Self-Imposed Exile - Journal Entry #13
A novel told in journal fragments: A writer's quiet struggle to finish a novel, alone in the woods.
Friday, January 13 - 1:01am - Day 62
Been up forever it seems. Not just from tonight either.
I didn’t write at all Thursday (4th) then on Friday (5th) I got up, sat down, and just sat. I stared at the computer screen then out the window then back to the computer screen.
And after a couple hours of that, I got up and had lunch. And that was it for the day. Nothing came. No thoughts. No ideas. No continuation of the story. Nothing. It was like my mind had gone completely blank. I wasn’t even thinking “Hey, you should be writing” or “just write a few words, even if they suck.” There was literally nothing going through my head, which, as far as I can remember has never happened. People are always thinking of something - things they have to do, things they don’t want to do, why you pushed that kid over in kindergarten and made him cry. You know, all the important things in life.
There’s always something going on upstairs. Sometimes it’s nice little thoughts “oh, that cloud looks like a bunny.” And sometimes it’s a firestorm that I couldn’t hope to control. But Friday (5th). There was nothing. So after lunch, and yes, I did try to sit down at the computer again, I just gave up. I didn’t have anything to do though. Still can’t leave the cabin. I paced around inside. I bounced a ball off of the walls. I ate a ton of snacks. Then I just plopped down on the couch and watched episode after episode of Friends. All day and deep into the night.
I didn’t sleep well at all. I kept having weird dreams that I couldn’t remember but I also kept waking up almost every hour. By the time 7am Saturday (6th) rolled around I was even more tired than when I went to bed. So I didn’t even bother getting up. I just stayed in bed all day.
And that went on for an entire week. The only time I got up was to go to the bathroom and to get something to eat, and I barely did that. And you want to know the real disturbing part? I barely noticed an entire week had gone by. Not even that I didn’t write anything for the novel. Not even that I didn’t get out of bed. Not even that I didn’t even write in here. I just didn’t notice. Or maybe I just didn’t care?
Is this depression? I don’t feel depressed…I don’t think? I don’t feel sad. I feel…absent, I guess. I mean things were going well for quite a while. I can say it was the storm that threw me off. Took me out of the game because I was a little nervous. But would that make me depressed? Not sure.
Anyway, I’m tired but I’m not sleepy, if that makes sense. And when I realized I squandered an entire week, I forced myself to get up and write this. Apparently I can dump 567 words (yes, I counted) of pointless self-flagellation into this journal but can’t string together a single paragraph of the book I came here to finish.
Now what? Guess I’ll just try to get some sleep or at least some rest. I’m guessing there will be lots of tossing and turning for the remainder of the night. And then I’ll probably need this weekend to recover from my recovery from the rest of the week where I hardly even moved.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Or maybe I’ll lose another week without noticing.
I guess we’ll find out.
I can feel the gloom gathering, the self-doubt spiraling. In a tiny wood cabin the darkness is deepening. Beyond the warmth of summers breeze, the winter chill begins it’s squeeze. The light dies, the song birds flee, the ice moans out on the saltless sea…. yes i’ve been reading entirely too much Tolkien lately. It gets dark at 5 here in the north east and I have nothing else to do. Sue me. Here’s hoping our snowed snared writer makes out better than I this Christmas.