion out of writing, it makes writing lose the magic that makes it special.

I haven’t written anything substantial for several years now. The fire that burned inside me is almost out. I have no lack of imagination, no lack of inspiration, just a lack of sitting my arse down and writing.

Writing now seems like a chore rather than a joy. In fact most things in adulthood seem like a chore. But some chores take priority, like earning money to pay the bills.

I’m not focused on writing like I was before. I have too many other hobbies that take up too much time.

I still write a short story occasionally, although I now have to push myself. When I do a spark of that old fire comes back, the joy returns while I weave my world from words. But I need a kick-start, I need something to push me.

Whilst threatened with redundancy earlier in the year I planned to write a book and to learn a language, at least until I found another job. Fortunately the redundancy didn’t happen, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to spend doing the things I would really like to do.

My latest idea was to get my books proof-read by a professional and start submitting them, but that’s actually fairly expensive if you want it done properly, and trust me, from what I can remember of my last (fourth) edits of my novels, they need to be looked at properly.

So I sit, filling up a blank screen with my moaning instead of writing another story, one I have an idea for. About a private detective who is visited by a beautiful woman who brings with her a box that kills people when it’s opened. Ok, so it’s not that original, but I could do something with it.

May be I would try and see where it takes me…

Work… It’s shite

I don’t normally let work get to me. I’m a fairly easy going person, and I’ve worked in the same place (although doing slightly different jobs) for almost ten years. I’m an administrator in a large public company, so very unexciting for the most part.

I’ve been fortunate so far. I generally don’t have to do too much work and can get away with doing more important things in my work-time, such as looking at porn, playing on myspace, writing (when I get some occasional peace!), and reading things that I probably shouldn’t be reading at work. I see these as perks of the job that make up for the poor wages.

Apathy is killing my career. In fact, it’s only this year that I’ve begun to think of my job as a career. Before I turned thirty-three it was always a job, just a job, and eventually I’ll get a proper job. With real money. And real work.

But at the beginning of this year something started to change. I got a lot more work to do, not only enough to fill my time (which was pretty well filled with my hobbies anyway), but it spilled over into my time and made me quite stressed. I cut out the hobbies and found I had a little more time to fit in work-related stuff. Then the work continued to pile up.

It’s still continuing, the work is still piling up, due to a merger our department had with another department. Right now I’m doing far too much work and my easy life is over. The thing that makes it worse is that the threat of redundancy has been hanging over us since January and still no one quite knows what’s going on, not even the managers. Which really can’t be good.

The sheer amount of work I have to do is finally getting to me, and I think I’m gonna have a meltdown sometime soon. Last week I made an error which will cost the department money. This week, the week yet to come, we will be running something we shouldn’t be running due to a miscommunication that could be construed as my fault, although strictly speaking it wasn’t.

Also this week I have to fill in a form to say why they should keep me. As if it isn’t obvious!  

Right now I’m thinking unemployment can’t be that bad! I’d get a lot more time to read and to write and watch porn and horror films that I record on cable. Except cable might have to go to save a bit of cash, and new books will be impossible. And I might have to cut down the broadband too, no more myspace, no more porn… What other hobbies are not cost effective?

Work sucks. But what’s the alternative?