Crisis of faith

[fictional]

I cannot write. Or rather I can, it's just crap, pure and simple.
What am I doing? For $.02 I'd hang it all up and go put on a skirt and some heels and get an office job.

What's the point of all this if nothing I write is any good?! I gave up something I had really really really wanted to do on Sunday, to sit here and slug away, and I just read over the result and it tastes like ashes in my mouth. It's like sex when sex is dead: just wet slimy foreign objects working away at each other. Blood, sweat and tears, + agonizing indecision, and I just feel like a talent-less hack.

And this was it - my last chance. It's even a compromise - if not art, then study. They used to say wizardry was an inborne art, but alchemy is learnt. And I was hoping, really hoping to at least have that.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you're working on, so there is only so much insight I can offer, but:

1) seems like a bad day all the way around
2) part of an academic career is teaching and part of teaching is knowing what it feels like when it's just not happening.
3) This may not be convenient, but it _is_ useful, and it's not permanent.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think I probably really needed to hear that.
When I'm within the pits of despair, I can never remember or process that it's finite.
And I _still_ kind of can't, so hearing it from the outside is always unexpected, and deeply appreciated.

Hope your day tomorrow (later today?) goes well.

[prosicated.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I've graced you with this otherwise graceless theory before, but, I'll do so again.
Part of the graduate school experience, my dear, is about transition -- student to professor -- graduate student is in between, liminal, if you will. Transitions --Rites of passage -- are painful, how can your new role fill you if the old one isn't abraded away?
Suffer you will, yes (thanks, Yoda, for invading my brain), but you will also triumph. I am quite sure of that.

Also, it is not that you are quantifiably writing crap, it's that your standards are shifting faster than your talent. Your talent will catch up. You have plenty of talent, my love, plenty.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

But, but...what if I look bad next to all my classmates and they kick me out and laugh at me?!

Intellectually, I know you're right, of course. And it's always hard to not think of where you are as the end of your existence, instead of a step towards where you want to be. So thank you for that, and the reassurance. I had forgotten, temporarily, that this is not forever.

Also, Yoda! Yay!

Love you Megling & miss you - any chance of an intersection anytime soon?

[prosicated.livejournal.com]

I'll be in NYC for a few days around Christmas, and am dying to see you at the patashoqua. Separately, together, and for as much time as humanly possible. =)

[calloocallay.livejournal.com]

I hate everything, too. You MUST come to the winter revels on Friday. We both need free alcohol.

dear fellow hater:

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Much need of free alcohol, but Gah. Not sure about Winter Revels, but maybe. Shouldn't I be writing Shakespeare instead?

Re: dear fellow hater:

[calloocallay.livejournal.com]

NO. COME TO THE REVELS OR I AM BORED and YOU DIE A STRESSED OUT DEATH. Trust me, it would be a lose-lose situation.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

ETA: rather interesting typo in that last reply. Hee. I wish.