Reaching Out

The most depressing thing about my foray into writing has been when I’ve tried to share my struggles with other writers. They…just don’t get it.

They can relate to struggling through a project, sure. But your average writer can’t relate to a FOURTEEN YEAR tug of war with a novel they’ve been passionate about the whole time.

Sometimes, I find myself reaching out to them anyway, possibly in a fool’s desperation for answers or for a shoulder to lean on, or maybe I’m seeking some form of outside accountability. Anything that can help get me past my rut. A lifeline in the form of advice, perhaps.

But every writer has their own struggles, and each of us have to deal with those struggles in our own unique ways. My problems are not the responsibility of other writers.

When I bother to ask authors if they’re able to relate to what I’ve been talking about, they invariably say yes, then immediately dismiss my struggles as if it were nothing more than amateur jitters that I’d eventually get over if I’d simply bother to write, or they recite their top ten list of advice for writer’s block.

For about half-a-decade, I believed them. I believed I was just being lazy, or suffering from the world’s worst case of writer’s block, or that I was missing something from my ritual and methods, and that someday, I’d find the rest of my missing motivation. Or maybe I just wasn’t inspired enough.

But something felt off. I couldn’t place my finger on it. I just knew that something more must’ve been going on that nobody seems to understand, least of all, myself.

I imagine it’s a bit like someone with Asperger’s trying to explain how difficult it is for them to pick up on subtle social cues and make friends, expecting other people who don’t struggle with those problems beyond the normal scope to somehow “get it”.

But after I’d tried what seemed like EVERYTHING, I started losing hope. And I’m not the type to leave stones unturned. From that point forward, when I’d reach out to a writer only to be dismissed yet again, it made me feel hollow inside. I’d actually tune out their responses and began to face the possibility that my life goal of finishing a full-length novel at the quality-level I wanted might actually be impossible for me.

After all, if I didn’t care, as some seem to think, I certainly wouldn’t be passionately blogging about it now, would I?

So, here I am. And my latest research has led me to some difficult conclusions.

My Current Hypothesis

I don’t get much of a dopamine hit from normal tasks.

Brushing my teeth, folding clothes, paying a bill on-time, or taking a shower barely register on the dopamine scale. Chemically speaking, there’s no payoff for my efforts, thus no encouragement for me to do it again, so I have to will myself to do these things solely because they have to be done and there’s consequences if I don’t.

I never look back at a day full of small accomplishments and feel satisfied. Instead, my brain screams for the kind of dopamine hit that can only be delivered from either a difficult-to-accomplish (usually artistic) task, or from the measured rapid-fire achievements delivered by the likes of strategy games or social media.

If the above is true, it follows that I get less of a dopamine hit from writing every day than your typical writer would. If so, they can’t possibly relate to what I’m dealing with. If I manage a writing session, it’s because I’m aiming for that dopamine hit at the end of the tunnel. The day-to-day writing to get me there just doesn’t do it for me. It’s a struggle the likes of which other writers may never have to deal with their entire life.

The more complicated a task, the better the dopamine hit. Writing can be as complicated as we want it to be. This, unfortunately, has the side-effect of encouraging a nasty blend of over-complication and perfectionism. Two things that attract me like a moth to a flame.

Naturally, the day came where I decided I wanted to write a novel. So I thought of an idea that I felt no one had ever tackled before and got started on it, full of excitement.

It quickly grew in complexity, well beyond my skill level. I couldn’t help but challenge myself, perhaps because I had my eyes on that dopamine prize. (If I’m going to do this, I’ll need ONE HELL of a dopamine rush to reward my efforts.)

As a result, I struggled to find my bearings whenever I wanted to add to this project, and I quickly felt like I was in over my head.

Every once in a while, I decided to press on, anyway. Despite my busy work schedule, I’d often set aside the whole day just for writing.

And if I didn’t manage to climb my wall, I’d often retreat into “how-to write land”, procrastinating, falling into a sea of time blindness, ultimately losing the entire day under the feigned excuse of “I was learning how to write, so the time wasn’t totally lost”. The hopes were that I’d stumble upon that magic advice that would help make getting started easier next time. That magic advice never came, and the next time was almost always harder than the last.

If I did manage to scale my wall and found myself back on the bridge, chances were it would be more rickety than ever. Half my bridge was often missing, and the planks that I did have were slowly rotting away (if only for the fact that I hadn’t written in a long time, so the story wasn’t fresh in my mind).

As the years rolled on, the abyss below me started looking more like a rushing river, rising, threatening to wash me and my work away for good. There’s…probably a reason they call it the “abyss”.

Subconsciously, I grew intimidated, which discouraged me altogether.

My brain freaked out and defaulted to seeking out instant gratification wherever I could find it.

I went to the bathroom, I got a snack, did chores, wandered around upstairs. I did anything other than what I wanted to do the most. And it breaks my heart every time. Then I sit down at the keyboard at the end of the night and agonize over how much time I’ve managed to waste. Again.

If I didn’t think to carry a few novelty planks along with me, my journey would probably be doomed from the start. And my writer friends continue to wave at me from across the bridge. I reach out my hand, but no one takes it. Not that I expect them to. I just keep searching for driftwood that happens to float my way and add it to my bridge, hoping that “one step closer” will someday get me there.