“I don’t believe in my writing anymore.” I admitted to my husband this weekend. He immediately turned down the radio and shifted in his seat to face me, asking me what I meant. “I just don’t feel like what I’ve written has any value.”
I knew something was wrong when I was preparing to attend my first in-person Writer’s Circle (hosted by Lit Youngstown) since the beginning of the pandemic. I was trying to find something to share and have critiqued. I was struggling to find something worth being read aloud to my peers. I’ve struggled with this in the past, but only because I would be debating which of my pieces needed the critique the most. This was a whole new struggle. Things I had been proud of prior to 2021 no longer seemed to hold any value. I found something, but while reading it felt it didn’t stack up. I was also quieter than normal during our meeting. I didn’t feel I was in much of a position to give feedback because my mind just couldn’t see what was good and what was bad like it once had.
Why was I suddenly feeling like this? To answer that, I’ll need to give you some back story. In 2019, I started teaching myself how to code. I would spend a few days a week learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But throughout 2019 and 2020, I kept up my writing schedule to an extent. COVID threw a wrench in the majority of my extracurricular writing activities, but I continued writing at home. I even went to my writer’s residency and completed one of my novels. My writing wasn’t suffering, but my ability to learn coding effectively was.
In January of 2021 I started working with a coding coach and realized that if I wanted to succeed in coding and land a job as a web developer any time soon, I needed to focus more time and energy on it. I put writing on the backburner. I didn’t think this would affect my ability to write once the time came for me to pick it back up. I thought, if anything, it would just affect my ability to participate in some of the workshops being offered in my area or my ability to work on ideas I had in the moment.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I’ve had a new job as a web developer for 2 weeks. I am no longer teaching myself to code on nights and weekends. This past weekend I was attending the 5th Annual Fall Literary Festival. I didn’t go into it with any grand expectations. I was simply hoping to gain some inspiration and get my brain to re-focus and locate the headspace I need to get back into writing. I did that. I found the inspiration I need, but not the belief in myself and my writing. I thought the two would come hand in hand. They, apparently, don’t.
I think what is really frustrating to me is that I had a lot of momentum picking up as I came into 2021. I had finished one of my novels, I had been published 3 times, I was getting used to the submission process, I had a semi-regular writing schedule, and now that is all gone and I’m starting over. I think what I need to do is remind myself I’m still that writer. Just because I’m having some trouble picking up where I left off doesn’t mean I can’t get back to where I was.
This doesn’t have a happy ending where I found my inspiration AND faith in myself. I don’t have any nuggets of wisdom for someone going through the same struggle. I don’t even have any advice for myself moving forward. But I wanted to share this with you, my reader, in case you find yourself in a similar situation. Know that you are not alone.
I think my husband had it right when he compared it to working an atrophied muscle. I will just need to work it one day at a time until I’ve regained the lost muscle. For now, I am going to spend a lot of time writing shitty first drafts. I’m going to continue hosting the YMCA Writing Group and going to the Writer’s Circle. With any luck and determination, I’ll get back to my former self.
I’ll just end it with this quote from Anne Rice because it is extremely appropriate for me right now:
