Words are inadequate

"Why I can't write" turns out to be one of those things that my brain just slides off of rather than grappling with. I literally cannot hold the idea in my head for long enough to say anything coherent about it. Usually when that happens I forget about it altogether. It's some sort of defence against prodding too much at something very frightening. I've only kept track of it this time through concentrated effort.

Anyway, writing. I've been here before, and sort of skirted around what was actually going on. Now I'm getting closer to it but still not to a point where I can think usefully about it.

A tangent: in my limited experience, the two main attitudes of counselors/therapists are "wait the patient out, they'll bring up the hard stuff on their own when they're ready" and "prod the patient gently to get at the hard stuff." Prodding seems to provide more immediate results for me, since I'm very good at Not Thinking About things. However, my current counselor is more of a waiting type. This has the (probably intended) result that if I don't bring in something to talk about there's not much talking going on. So when something happens like "I spent three days straight playing a computer game that I'm not even sure I like very much," I bring that up, and it turns out to be relevant. Anyway. Tangent over.

Normally when people think about being afraid of writing, it's the whole 'what if it isn't any good' thing. I don't have that, so much. I mean, I moan about how awful my stuff is as much as the next writer but I don't let that stop me. I keep going, usually with friendly support and 'it doesn't suck' from various people. Once it's Out There for whatever value of Out There, I don't worry so much. It's either good enough or it isn't and either way the next one will be better.

This... has something to do with the weight I place on Being A Writer, and something to do with needing other people, and, oddly, some relation to a couple of other things I'd like to do but haven't pursued.

Twitter turns out to be a horrible medium for me to feel connected to anybody. It really is like being at a huge party all the time, and as such it's exhausting for me. (I am decidedly not comfortable with jumping into conversations.) Unfortunately it's also where much of my writerly social circle is being sociable and supportive. That's more of a big deal for me than I'd thought it would be. It's not a cause, I don't think, but it's not helping. I am, as always, deeply grateful for the people I have here. DW/LJ helps. It's just not enough.

Which is in some sense the problem. What I can get isn't enough, and so I stop asking and seeking. Not sure how to resolve that.

SAM: Well, that was needlessly cryptic.
MAX: I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any.

So this evening I was going to go do something New and Interesting and possibly Fun and Exciting. It would have involved attempting to be sociable around people I've never met, but I was willing to give that a try.

Then I just sort of collapsed a little before four. Hazard of running on a) 5-6 hours' sleep a night and b) the last dregs of my emotional reserves, for most of the last two weeks, I guess. I was sort of mobile by sixish but still kind of shaky, and that didn't really get any better after dinner.

I have a well-documented hatred of driving into DC, and tend to enjoy wandering around cities, so my original plan for the evening was going to involve metro and a mile walk. By this point it was really too late to metro. So I was looking at the hassle of finding parking in DC where I wouldn't get ticketed or towed, on top of the stress of being a stranger and being in a New Situation... and I stayed home.

I deeply resent my body and brain choosing now to run completely out of cope. One more day is all I asked for.

Oh well.

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Earlier this week I found, on eBay, a reasonably priced Easton Press edition of Growing Up Weightless. Easton puts out very nice leatherbound SF classics and first editions. At least, I'd always assumed they were very nice. Maybe I've been spoiled by Subterranean's The Club Dumas but Weightless came today and it's... just kind of nice. Good solid cover, gilt-edged pages, decent paper, but nothing terribly special. This kind of kills any desire I may have had to shell out the money for the Easton edition of Lonesome October.

(Also, and interestingly, they didn't set their own type: they used the same plates as the Bantam trade paperback, the first non-limited edition. I wouldn't have even noticed but it's got a very distinctive font.)

The weekend involved a visit from a black mood, about which the less said the better.

Monday evening I discovered that I can't read calendars and thus can't plan, but still get upset when the plan diverges from what I'd thought it was.

Tuesday morning I got a "you seem so nice but" message from someone who sounded really cool and vaguely promising.

Wednesday evening was bad in a way I'm not really ready to talk about. Plus the maple pound cake turned out slightly bitter around the edges of my tongue (in the same way that pancakes do sometimes, which means that all it needs is about a teaspoon of vanilla, but still frustrating).

Tonight is my first trip to a writers' group. I'm a little nervous about what happens if and when this trend continues.