Writing as Salvation?

Things have been going very bad at work. Problems with fellow employees, problems with bosses, problems with clients. Things are coming to a head and I’m to a point where I am more depressed than not nowadays. I’ve slacked off on everything except what I have to do to live. And even then, only barely. I am still doing my job to the best of my ability but every day is a struggle to get out of bed to go to work.

So I’ve tried to figure out what I need to do to get out and make myself happy. I’ve put writing as my salvation to happiness. Creating screenplays and getting them produced, teaching others to do this, moving to a vast entertainment empire, this was what I had to look forward to, to pin my hopes and dreams on and to help me claw my way out of the dark hell I am currently in. But in doing so, I have put it on such a lofty height that it seems nearly impossible to reach. I’m so easily knocked down right now because of the depression, things seem impossible and I just don’t feel like doing anything.

This weekend was supposed to be about writing and getting things in line to start working on getting out of my current position, both job and life. But right before closing, knees got knocked out from under me and I’ve been depressed the whole time. But at least Sunday night, I had a little sliver of hope come back to me. Late in the evening, I decided to forgo to mindless computer activities I was partaking in and picked up Stephen King’s On Writing. I hoped by rereading it, I would find some spark, some little push to get me back in the right direction. It gave me a push, but not one I expected.

I am beginning to believe putting writing and filmwork on that high pedastal, I have made them into something I am lothe to do now. Writing used to be fun. In college, I would churn out scripts left and right, rewriting then, planning on shooting them, almost succeeding. It was fun and I loved every bit of it. But then college ends, real life slowly sets in and writing starts taking a back seat to things. Near the beginning, just when I got out of school, I still had that joy, that fire to write and produce. I wrote a few short scripts the first few months out of school but then things slowed. Real life became more important, the fact I didn’t have a job or prospects for one, bills piling up, and depression setting in.

In the time I have been out of school, I believe I have only written 4 things: one feature length script, two short scripts and a novel. In a semester’s worth of time at school, I would have written and rewritten at least 2 feature length scripts and shot a little of at least one of them. The novel was a difficult thing to create, taking me nearly a year to finish, though, part of the time I was visiting my dying grandfather. But the amount of time and energy it took really paid a toll on me. It took me close to another year before even trying to write anything again after that.

So, now here I am putting all my hopes for salvation on writing again. And in doing so, made the activity into work instead of the joy it used to be. And that’s really with everything I’m trying to write right now: the short scripts I’m working on, dani’s training manual, the filmmaking info I’m starting. I’m telling myself and others that writing will set me free and I’ll be happy. But because of that, it’s become this dark cloud over my head now. I can’t work because I’m depressed and I get depressed because I don’t work. And all the while, I am feeding myself the notion that I HAVE to do this; I HAVE to finish such and such by a certain date. I am perpetually feeding my depression and spiralling deeper as the days go on.

So, reading On Writing, I was given a push. Actually, I think it was more of a slap in the face. Writing is supposed to be something you enjoy and do it whenever and where ever you get the chance. I have ideas in my head but I’ve always either felt I wasn’t ready to put them down on paper or something else should come before them or whatever other bullshit I was feeding myself at the time. And I realized I am feeding myself the biggest pile of bullshit ever with this whole writing is salvation line.

I am depressed, yes. Things are bad at work, yes. But is my life right now so horrible that I can’t continue on and have to get out in the next few weeks? No. Will my life end if I don’t start production on my short scripts in the next Winter or Spring? No. Will everything fall apart between dani and I if I don’t get her training manual finished by the time she gets here in 3 weeks? No. In fact, the role dynamic between us has changed to where I don’t really need to have it finished for some time. Not until she tells me she is ready to go back to those roles. I would like to see it finished sooner than later, but it’s not something I have to kill myself in trying to write in the next few weeks.

So what do I do, then? I take a breath and relax. I take a look at my current situation at work and see how I can correct things to make it better. This will consist of changing how I work and my attitude towards it. I will have to tune out the drama and consentrate solely on what I am there to do, work. When the clock reads 5, then I will have to leave work at work.

When I am at home, then I have to keep from putting more pressure on myself. I have to put writing on hold, or at least stop trying to make it my salvation. It may still be but I have to work up to that, I can’t make it happen. I have to realize I can’t force myself to write in the context I am doing now. I have to get back to writing for fun, for the joy of storytelling. The stories have to come as they will and I have to just let them happen.

But for now, I have to change the way I think about my life right now. I have to change the way I look at work and my workplace and try to pull myself out of this depression. I have to stop putting so much pressure on myself after work to do 300 things I feel I absolutely have to get done in a month’s time. I have to look at what I truely need to do and consentrate on that but not to the point of obsession. I know I have to practice my lifestyle activities so I can play with dani and have some sense of what I am doing. Beyond that, I need to learn to relax.

Right now, I will set my sights on NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) in Novemeber to be the next time I atempt to write. If something calls me beforehand, so be it, but right now, I am taking that pressure of having to write to get me free from hell off me.