Writing, Self-Indulgence, and Me

28/01/2023

I have called myself a 'writer' ever since I was 9 years old writing a self-insert story about a mysterious, untameable black stallion and his herd. Of course, I, a super cool and unique child, tamed him by being pure of heart and giving him a carrot. From there I really took a liking to writing myself as ‘the hero’ or even just ‘liked by other characters’ and wrote hundreds of stories over the years. Some were only a few hundred words, a concept that I liked but didn’t keep my attention, some were lucky enough to be as long as a novel. It was my hobby, a thing people knew me for and yeah, I wanted to be an author.

Saying that now feels weird because I write very little in my spare time these days. It ended in 2020, my last story remains unfinished like the rest, tucked away in a folder like a fond memory. I had written a few since then, stories with a start and an end, lasting a few thousand words, but most were hollow, a means to an end, a story for a job application, a draft for uni work. It scares me because the hollowness bleeds through, you can tell that I don’t care. I follow all the conventions, write things as they should be, the dialogue sounds real, the descriptions are fine, but there’s no passion in it and it reads that way. For the longest time I didn’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to care about these stories but I think I get it now.

I think I’ve always struggled with self-indulgence, I’ve always felt guilty, especially in the context of telling other people. I feel like I’m not allowed to enjoy things and I’m not allowed to tell people that I enjoy ‘dumb’ things. That leaves me open to be criticised and that’s bad. Anything that leaves a gap in my perfectly polished defences is bad. So, when it comes to writing stories with the purpose of being seen by others I tend to keep my guard up, I think it needs to be deep or cover an important subject. I pull from external sources and write the story that it 'should be' whatever that means. I don’t look within, I shut myself out of the creative process and I become completely disconnected from the piece. It becomes stale and reads that way too. Writing the story that 'should be' just doesn’t work. It’s been a gradual change, but last year I wrote three stories that I 'wanted', the stories that ‘I wanted to exist’. One was a particular stand out, and people can say what they want about my obsession with that particular subject but I had one hell of a time (/pos) writing it. I had so much fun perfecting it, writing the characters, the emotion, and the aftermath. I let myself enjoy something and I let myself express that enjoyment. It was self-indulgent and I didn’t care. The final product is something I’m proud of, and I’m genuinely happy that I wrote it into existence. To this day I think that it’s the best example of my writing ability.

I still have complicated feelings about self-indulgence, years of conditioning is hard to shrug off with a couple of fun stories, but I want to continue this trend and in the coming year I want to explore things that interest me again. The covid blues have been hanging over me for far too long, and I want to enjoy my hobby again. So, over the coming weeks I’m going to be undertaking a little game making project with a friend! I will be writing out the story and dialogue for it and they will do the hard stuff (coding). I will update my creative process through this blog, and hope it’ll help keep me in check a little I suppose.

Talk again soon!