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When I am having a hard time, I tend not to engage social media much; I have been having a very hard time lately. The physical depredations and ills associated with scleroderma are very much kicking my ass. While none of them taken separately are life-threatening--though my lungs are kind of fucked, and, you know, breathing is nice--all of them together: seriously diminishing my quality of life. I am so angry at my body, angry, exhausted trying to deal with it all while working full time and living alone, defeated because there's very little energy, time, or focus left over for writing and I start to feel very pointless when I don't write. Tired of pain, just, tired.
I've had some planned blog posts, on writing-related topics, but right now, this is all there is. I cannot huddle up with a partner or physically-present family member to deal with this stuff, so I guess I'd better write about it, because huddling up alone with it is making me want to die. Last night's thought: move to Oregon, live until all three of my current cats have finished happy, well-cared for lives, and then check myself out of this increasingly icky and unhappy mortal coil. (I wouldn't check out without honoring my responsibilities, and I wouldn't leave my beloved kitties to suffer--really, I wrote a story about this stuff, "Brilliance.")
What I pictured at nine, ten, eleven, my first years of writing fiction: a life writing novels and seeing them published and out in the world, being read and disappeared into the way I loved to disappear into books, giving back some of what books and their authors gave me. Despite having some talent with words, voice, and yes, novel-writing, it hasn't played out that way. Only one of my books has so far seen the light of publication, I can't seem to get traction or hit it right in the publishing world, I am so far from being a publicist or public persona that I am just not able to compete in the current reality. So, perhaps the life I envisioned, though I've worked diligently for it and at it for a major portion of my 51 years, just isn't going to happen. I don't have the support, the chops, the luck, and now, the energy. I'm not saying I give up, I will keep writing and sending shit out, but I have seriously lost faith in it ever coming to anything even remotely resembling a satisfying career--like say, more than one novel published, a readership, some reward and recognition to buoy me up now and then...
I keep thinking of that Beckett quote, "I can't go on, I'll go on." But, lord, I'm ready to be uploaded to my robot body. This one SUCKS.
I've had some planned blog posts, on writing-related topics, but right now, this is all there is. I cannot huddle up with a partner or physically-present family member to deal with this stuff, so I guess I'd better write about it, because huddling up alone with it is making me want to die. Last night's thought: move to Oregon, live until all three of my current cats have finished happy, well-cared for lives, and then check myself out of this increasingly icky and unhappy mortal coil. (I wouldn't check out without honoring my responsibilities, and I wouldn't leave my beloved kitties to suffer--really, I wrote a story about this stuff, "Brilliance.")
What I pictured at nine, ten, eleven, my first years of writing fiction: a life writing novels and seeing them published and out in the world, being read and disappeared into the way I loved to disappear into books, giving back some of what books and their authors gave me. Despite having some talent with words, voice, and yes, novel-writing, it hasn't played out that way. Only one of my books has so far seen the light of publication, I can't seem to get traction or hit it right in the publishing world, I am so far from being a publicist or public persona that I am just not able to compete in the current reality. So, perhaps the life I envisioned, though I've worked diligently for it and at it for a major portion of my 51 years, just isn't going to happen. I don't have the support, the chops, the luck, and now, the energy. I'm not saying I give up, I will keep writing and sending shit out, but I have seriously lost faith in it ever coming to anything even remotely resembling a satisfying career--like say, more than one novel published, a readership, some reward and recognition to buoy me up now and then...
I keep thinking of that Beckett quote, "I can't go on, I'll go on." But, lord, I'm ready to be uploaded to my robot body. This one SUCKS.
