This is just the way it is now. Ever since my daughter was born, it's like nothing will come out. It's like she dragged all of my literary devices with her on her way out of my womb. She makes me too tired to pick up a pen and too happy to be depressed. I used to do my best writing when I was wide awake and hopped up on coffee at 2 AM. And I definitely used to do my best writing when I was depressed. So I think she's definitely the reason. She makes me smile too much.
It's a good thing. It really is. I'd rather be happy than write beautiful things. Eighteen-year-old Shelby would smack me for saying that, but it's just true now. I'd rather walk in the sunshine than write in the rain.
I don't know if this makes me less of an "artist" or what. Stephen King insists that he writes better when his wife is happy, his life functional, his alcoholism and drug addictions all rehab-ed out of his system. Elizabeth Gilbert thinks the whole "tortured artist" trope is totally unnecessary, and you can be an optimist and a great writer. But frankly, I don't want to write like Stephen King or Elizabeth Gilbert, because they're really not that great (you know it's true).
But then again, they're making all the money. J. K. Rowling isn't a tortured artist, and she wipes her ass with hundred-pound notes. Meanwhile, Jack Kerouac died poor and alone. So I guess what I'm saying is, maybe I got the really, really long end of the stick here. Maybe writing things inspired by my rainbows-and-butterflies-status happy life will make me loads of money. I just need to figure out how to make it come out of the typewriter.
I mean, where do you even start? I can't make the jump from writing Unitarian-Universalist we-are-all-one-soul prose and occasionally-semi-erotic, usually-littered-with-f-words, gritty-mess flash-fiction to writing like, Christian-inspirational non-fiction. Perish the thought. I would jump off a building rather than see my book sold at Family Christian Book Store, and if that makes me a bad Christian, I'll work it out with Jesus later. I just want to write something good, and good means not cheesy. If I'm a delusional narcissist for ultimately hoping that a novel that I write is assigned high school reading in the US by the time I die, then fine, but it's still what I want, and it's still not going to happen as long as I'm this blocked. I can't even type a line without having an anxiety attack anymore. Nothing I write is good enough. There's no darkness to pull from in my life, only light. I can't even explain how grateful I am for that, how happy I am to be so far away from depression that I barely remember how it felt. But at the same time, I need to find a way to write again. I need to find a way to fit within my skin all the things that I am, and all the things that I want to be: a good mother, a good girlfriend, optimistic and sunshiny, but also a good writer, an honest writer, a completely-opposite-of-cliche writer.
As soon as I figure out how to accomplish this, I'll bottle it and sell it, or I'll at least let you know.
