Monomaniacal Scribe

Here’s an easy one: it’s never finished. I mean, every time I step to the keyboard to write from my soul, there’s something about the weight of the world that begins to emerge. My brain becomes clustered. My wrists begin to click. My eyes go inside-out. Full disclosure, I offer nothing of value other than a forum to play with language. At the end of the day, that’s all we’re doing anyway right? We use our words intentionally to tell a story, amongst other things, to propel ourselves forward. And if we are able to complete that story, there’s something for us at the end of the rainbow.

Except there isn’t. There’s no wisdom to bring to the table nor cynicism, because I’ve been tapped out many a-times. In this desperate attempt to document the writing process, I’ve all but come to the conclusion that I am only human. Sitting over a desk for hours makes my neck hurt. Even after a successful evening of getting words to paper (er, screen), I often think of what the purpose of the writer is. Is it to bring to life a project from the ether and carry it to the pantheon of greatness? That seems glib and dishonest. I’m here for the drudge. Drag me through the dregs of the cutting room until I am left broken and sore, because I know I can find the ways in which to repair.

In my days as a naive book clerk, I used to have conversations with people about the writing process. I’m ashamed to say that even as a young lad, I used to think that one’s life work could be resolved by silly aphorisms. “Writing’s easy,” I would say. I’d have my nose shoved so far up the book’s spine, that I would not expect a customer to even bother me in my spellbound state. Oh – to be challenged unexpectedly. Mid-sentence, when I am about to get to the part where the thief runs away with the jewels, I hear a voice respond. “I don’t believe that,” someone in the store says to me. We stare at each other. I nod. They shake their head. “That’ll be $30 bucks,” I say. They pay and walk out, never to be seen again. But funny how you come to realize that you often play yourself, and that the punchline often comes years after the fact. But no longer am I that book clerk. I am now the monomaniacal scribe. In my mind, the customer remains nearly out the door. “Ha!” That is what they say. To my 25-year-old self I say, “Try, try again.”

There’s a scene in “Control,” the biopic about Ian Curtis, where Ian’s desk reveals three binders in row that read, “Novels,” “Poem,” “Lyrics. His future wife asks him “Who’s the Writer?” He answers, “Who’d you think?” I wonder what he would have wrote if he were still around.

In the past few months, I have been working to complete one, and I haven’t really the inspiration to think about how it all connects. It could be this. It could be that. It’s all horse hockey before it becomes gold. This is my third time writing one, but it’s my first time admitting that I don’t know exactly what it will be or where it will end up. But I’ll lean into hope this time around. You win hope.

Maybe, just maybe, this is myself filling the tank back up.