This is a blog about how writing a book is so much more than sitting your arse down and writing (though that helps).
In recent weeks (months?) every single night without fail, at around 9pm until sometimes Midnight I've had a tightening in my chest and a sense of being paralysed with panic, for not writing the book. No matter if I had (rarely) worked on the book that day. No matter how flat out I'd been with other things. No matter if I was too ill to be working (but had anyway). I went to bed each night utterly gripped with the fear of failure- and that I'd brought it on myself.
This totally came to a head last week, which was the anniversary of getting the contract. I've had to ask for several extensions. It should have been done long ago, and I still don't know if it'll be done in time for this deadline.
Everything I say sounds like a million excuses. Which they are. But while writing a book is sitting your arse down and writing, it's also a million other things. It's earning a living first and foremost. Unless you're very privileged. It's living life day to day- buying food and walking the dog. It's also keeping a social life, self care, whatever else you want to call it. Because you need to stay sane. Especially if it's a subject that needs a little bit of your heart and soul.
And all the above has been a struggle in the last 12 months. Everything has frankly been a struggle. I feel like I've been ground into the ground by this year. The truth of the matter is the book has been bumped off time and time again, because there's always something else.
But the truth is also, you can't give something like this the attention it deserves if your head isn't functioning as it should. For me the biggest cause of mental health issues is job related stress- more accurately lack of job related stress. This year was a year of it. And so in January this year there was the murder-admin job, that destroyed my confidence, and very much messed with my head. Then came months of temping in the Hospital. Only this week, a friend reminded me he'd told me to quit, because of what it was doing to me, but I couldn't. And so the book wasn't getting written. As much as unemployment should serve writing, it doesn't when you worry how you're going to pay the next bill.
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| It me, despairing over the state of things |
And then there's the creative projects. Two plays, which I couldn't say no to. But I found out in the summer, that there isn't enough room in my head for two intense plays and an equally intense book. Luckily after one spectacular breakdown, my incredibly understanding producer let me shelve our project for a bit. And as a brilliant friend, every time I try and pick it up reminds me that the book comes first now, for a bit.
But that's the panic, in this world, that we can't let a single opportunity pass us by. So I kept saying yes to everything else, every opportunity, because we're all conditioned to not let anything pass us by, lest that was our 'ticket' to the thing we wanted.
But the thing was all that was distracting me from the thing I wanted, which I already had: the book. But because I think nobody will care, because I think everyone thinks the more important thing is to get a real job, to get back on the prescribed career path, be a proper grown up, I kept sacrificing the one thing I wanted, for everything else. Which then left me awake at night, paralysed with fear and guilt about not doing it.
Someone said to me this week, maybe I'm scared to finish because I don't know what's next. And while that's not wrong- I've been living with this in one way or another for so long, being without it is a scary thought. It's more than that. I think some people build to the big thing, the thing that's most important to them. And it feels like, for now, and the foreseeable future, there won't be anything like this for me. And that's a scary thing. It's a scary thing to think about being over yes, but it's also about the pressure to get it right. The sense of having got this far, and then royally fucking it up is really what's terrifying me, what's holding me back.
It's also, as my friend pointed out today, a result of the damage caused by m academic experience. That work- the first half of the book at least- is directly from my PhD. It's all the work that time and time again I was told wasn't good enough. Told that I wasn't good enough. Because also, contrary to what some people think criticising the work is and always will be personal, if it's done badly. Which it was. It's no secret that my PhD broke me. I know now that I was better than they let me be, I know that my work is better than they ever gave me credit for. But undoing that level of systematic bringing down, well it's hard.
And because, despite it all, I love it. I love it so much. And it is so ridiculous, and so difficult to explain to anyone. I love these plays. I love the productions (yes even the one with the penis). I love that sitting through and writing about a Kushner play is a particular kind of self inflicted torture. I love every stupid thing Andrew Garfield said to the press over two years. I love James McArdle (obviously). I love the stupid rain machine I've dedicated far too many words to. I love pulling together my love of Cold War Politics and theatre. I love screaming 'Have you no decency'. I love my group of fangirls and boys who know exactly what I mean by that. I love Marianne Elliott just for all of it.
And I want to do this work right, by all of the above. (Even bloody Tony.)
I don't know what I'd be without this play. But I also feel like I've got a lot to prove with this work. But to pull those two together, I just have to write it like I love it. Because that's all I can do.
My friend Kirsty gave me the greatest Christmas gift this week- she got me to come and stay with her and her family for a few days, and work on the book. Now I didn't bash out 1000s of words, locked away in a room like in a 'proper' writing retreat. That wasn't the point. What I got was far more valuable. I got two full days of just sitting and working on the book- but with someone in the room to a) make sure I did, and didn't just do another thing b) someone to talk to about it who understands. More important than that, really, was taking me out of my everyday life for a bit. I haven't had a break this year, and stopping, being in another place, having kids to entertain and gin to drink (not at once honest) and just stepping back for a second.
It is about sitting your arse down and writing. And I have, having counted today 139, 000 words of the book (way more than I need). I have done work. It is there. It will be there. But it's so much more than just sitting down and writing. And it takes a village to do that.
And as it's Christmas. As it's been a year, a big thank you to everyone who has listened to the writing of the book (or indeed the not writing). And everyone who has believed in it so far. Every time one person tells me they want to read it, I think it's worth it. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
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