On the Cusp
21 May
I think I forgot how to write. It’s a bit like forgetting how to cycle, how to swim; you’re told you can never forget how to. But you can, trust me.
I pause a lot when I write these days. I stop. I write a word, I write five. I look at them — they look strange. My famously squiggly scribbling no longer dance, not the way they did when I was eighteen.
The irony? The more I write for money, the more I find myself unable to. The happier I get, the more I find myself at a loss for words. So unlike what it was like at seventeen: heartbreak. Eighteen: coming out. Twenty: learning, and not doing very well at it. Twenty two: at a loss for words. No longer fearless. With too much to prove, and bills that I must soon pay.
These days, I spend most of my time running around being terrified. Not bad-terrified, mind you — anticipation-terrified. On the cusp, in the midst of a pregnant pause. I find myself not having much else interesting to say, because my words are now pitches, assignments, deadlines, and everything is a story idea or potential for a screenplay. Another thing to advance my career with. Writing a documentary, writing freelance, and writing my first novel. Did I forget how to write or does writing come more easily these days?
I responded with the only antidote I know of: I’m going away. For some weeks — Borneo, first, and Europe immediately after. Months away from the road is making me restless and unhappy. Pray I get some of my writing mojo back, won’t you.
