If I were truly anonymous... (caution, contains foul language)

I would write a very different blog about writing...

Magic Pills don't exist, there's only Cinnamon Hearts

I would write that in all honesty I doubt if I will ever get this fucking novel written. I would say that I am blocked - utterly and hopelessly blocked, and that it is not laziness, or unwillingness, or fear, or any of the other reasons the writing self help books provide me with.

I would write that despite getting a stupid and unwarranted distinction for my Masters in Writing, I still feel shite. I have tons to say only can't seem to say it very well. Not as well as I'd like. Not like Sandra Cisneros, or James Joyce, or Toni Morrison. Hell, I can't even say it like Barbara bleedin' Cartland - and you gotta admire her productivity, eh. But there is no magic pill, is there.

I would write that I am not a writer because I choose to be. I'm not one of those lucky bastards who finds writing the most fun they can have alone - like Stephen frigging King, or Terry bloody Pratchett. Like Red Smith, I find writing is like opening a vein, only unlike self-harmers, opening a vein is not something that brings me any relief or pleasure whatsoever. It only hurts a lot and makes one helluva mess. It makes me cringe when people read my work. I have a student who feels like this and I would say, if I were anonymous, that I know how you feel dude.

I would write that the thought of having to write every day makes me feel physically ill, and I spend most of my writing day, writing about the fact that I can't write the thing I'm supposed to be writing. No blockages there then. In fact, I think my conference paper is going to be all about the fact that at the moment, I can't write a bastard thing. And it isn't because I'm short on ideas, or too lazy to put the hours in. It's because everything I write is crap. It does not do what it says on the tin. The words fall short and the dialogue is a pig's ear. I can't get to the re-writing because I can't get to the first effing draft. I want to hang my head in shame, or maybe just hang myself.

I would write about how much I hate writing, how much I despise every last scrawl I feel compelled to make. I would explain that I wish I had never had a writing lesson in my life (although of course I am lying). I would tell you, with hand on heart, that I wish I'd had a normal, boring, ordinary life so that I had nothing to make sense of, nothing to feel compelled to write about (but, ah, I am being the mistress of untruth once again). My husband said, just the other day, how it would be nice if I would go to bed when he did, just once in a while, but that he understood how much the writing meant to me. I sat up that night and cried all over the empty bloody page. Hating it. Hating it. Hating it. I can see why Van Gogh cut his ear off, but at least he was a genius, and I am most definitely not, because if I were, I would be producing something. Anything other than rants and raves about how miserable writing makes me.

If I were, truly anonymous, I would write all this without fear of my supervisor reading it - and maybe worrying her that I won't finish the project even though I'm sure she can see me writhing like a wildcat on a leash. And I do hope I finish it, and probably will, because I felt like this all through my Masters, and I finished that. It will be finished. It will be utter bollocks, but it will be completed, and then, after it, I'm going sit down and seriously consider my options for the future...

... knowing that it will most likely, involve writing something else :(