My brain can be a real asshole sometimes.

My very own super-computer, wrinkled and gray and locked away between my ears, what I heard once referred to as “the most sophisticated pharmacy in the world”, (although not mine specifically) seems to do all it can do to fuck with me, outwriting this wannabe writer 24/7 and then some. It’s frustrating as balls.

Within the safe confines of my internal processor, stories and characters emerge freely, gilded words and phrases carefully and easily evolve into prose, and vivid, colorful scenes play out – some even showing the story outside of the story, those connected to book covers with my name at the bottom and shiny golden bestseller stickers affixed to their tops.

I often find myself rushing to release my inspired ideas – practically jumping out of my skin with anticipation to get it out of me, telling myself to hurry, hurry the fuck up before the words escape you, before you lose that kernel of possibility – before it rides away on the invisible air currents with the dandelions and cattails.

And – surprise, surprise! – as a matter of what I’ve already anticipated would happen – maybe even decided – my pen stays still, my fingers hover over my Notes App, my hands linger above my black keyboard. Frantically I reach for the tailored sentences I effortlessly rattled off to myself just moments ago, and, like grasping to remember a dream, within a few seconds of my ritual, what the hell I was even ranting about is often a mystery, gone from my memory entirely.

The self-deprecating side of me would suggest I lose about 95% of my ideas and starts in this ridiculous way, although I’m likely making it out to be worse than it really is- know thyself and all that. As point of fact, I have a fuckton of unpublished entries crowding my drafts file that prove I indeed have cemented at least some of my thoughts somewhere, somehow. Time and again I corralled and locked down the tail-end of potential, grasping at the frayed remains as it slips from my consciousness, probably to find another sucker willing to do the work and pluck it all down on paper.

What’s left is what I have come to see as a folder filled with failures. Files upon unnamed files with half-assed ideas jotted down- some a sentence or two, some several pages long, undeveloped and uncared for. Piecemealed together like the reattached leg of an old ragdoll, the thin thread of those fragmented thoughts are pulled from mere echoes of their synaptic starts. What the fuck, man?

Seems I’ve been at war with the Boss upstairs for some time, honing my craft of self-flagellation to a tee, bowing into the belief that my worth as a writer belonged to a lack of education, adequate skills at best, and insignificant accomplishment, in spite of my published works over the years. I’ve struck that tattered, well-used leather strap at my own back over my miserable sense of sticktoitiveness, the countless overlooked opportunities, and the misused minutes and hours and days and years I “should” have used to practice my skill.

But, I’ve been here before- a shitton of times, which is only slightly less than a fuckton. I’ve been riding the hamster wheel roller coaster for the better part of my life. Loud acts of motivation to do are followed by short spurts of action, both quietly bleeding into long lulls of inertia and complacency, and topped off with a sharp poke to my own chest at my lack of just getting it done, already.

So. After a shitton and one times of being in this spot, I’m making a pretty big decision: I’m telling myself a new story.

I’m tired of walking the self-imposed figure eight of corporal punishment. I’d rather give up writing altogether than continue to remind myself just how much I supposedly suck at it- especially without allowing myself the benefit of improvement. It’s not making me a better writer, and it’s sure not making me a happier person. I have choices. I can focus on my achievements, I can set benchmarks to meet, I can write with the intent of getting better rather than determining before I even begin that it’s shit work. Or I can quit.

Either way, forgive the cliche, but life is too fucking short. And I’m dizzy from running in circles. Whether or not I think I can, I am right. And I think, at the very least, Ima done running those same curves and plan a few offroad excursions ahead, where I expect to DO and BE, with intent of making shit happen. And away I go.