The Wall

I feel like not writing.

Here is what I do feel like doing right now:

1) Going on Facebook.
2) Checking how many hits I have on my blogs.
3) Sleeping. (Too early though.)
4) Eating Jello chocolate pudding.
5) Calling one of my exes. (Really bad idea. What the hell is wrong with me?)
6) Putting my whole book in the recycle bin.

How could this be, you ask, when just days ago I was super excited about my book and writing like a crazy person? Well, now that I hit page 182 (yes, I'm bragging, I guess), I am suspicious that everything--everything--I just wrote was utter and complete shit.

Of course, there is that one gorgeous sentence on the seventh page, and a really good metaphor towards the end, but I really don't see the point of finishing my book, let alone writing it at all. I mean, what is it really about anyway? My relationships? Who cares. I don't have some tragic story. I didn't do anything interesting or heroic. I had some boyfriends. We went on some dates, we had some sex. We fought sometimes. We laughed. We broke up. And now I'm alone. And I'm trying to tie that in with my parents' divorce and remarriages. And a semi-traumatic teenage experience. And I have no idea if anything in these nearly 200 pages will make sense to anyone but me.

One could say that doesn't matter. Write for yourself first. But this isn't my journal. This should be publishable. I know I will have to go through draft after draft to make it less dear diary and more hardcover best-seller. I know revision is the job. I just hate being stuck in the middle of it--between the grand idea and the finished product. It's like being in a swamp. I can't see anything but the current page I am working on and I am terrified of making a decision or inserting a certain thought or moment because what if that little anecdote will be better somewhere else? Of course, I could just move it later, but now I'm frustrated and I hate every sentence I write and I feel like giving up.

So, for tonight, I am just going to sit here and go on Facebook and type in a sentence here and there in my draft. I'm going to accept the fact that I have hit a wall. And I'm going to hate myself just a little bit. Because, tomorrow, or the next day, I know that I will get that urge to write and I will be brilliant again. Then that will pass and the whole thing will start all over again.

But right now, I'm just gonna go for that chocolate pudding...