Self-publicity or nervous breakdown? You decide

If you think my writ­ing is impen­et­rable, obscure, even pre­ten­tious, then standby for a rev­el­a­tion, for I am about to speak plainly. Or should that be write plainly? I don’t know. Indeed, I prob­ably don’t care either. But whichever it is, I will be plain and simple and straight­for­ward in the deliv­ery of what I am about to say. Or write. And the words shall be offered here, in stark black and white, without excess­ive obfus­ca­tion, orna­ment­a­tion or another word begin­ning in o and end­ing in –ation.

I am suf­fer­ing from a crisis of confidence.

This crisis of con­fid­ence is brought to you by the let­ters F and J, and the num­ber 6. Also by a chronic lack of inspir­a­tion, a dearth of words, and a sur­feit of utterly tedi­ous, stress-inducing life. (I hate my life. Did I men­tion that? If I didn’t, I should have done. Because I do. Hate my life, that is. Harsh, bru­tal, but true. So there.)

At the risk of spelling it out and spoon-feeding you until you’re drib­bling baby food from the corner of your greedy mouth like so much sweet-smelling vomit, none of the above are known for being use­ful con­trib­ut­ing factors towards bouts of fren­zied cre­ativ­ity. They’re not, you know. Because I said so. Don’t argue with me, because I’m not in the mood.

If I was a drama queen, I would now climb into an old tin bath filled to the brim with cheap gin, and scrub myself with the busi­ness end of a cheese grater, whilst wail­ing and weep­ing about being unloved. I would carry on in this man­ner until someone paid me some atten­tion. Or shot me in the side of the head like an old nag. Or I died of entirely nat­ural causes, like intense bore­dom. Whichever came sooner. I’m not fussy about the means of my tra­gic passing.

But I am not a drama queen — not this week, any­way — so I am merely going to make myself feel bet­ter by behav­ing like a spoilt brat and for­cing every­one to look in this dir­ec­tion by host­ing a Point­less Com­pet­i­tion. So look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

Drum roll, please.

A Point­less Competition

First, you might wish to acquaint (or if you’re a devoted stalker, reac­quaint) your­self with a series of entries from the tail end of las year, entitled I am giv­ing up writ­ing because …. There are twenty-five of them, so feel free to just get a fla­vour of the con­tent rather than read­ing all of them and bring­ing on a coronary.

Once you’ve done that, all I require you to do is to leave a com­ment in which you answer, as invent­ively and as scur­ril­ously and as inde­cently and as unsen­ti­ment­ally as pos­sible, the fol­low­ing questions:

1. Why should I (that means me, not you) not give up writ­ing?
2. If I (that still means me, not you) did give up writ­ing, what could I (me, still me, still not you) use­fully do instead?

There is also an excit­ing tie-breaker (because in the tra­di­tion of all cheap and taw­dry com­pet­i­tions found on the reverse of cer­eal pack­ets, I demand a tie-breaker):

“An Unre­li­able Wit­ness is bet­ter than …”

Win prizes and stuff

I’m not just doing this for the pub­li­city. Mostly, yes, but not com­pletely. I’m doing this because I love you — each and every one of you fool­ishly swoon­ing read­ers — and I want to give you some­thing for your trouble. Not bod­ily flu­ids, no. Or skin scrap­ings, fin­ger­nail clip­pings or strands of my hair. No, some­thing bet­ter than all of those.

The lucky win­ner of this com­pet­i­tion will receive:
(i) a single sock as worn by my left foot (washed, unless the win­ner requests oth­er­wise because of some kind of dis­turb­ing fet­ish);
(ii) a piece of prose writ­ten by me, here, on this very site, about the win­ner, using select details that I shall gather from them via email and/or vari­ous cruel and unusual meth­ods of torture.

The rules

There are no rules, man. We’re break­ing the rules. Because we’re wild and care­free and full of bile and aim­less juven­ile rebel­lion. Or some­thing. Not happy with that? Oh well, you know — be nice to anim­als and old people. Don’t light fires under small chil­dren. The clos­ing date will be when I get bored (and I get bored very quickly). Bribery will prob­ably not be accep­ted but will be act­ively encour­aged. The prizes are non-negotiable, unless you have an allergy to feet or (heaven for­bid) an allergy to my writing.

Always read the small print

That’s all. I feel sick now. I blame you. I may have to stick my fin­gers down my throat and spew diced car­rot all over my keyboard.

Comments: 23

    1. You shouldn’t give up writ­ing because it is a part of you that, even when you feel you ‘can’t’ do it, will always be there, gnaw­ing away like a starved, for­got­ten ham­ster and that is some mad­ness you can’t ignore for too long without col­lapsing in on yourself.

    (I could also selfishly say that I would miss your writ­ing, but I think that is a given)

    2. If you gave up writ­ing I think you should become a nurse. Nurs­ing helps people and takes the focus off of your­self. I think all the hard work of becom­ing a nurse would be a use­ful dis­trac­tion and would help the world at the same time.

    xtx | 04.16.09, 19:56

    This is how it’s sup­posed to look (sorry!)

    Thank you V. I needed some­thing like this badly. And now I’m going to prove it. Not sure how often you check my site out, but I feel as though I’ve been going off the rails since New Year. At the mo I can’t stand the sight of my own writ­ing. Nor­mally I read and re-read. I’m depressed and bit­ter — maybe you are too. Gosh, we could do some­thing like one of those two-person trips where you read each other’s minds. Nat­ur­ally, it would be bet­ter if we were of the oppos­ite sex, because then we could fall in love and per­haps touch each other in an intim­ate way.

    Great eh? — that’s me — or us. What about you.

    Actu­ally no, let’s get back to me: And then I see this piece about the com­pet­i­tion and I am totally hooked. Man, I’m ready to do any­thing. I’m get­ting ready for some­thing like “meet me in Rock­ness on Monday” or “write a three thou­sand word story about an ostrich right now”.

    It’s good when music plays some­times. There are moments we live when we can’t bear it — lot’s of them — but then you get the odd occa­sion, you know?

    Jesus, V, I’m on the verge of los­ing the plot here. I even had a flash of an unordered list — but before that, God help me, I was about to babble about sing­ers and songs.

    Well, I’ll be really hon­est then…

    No, bad idea.

    Oh fuck V, what do you want me to say? Are you a genius? I doubt it, but you could be, you are get­ting closer to me, many of us are — maybe. You’ve mastered this medium and your work is first-rate. Let me put it this way; if I could think I was as good as you that would make me happy. I would be hap­pier when I reflec­ted that you are good — first-rate, that is — and get­ting notice­ably better.

    Jesus Christ! What’s hap­pen­ing to me, I’ve turned into a fuck­ing monster!

    Oh God, if you think that’s bad you should read this…

    http://www.chrislight.net/henry_miller_passage.html

    That’s right V, let’s get them off this site and onto mine. That would be much bet­ter all round, you bastard.

    V, you write because it’s magic. The world is made of lan­guage, right? And you’re a magi­cian, a shaman. People read you and change a little — I speak for myself — and you change a little. All this grow­ing malar­key. On the sub­ject of malar­key let’s men­tion feel­ing and emotion…

    I do think about you quite often, you know? Weird to think any­one would think about me — but then…

    You are good at what you do. It mat­ters to people. It mat­ters to me. Guar­an­teed you have no idea how much it would piss me off if you disappeared.

    And so on.

    And if you did give up? Become a Film noir char­ac­ter. Ruth­lessly exploit sexual part­ners in an inno­cent way. No, wait, find the part­ner of your dreams and live the rest of your life in a little cot­tage at the end of lane flanked with hedges and flowers in spring. Lie with a lover on Blue­bells. Make a film…

    I don’t care, as long as it makes you happy.

    chris | 04.16.09, 20:39

    1. You shouldn’t give up writ­ing because someone’s got to put words in order — espe­cially the right words in the right order — and you do it well.

    2. If you gave up writ­ing (and you know damn well you won’t because I think you’ll still write privately) you could become a pho­to­grapher. It’s sort of like writ­ing in the sense that you’ll be help­ing people see their ordin­ary world in an extraordin­ary way. It’s stuff like that which makes life worth liv­ing (and also not keeps one from slap­ping whatever imbe­cile of the moment makes one’s day miserable).

    kermit | 04.16.09, 20:39

    In keep­ing with the rules, I’m going to break the rules.

    1. You should give up writ­ing because when you do write you’re hor­ribly verb­ose and you steal all the avail­able phrases, which some of us other writers would like to be able to use. Fur­ther­more, your writ­ing sat­ur­ates my brain in a way that pre­vents me from writ­ing any­thing of any length.

    2. If you choose to take my advice and give up writ­ing, I would advise you to become an elec­tri­cian. I hear they make lots of money and can set their own hours (some of them) and are trained not to elec­tro­cute them­selves. You would get to wear a belt with many devices for meas­ur­ing voltage and wattage and cur­rent and other electricity-related meas­ure­ments. I think the devices make neat beep­ing noises, which should ease the with­drawal symp­toms from being away from your com­puter. In any case, you would be allowed behind the pan­els that say “Danger! High Voltage.”

    Jess | 04.16.09, 21:30

    1 — You should not give up writ­ing because I don’t want to have to hear about how much you miss writ­ing and how you wish you were writ­ing and god oh god why did you ever give up writing.

    2 — I think it is obvi­ous to us all that the only viable career choice for you besides bloody good writer is … bloody good pirate.

    Ani | 04.16.09, 22:46

    1. a. Because I believe you’re neither a quit­ter nor a cry-baby (although it’s ok to cry some times and stay in bed for few days.)
    b. Because a real writer is sup­posed to write for the art itself.
    c. Because your words brighten my days and I don’t say that to many people.

    2. If you give up writ­ing, I think you should become a Sales­man. Maybe because you show a bit of “sales­man char­ac­ter” which nat­ur­ally attract people to you eagerly want to know what you’re selling.

    Please don’t give up writ­ing. You are the defin­i­tion of perseverance.

    Silent Reader | 04.17.09, 00:58

    Because were you to give up writ­ing, your days would con­sist entirely of spoon feed­ing. And I know that’s your idea of hell on wheels.

    Someone fairly local, nuff said. | 04.17.09, 11:10

    don’t give up writ­ing. when it’s there, work with it. when you feel moved to write, give it a go. if it’s not don’t force it.

    and don’t have an old-school abor­tion either.

    Roberta | 04.17.09, 15:22

    1. You shouldn’t give up writ­ing because you do it so well, and those of us who can’t come up with the types of witty phrases that you cre­ate, need you to do it for us.

    2. If you gave up writ­ing, you could be a window-washer. You’d get to see lots of inter­est­ing things inside the win­dows and amaz­ing things out­side, and it might inspire you to go back to writ­ing — if we’re lucky.

    cAnItrUstyOu | 04.17.09, 19:40

    You shouldn’t give up writ­ing because you are a gif­ted writer. You can write as a hobby and not as a pro­fes­sion if you like. If you do give up writ­ing, you could be an Eng­lish Professor.

    DoesntAnyoneCare? | 04.17.09, 19:51

    Fuck writ­ing. Let’s form a punk band.

    Ani | 04.18.09, 23:55

    Did you know there was a typo in this?

    tail end of las year

    I was think­ing about it earlier. Unlike AUW. What could it mean? That sort of thing.

    chris | 04.19.09, 00:09

    You should not give up writ­ing because when I first found your blog it was full of “why I should give up writ­ing” remarks, and I had to shield my eyes in ter­ror that it might be catch­ing. Also, who will I on-line stalk? And how will I acquire a report­age of witty remarks? People just don’t do that here.

    If you do give up writ­ing, you could become a reader of books on tape.

    This is a hor­rible competition.

    wrenna | 04.19.09, 17:55

    “This is a hor­rible competition.”

    There is that too.

    Dam­mit

    chris | 04.19.09, 19:22

    1. ’cause I’ve improved my eng­lish just to try to under­stand your writ­ings (so don’t blame me if i didn’t get the point of the com­pet­i­tion, even if it is a point­less one)

    2. you can try to learn slov­ene or italian to under­stand my posts; if i make a com­pet­i­tion like that you can be the win­ner. pretty annoy­ing, isn’it?

    pettywords | 04.19.09, 21:40

    1. You shouldn’t give up writ­ing because your posts like this about giv­ing up writ­ing make me feel bet­ter about my own des­pair / anxi­ety / bore­dom about my writ­ing. And also if you didn’t write this blog I wouldn’t have dis­covered that album by the National, which I really rather like. And yes, my reas­ons for you car­ry­ing on are mostly about me, but there you go.

    2. If you gave up writ­ing you could become a writ­ing tutor, teach­ing oth­ers how to write until the time when they real­ise they should give up and become writ­ing tutors.

    jem | 04.20.09, 12:25

    1. Because you push the keys in such an unusual and heart-gut-brain-moving way…(Are you open to bribes? Mmm, let me see, I’ve got a stack of pho­tos of one fat, black and white cat (at times wear­ing small-humans cloth­ing), and two blue-eyed chil­dren).
    2. If you do stop, you could always become a full-stop, or per­haps a comma. That way you’d still be around. Quite a bit. And you know, still work­ing with words.

    lillipilli | 04.20.09, 12:32

    There is insuf­fi­cient evid­ence that you SHOULD give up writ­ing. I don’t see why we’re even talk­ing about it. Fuck you.

    You COULD, should you aban­don what you are good at, always become a Crotchety Old Man, or per­haps a schoolmaster.

    Hey! you could teach people to plumb their inner depths for demons to inspire cre­at­ive endeavors and then smack them down with a healthy dose of nihil­ism. Or fatal­ism. Or any other ism, really.

    Wait, not optim­ism. Any­thing else though.

    I’m afraid it’s either fiddle with your own ang­sty bits in a way that inspires the rest of us, or con­demn us all to drown­ing in our own failed ambitions.

    An Unre­li­able Wit­ness is bet­ter than nothing.

    thesundaygap | 04.20.09, 18:26

    thesunday­gap gets my vote for the win.

    wrenna | 04.20.09, 21:03

    Refer to #18, #19, #25.

    Yup, you should give up writ­ing (for a while). So I can skip ques­tion 1. In the mean­time, you can volun­teer to help dys­lexic chil­dren. You’ll see the alpha­bet in a dif­fer­ent way — let’s hope it’s ‘inspired’, not ‘intimidating’.

    I’ll pray. :)

    Good luck.

    Nia | 04.21.09, 09:46

    wrenna, I agree, thesunday­gap gets my vote.

    chris | 04.21.09, 20:08

    Thank you all for wast­ing time on the inter­net and indul­ging me in my entirely pathetic attention-seeking com­pet­i­tion. Like recent com­menters, I am also of the opin­ion that thesunday­gap gave the best answers, not only because she used the phrase “fiddle with your own ang­sty bits”, but also recom­men­ded a pas­time away from writ­ing that I could quite genu­inely see myself doing (and, some might argue, I already do). Oh, and say­ing “fuck you”. I like that.

    Thus, thesunday­gap will receive a sock — should she want it — and a piece of prose here — should she want.

    To the rest of you, if you still want a sock, email me. I’m quite gen­er­ous. If you want a piece of prose, pay me lots of money.

    An Unreliable Witness | 04.21.09, 20:50

    I can’t quite fig­ure out what I would do with a single (left-footed) sock…that is to say, I can think of a lot of things to do but I’d rather not do them.

    So, if you please, keep the sock — I’ll take the prose.

    And, It had bet­ter not be about footwear.

    thesundaygap | 04.21.09, 22:55

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