I was browsing Reddit and came across this great graphic, courtesy of Flickr user lunchbreath. I know it relates to graphic design but the same thing goes fro freelance writing. Don’t get me wrong – writing is, if you ask me, the best job in the world, but I am continually baffled by how often I am expected to work for free.
Oh no. I feel a rant a-brewin’.
Stay tuned.
I was once afflicted with a bad case of writer’s block. It lasted for eighteen months.
It’s not that I didn’t have ideas. I had plenty. They’d hit me unexpectedly – thwack – but as soon as I’d try to put them on paper they’d simply disappear.
I screamed.
I cried.
I curled up into a ball and hid under my bed covers.
But I still couldn’t write.
Humans are a judgy race. I judge; you judge. Half of the time we won’t say what we’re thinking but we all pass judgment. We can’t help it; we’ve evolved that way.
You are judged.
I am judged.
Me – I’m small and young-looking. I smile a lot. I have a childish voice; when I answer my phone telemarketers routinely ask if they can speak to my parents. I have a hard time standing up for myself.
These attributes practically scream “meek, stupid, uninformed and gullible.” I’m not being self-deprecating or looking for sympathy – I’m simply calling a spade a spade. I am not any of these things and I’m proud of who I am – but that doesn’t change the way others tend to judge me.
Writing has always been the best way to voice my opinions and defend myself. When I write nobody regards me as if I am a sack of nails. I am the queen of scathing, angry letters and eviscerating reviews. Not being able to write was more than an inconvenience. I felt like I had been robbed of my voice. It was as if I was suffering from a prolonged case of laryngitis and it was absolutely horrible.
During that time I was in contact with another, more successful, writer.
“A true writer will continue to write even when there’s nothing to write about,” he told me. “Write grocery lists if you have to. Just keep writing. If you don’t – or ‘can’t’, as you like to say – you shouldn’t call yourself a writer.”
He didn’t help matters.
When I reached month seventeen of my drought I set out on a mission to discover what had stumped my abilities.
There is an interesting article online. It’s called Information Overload and it’s by William Van Winkle. He says that we are bombarded with too much information.
This, according to Van Winkle, can cause depression, anxiety and disease.
Did you know that the typical business manager is said to read one million words per week?
Or that a Sunday edition of the New York Times carries more information than the average 19th-century citizen accessed in his entire life?
It’s true, says Van Winkle.
And what is the quality of the information we’re processing? Most of it is useless.
George Carlin is my idol. He is incomparable and brilliant. He has a monologue about choice in modern society. I am paraphrasing, but here is the gist of what he says:
“They speak about freedom of choice (in capitalist society). What we really have is limited choice. (In America) we have two political parties, essentially.
Big media companies? Five, maybe six, max.
Oil companies? Down to three, I think.
All of the important things are reduced in choice … we only have one or two big newspapers in the city and they’re owned by the same people.
But jelly beans and ice cream? Thirty-two flavours. Your only real freedom of choice in America is smoking or non, paper or plastic, aisle or window. All of your important choices are already laid out for you.”
I over think things.
In the summer Wal-Mart has an aisle dedicated to sunscreen. I once wasted an hour in there and I came out empty handed.
Now imagine all of us, collectively caught up making these inane decisions. We’re all stuck in the ice-cream parlours trying to decide between Vanilla Bean and French Vanilla. We waste one minute here and a minute there and all of the sudden it’s time for bed. Where did the day go? We ask.
We’re exhausted.
We drift off to sleep, thinking about the twenty-seven emails that will be waiting for us in the morning and we don’t have time to think about the war and the murdered children and our rising health care costs.
When we engage useless information we become a shell of the person we are supposed to be.
When I worry about useless things I cannot write.
When I tune out the frivolous things that surround me my creativity comes in waves.
“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you wake up and does not stop until you get into the office.”
I think I’m in love.
I’ve recently discovered Robert Frost. I’ve been reading his poems all week and I want more, more, more.
I love the way Mr. Frost sees through the fuckery and utter pointlessness that makes up so many of our nine-to-fives.
Ugh -I’m sorry folks. That was a tad harsh, even for my standards. I think I need (another) vacation. That, coupled with the fact that I’m inherently negative makes for a pretty grim blog, now doesn’t it?
I don’t have much to say today, and I shouldn’t be here anyway. I have some other assignments to tackle this week. For starters I promised Alex, my editor over at Quiet Color, that I would write him five articles before Sunday. So far I’ve written two. Three more to go. Which is nothing, right? I can write three articles standing on the top of my head. Piece of cake.
But, will they be any good?
Yeah, that’s debatable.
Maybe if I work real hard, I’ll be able to write like Mr. Frost one day.
Hah!
I doubt it.
I don’t even have half of his wit.
Anyway, there’s a great poem is after the jump. The Road Not Taken is a famous one and if you haven’t read it, here’s your chance.