Writing and Depression, Part Two
So, here I am, over a month later, and feeling pretty much the same way: Struggling with my depression and struggling with my writing.
According to the National Novel Writing Month website, I’ve written 772,303 words in various NaNoWriMo projects. Add to that the number of words I’ve written on short stories, aborted novels that I never bothered finishing, and so on, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve written around about one million words of fiction, and that’s in this century alone, when I decided I was going to take this writing thing really seriously.
I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo sixteen times; in 2012, the novel I wrote was merely a continuation of what I wrote in 2011, so I guess I’ve written fifteen novels during that time. Only a few of those I feel were “completed”, in that they had the words THE END on the last page. And even so, I have not revisited most of those novels, to revise or rewrite them. The only exceptions are the Fred Again, which I wrote in 2005, and which I’m rewriting now as The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster; and Padma, which I wrote in 2016 and which I’m rewriting as well. Still, though, shouldn’t I have at least one completed novel by now?
In short, through writing those million or so words, I’ve accomplished very little.
I don’t think this is imposter syndrome; I see imposter syndrome as being the sort of thing you contract when you achieve some sort of accolade or accomplishment, and feel as though you don’t deserve it. No, this is just me feeling frustrated that I’ve come this far without having moved past the “early career writer” stage, and feeling like I never will.
Me too. I am never going to get anywhere in life. And it’s probably all for the best because the last six years have really taught me that the only way to be safe is to be invisible. Or at least, don’t do or say anything that gets people’s attention, like publishing. If you do nothing/say nothing, you’re safe.
I never feel like my NaNo novels are worth saving. They’re all bad in their own way. Something is missing, I don’t know what it is, and I can’t fix it. Is that what you do, or do you just fizzle on the rewrites?