‘fess up Friday

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I’m hopping on the wagon with The Literate Kitten who inspired this whole thing, and with Charlotte–I’m going to confess how my writing week has gone.

I have been largely discouraged about my writing. I am not sure if I remember it incorrectly or not, but even though I’ve always been a really slooowwww writer, the words in my head have always been the words that actually hit the page. But since my stroke, what I imagine in my head isn’t what ends up on the page.

Sometimes I just look at the page HORRIFIED wondering how the thoughts in my head, full of eloquent potential, translate into…THAT. Sometimes it’s literally aphasia–I use the wrong word. But mostly it’s just blech.

Anyway–so it’s been especially discouraging with my fiction. I just got SICK of dealing with it this week. I set my novel aside. I set my fiction aside.

And I decided to try to write an essay about my stroke. I’m facing the same old challenges–the loose handful of words and concepts in my head aren’t exactly what end up on the page. It’s like some evil monkey eats up my words en route to the page and then shits them all over the page in some stinky pile. But of course it’s not a monkey, it’s me.

It’s getting better–last year at this time I couldn’t write fiction at ALL. The words in my head REALLY got lost on the way to the page–they didn’t even make it. It was super frustrating. But even though it’s better, my frustration is still very much there.

But at least it’s different subject matter, and well–I did get my framework for the essay down.

So that’s been my writing week. A lot of self doubt, and a feeble redirection.

p.s. I feel very sheepish about bringing up the stroke so much when it comes to my writing. It doesn’t affect my life much elsewise–just with my writing.

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