The only positive thing I felt today was, how positive I was that it was going to suck.
I had managed to move past the state of hopelessness with which last week’s class had left me, but now that the day of Week Two had arrived, its bitter taste was once again riddling my mouth and filling me with stomach-knotting despair. As a result, I plodded through my day with a sense of impending doom, checking the clock as I cooked, browsed Reddit, watched the news, and cooked some more. For there was a threshold: once it got to be 6:30, it was do-or-die. Well, do-or-just…don’t do. And I while deep down, I knew I was probably going to go, I was still throwing every possible sabotage in my path to delay the inevitable past that point of no return.
After hours of inner turmoil, the clock hit 4:45. The last vestiges of daylight were disappearing beyond the train tracks, and I too, was descending: into my bed, wrapped in a blanket, and snuggled with my two kitties. I knew I should go, if only to write this stupid follow-up, and if only to prove to my bar regulars that I wasn’t some pussy afraid of a dumb writing class, and yet…I was struggling. It would be so easy to just stay here, to throw in the towel before I even picked it up, and bow out of attending a class that made me feel so wildly and horribly inept.
I texted my boyfriend that I was having trouble, that I couldn’t scrounge up even the slightest will to go for my run, let alone to fix my bike’s flat, to shower, or to go to class.
“Start small,” he said, “Put socks on.”
I sighed inwardly, putting my phone down and mulling the wall.
Okay. Fine.
Ten minutes later, my bike was fixed. I was taking down the recycling, pausing at the door of our apartment. Deciding what I had the willingness, and time for, to do next. It was 5:30. And I decided: I’m going to run to class.
It was 5 miles each way, which, all tallied up, was a longer run than I’d ever done in my life. But, as I layered up and set my playlist, I figured that even if the class was another total and utter failure, at least I would be pushing myself past expectations physically.
I get there with 10 minutes to spare, and I feel…good. Running was a good choice. I immediately see that I’m the first to arrive, and I can also see the instructor isn’t thrilled. Who would be thrilled, after the joke of “writing” I put forth last week? I knew she’d rather have the stars of the class that had come forth last session, not me. But I force myself to stop thinking that way, instead engaging her in friendly conversation, and then excuse myself to the restroom to wash my face. Others start to trickle in, and when the door is locked and class begins, I see only half of us are here this week. And I feel a small sense of achievement: I could have been one of the missing. But I’m not. I made it.
And I’m glad: class this time is already different. Yes, it’s the same model: series of writing prompts, reading out loud if you want, and giving only positive feedback. But there’s an actual theme to the class this week – “authentic voice” – and instead of just leaving it at that, the instructor gives us tools to help us write authentically. I can hardly believe it: glimmers of hope start to pop up like small blades of grass within me. Because I might actually get something out of showing up today.
One of the tools, she says, to truly writing in your own voice is to avoid clichés. She’s scattered the tabletops with small strips of paper, each one with a different cliché. She tells us to pick one and write a story based on it, but without ever using it in the story itself. Maybe I should have picked a different one, because the one in my hand has me stumped. “Loose cannon”, I read, over and over. Loose cannon. Fuck me. I’m at a loss. I finally start to write about a time I was covering a shift and indeed, there was a VERY loose cannon customer. But I hate it as I write it. I don’t want my identity in this class to be “bartender”. I don’t want this to be what my writing revolves around. So in an effort to make it seem at least fictional, I try to make the narrator not sound like me. I try to make it more like a short story, and less like one of my blog posts. But by the time it’s Pens Down, I’ve still only managed to write backstory and hadn’t even gotten to the actual loose cannon part.
As you can imagine, I do not volunteer to read it out loud.
Others do, and they are all painfully good.
The instructor moves on to introducing the next exercise, during which I jot down notes for my future benefit: “GET TO THE POINT” “Just tell the story” “Skip the backstory”, which are things that the others all manage to do consistently, and seemingly, with ease.
The next tool she talks to us about, is that of using descriptors. Which, I admit, is good advice – everyone notices things differently, and everyone notices different things. We are asked to close our eyes as she places an item in our hands, hear her telling us to use our senses to explore it, and write a story about it.
She’s given each of us a cinnamon stick.
And well, I don't know about you, but I certainly never thought a cinnamon stick would be the thing to bring me to the brink of a breakdown, but here we are. All I can think of, as I hold and smell this prop, is how good everyone in this class is. How great they are at the things I am not. How I just can’t seem to do this. How maybe I shouldn’t be writing fiction at all. How I should just pick up my shit and leave, and tell the instructor: “I’m sorry. But I can’t write.” I swallow the tears and sobs, and force myself to focus.
I try one beginning, then another, then another, crossing each one out. God damn it. This was so hard. I try again. Okay. I like this opening, well, at least in comparison to the other shit I had written, and go with it.
I get three paragraphs in, and again, feel tears of frustration and disappointment ready to burst out of me. It sucks. I suck. Who was I kidding, ever thinking I could be a writer? Who was I kidding, thinking I might actually have a semblance of a chance of doing this, for real, when there’s so many better, more talented, writers out there? I look around the small space, its walls papered with signs for writing events and writing open mics, and think of all the other people trying to be writers too, and I become overwhelmed by the wave of reality, and have never felt more small.
But, no. Stop. I look down to what I’ve written, and try to focus on at least editing it, if I’m not going to move forward with it. It’s not awful, but I have no idea where the fuck it’s going. I think. Okay. It’s got two female roommates, polar opposites that no one understands how they are friends. A small but bright apartment that smells of cinnamon and cigarettes. I think back to when I had a roommate like that, and the time her ex came to the apartment threatening to break in and kill her, and we had to call the cops. If my two characters bonded over an experience like that, it could explain their friendship. So I go with it, writing furiously until times up. And when I put my pen down, I actually feel, once again, a sense of accomplishment.
It was sort of how I felt after class, when I ran home, and successfully planted my flag not only on my longest run, but also in pushing myself past nearly giving up on my writing. It had been a fierce and sharp reminder that my writing is mine, and I have the power to make it it's best. Where I had been feeling that my writing as so clumsy and pedestrian in comparison to others in the class, instead of letting my negativity consume me, I forced myself to hunker down. I did my best to forget about tearing myself apart in the moment, to instead really hone-in on writing on a level I know I can, even when it seems like I can't.
It was hard, man. It was harder than my 100 Days blog when all the shitty, dark truths I had to accept about myself, came to light. But that’s when I knew: this class is too important and valuable to stop now. Because when something is this hard, when something makes me want to give up so quickly, it means the growth that will come from it will be invaluable and incredible. But its on me to make that happen. And though I will probably face many near-breakdowns in the weeks to come, I know in the end, it will be worth it.
And if nothing else, I’ll come out of a it a much better runner.
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