# The Writer's Demise.



## JayRiggs (Mar 27, 2014)

No phrase applies better to the art of writing than it being a “blessing and a curse.” Writers, on one hand, are very blessed to be able to do what they do; and if they can do it well, that just adds to it. The blessing comes in because with most writers, it’s all they’ve ever had. Those loners who couldn’t play sports, were socially awkward, couldn’t verbalize their feelings make up the best of us. They are blessed with a solace, a release, and a talent that no one can ever take away from them. 


Each time one of us stares down a blank page or that blinking cursor on an empty word document, our heart rate increases by at least 20 beats per minute and our stomach drops into our legs. So, for the sake of our art, we slit open our souls and let them bleed. But we bleed differently than those who don’t understand our craft. And it spills and spills until we fall asleep at our desk, make ourselves cry until we can’t see anymore, or feel like we could burst with pride at the birth of our new baby. We bleed ink. 


And then there’s the latter, the curse. The part that roars louder and rages harder than the blessing. The part that those people who say “it’s just a hobby” will never understand. There’s an infinite amount of pain to be found between those lines. And most of it? We perpetuate on our own. And I’ll tell you how, because I live and breathe that pain every time my mind wanders, which it does more often than not. 


We creative-types are doomed. To what? The list is endless. But with every stroke of a pen, we slowly kill our hope in humanity, our hope for happiness. We create people, scenarios, relationships, and worlds that will never see the light of day. We create a fantasy so captivating, so intoxicating, that it diminishes our desire to experience reality. Why would we need to when living inside of our own heads can generate more happiness than anything life outside of our dreams could throw at us?


We build utopias in our works. We take these antagonistic losers and make them the heroes. We make them fit in a society that would otherwise excommunicate them, and it works. Most of us create these societies because we’re dying to find a fit of our own. We watch these characters learn and grow, and the people around them do the same until someone, somewhere, accepts them for who they are. They’re beautifully broken and people love them for their flaws while we sit here and cry out in hope that we don’t feel alone on a team, in school, or even in our own homes. But we never fit, because society could never really be as accepting of the outcast as we write it up to be. So there we sit, dying for a glimmer of hope that the people around us will band together and stop hating everyone the way they did ever so smoothly in our minds.  


We give the people with a silver spoon a taste of their own medicine. Nice guys don’t finish last in our world. The jock gets hurt and can’t play sports anymore and winds up a loser. The pretty girl leaves high school and gains a ton of weight and ends up being 40 with a cat in her house for every birthday she’s had since graduation. And we sit there with a smile once we put the pen down for the day and then try not to lose it as the football player who made fun of us in high school was just on the news for being entered into the NFL draft. The asshole who stole our crush from right under our nose just made partner at his law firm. The pretty girl our first boyfriend left us for just took a position at the Mayo Clinic. Those kind of people never became anything in that novel we just finished. But this is reality. And the meek don’t inherit the earth. 


Any outsider would be jealous of this skill. But the truth of the matter is, its maddening. Soul crushing. We build characters in the image of our one true soul mate, as we see them. We make them so perfect that no one on the face of the earth could possibly match them. We fall in love with these fictional people, and in doing so, raise our expectations of an obtainable love far beyond our reach. So, once we’ve put the perfect man or woman down in print, we move mountains to force someone we’ll settle for into that mold, leaving us always wondering if there’s someone better out there. And usually, there isn’t. But the love of your main character’s life, a main character who reflects our desires more than we intend on, is waiting on the other side of that iron-clad picket fence. And yes, the grass really is greener from where we stand. But we’ll never set foot on it, because that yard will disappear in a cloud of smoke once we get too close to it. 


Whether we admit it or not, our writing is a product of our innermost hopes and dreams. Our ideal world. The only person we could ever fall completely in love with. The only place we’d ever feel a sense of belonging outside our bedrooms or offices. And to be able to create something like that, and then step outside and see that those things will never become a reality is nothing short of a piercing shot to the heart. A vivid imagination can destroy just as much of its host as it can produce brilliance. The mind of a writer runs deep, that’s no question. But with every stroke of the pen comes a dig at the soul.


So why do we do it? Why put ourselves through it all? Because we’re dreamers. Each and every artist is. We cling to our work the same way a terminal patient clings to life in his last moments. Because that’s what our work is to us. It’s life. As ridiculous as it is for one to cut into themselves the way we do, to perpetuate such a disdain for the world we have to live in, we hold onto that one minute possibility that some day, our work will come to life. We think, live, and dream it. And without it, we’d be those people who call it just a hobby. Who mock us for our pain, thinking it doesn’t exist. We wouldn’t be the rare breed that we are. So the ones that make it out alive, the ones that can keep that inner fire alive long enough to see something come of all that pain, are the ones who have decided that those small moments of being able to live in the perfection they created outweigh the hurt, disappointment, and turmoil that comes with stepping outside of their heads.


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## Humm (Mar 28, 2014)

I liked it very much! Thanks for writing it  You got talent for sure!


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## Plasticweld (Mar 28, 2014)

Good insight.   For some a blank piece of paper is a canvass for artwork, for some as you suggest, a story about anything your heart desires.  For some it makes a great paper airplane.  Imagination is a powerful thing.


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## Divus (Mar 30, 2014)

Jay, maybe it is impolite of me but I don't experience some form of panic whenever I sit at a computor.   On the screen may well lie in front of me a blank page - so I tap away and fill it.   What's the problem?      Criss crossing in my mind are numerous ideas.   My only problem is to decide which ideas fit into the piece,    So there I go, tap tap tap.

Try it.


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## Pandora (Mar 30, 2014)

Your last paragraph JayRiggs, is divine, makes me want to be a writer like never before, just beautiful.


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