Writing and Sisyphus and Gabor Szabo

Writing is something I've done my whole life.  Sometimes its pure pleasure and other times it feels like a curse.  This is probably nothing new to any writers out there.  Every day I do a little writing, and more often then not it's like the myth of Sisyphus, where I spend a bunch of time pushing this really heavy rock up a hill, and before I get to the top it rolls back down again.  Unlike Sisyphus, though, there are times when I get the rock over the hill, and I watch it roll down the other side.  Like the words just won't stop, and they flow out and out and out and suddenly I have something in front of me that I like and that I want to work on and figure out and finish.  And then the rock stops, and there's another hill I need to push it up.

I'm part of a few different groups of people who write, and sometimes people say things like "I feel like I have writer's block, what should I do?"  Most other writers respond with a variety of tricks and ideas designed to get you writing, to jog your creative juices, to inspire you to keep pushing that rock.  I am usually tempted to say "Just quit."  That sounds awful, but I feel like it should be something people confront themselves with.  What would happen if they just quit writing?  Would they find something else to focus on that fulfills them in a better way?  Would they sink into a dark depression?
Most of my writing has been plays.  I write a lot of plays.  Over the years, I've written a few novels, too.  It's only this latest one that I've decided to try and get published.  The others, thankfully, are lost to history.  I don't think I even have a copy of them any more, except for the memories of them in my head.  There was one about a girl who discovers she has latent magic powers.  Super original!  Well, when I wrote it 13 years ago, that idea wasn't totally done to death yet.  The second one was about a girl who gets turned into a vampire.  That was before Twilight came out.  So again, I think if it had been a good book, I would have had a shot at getting in on the ground floor of YA vampire fiction.

There was a period between 10 and 5 years ago where I did very little writing.  Almost none.  Certainly nothing that I can remember as being meaningful.  I just quit.  The sky didn't fall, and the world didn't end.  Then about 5 years ago I had an idea for a play and i just went for it.  I had nothing invested in success, and no fear of failing.  I just wrote it out.  And I had fun editing it.  I slashed the heck out of it.  I cut out scenes that I loved and wrote new scenes.  I worked it into shape and sent it out to a bunch of places.  It won an award, and I got to fly out to New York and get a check for $2,000 and meet some great theatre people.  After the award ceremony we all went out together to a bar in Manhattan that had a mechanical bull, which of course I rode.

And now every day I write a little bit, or a lot, or nothing at all.  I can quit any time. But I like pushing the rock up the hill a lot more now.  It's good exercise, whether it rolls back down the hill or rolls down the other side.  I like exercising my brain in that way.  Every part of the process is part of that rock, from writing to editing to querying.

On a different note, I found this album at a library book sale for a dollar.  I wasn't going to buy it until I opened it up and found a note inside.  Then of course I had to buy it.  The note didn't lead to any mystery or anything - it was just a gift from a daughter to her father, but it was just a pleasure to see something I had written about represented in a real life way.

This is very pleasant, multi-layered 70s music.  Perfect background for working, for homework, for dinner, for driving down the coast in the sunshine.