Marc Rivers, Author

I realize that I haven’t done any meaningful writing in about two weeks. This is both a byproduct of and contributing factor to my poor mental health of late. Know this, that the mood to do some writing has come and gone a few times in that span, but I’ve always been busy with other obligations. I’ve also had world-building ideas that were mildly interesting, but not ones that I’m sure are worth pursuing deeply.

I’ve had a few days where I’ve actually felt quite terrible about myself in general and my abilities as a writer in particular. One example of this phenomenon came when my local writing group came up with an interesting prompt that I tried to use for a flash fiction piece, but I just couldn’t conjure up anything satisfying. Maybe I’m asking too much of the piece or maybe I’m not taking the right approach to the prompt itself. Hard to tell.

One of the reasons this slump feels so bad is that I’m unemployed, so everything feels bad. But another reason is that I often find myself tying my self-worth to how fervently I follow my passions, which is dangerous, because I rarely feel truly passionate about much of anything, it seems. I wish I could lose myself in intense hyperfocus for days at a time on a project, but that never happens. I’m still not sure I’ve found The Thing™ that neither hell nor high water can keep me from pursuing. (The Person™, yes, just not The Thing™.) For as much as I love fiction writing, it’s hard to do. And sometimes that inherent difficulty just feels like a mountain too high to climb that day.

I’m continually searching for ways to channel my passion (such as it is) into creative energy. That could be building my own combat tracking tool for D&D or thinking of ways to make a simple woodworking project solve a problem around the house. The feeling of the creative act itself, when finished, brings me joy. I just want to create something that I feel is worth looking upon. (Drawing is not my friend, what with having to look upon the fruits of my unskilled hands and gazing upon the grotesqueries they have wrought.) I keep thinking I’ll find the paradigm that will break me out the shame cycle and stop making self-doubt and hypercriticism the default. Maybe someday I will.

In the meanwhile, keep being kind to one another. We’re all living life for the first time, so give each other some grace—except fascists. They know exactly what they’re doing and deserve every bad thing coming to them.

We’ll talk again soon. Bidding you the best in your endeavors,

-Marc