Like Asking Me To Cut Off My Own Arm

F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as saying "Don't write until and unless you have something to say," while Joan Didion is quoted as saying "I write to find out what I want to say."  I've always loved pointing these two out when people start thinking there's some One True Way(tm) to approach writing.  If anyone thinks either of them doesn't know how to write, I'll meet you by the bike racks after sixth period.

I write because life sucks when I don't write.  That's why you can take all the pleasant fantasies like "a successful blog" or "a book deal" and even the penultimate "groupie threesomes" away from me, and I'm still going to structure my life so that I can spend the vast majority of it reading and writing.  I'll make sure the bills are paid, I have insurance, I'm socking something away so I can retire, and then my interest in the typical trappings of The American Dream(tm) fade away.

I now head into the third week of not having a computer on which to do my fiction.  I am a little distractable.  I'm feeling a little down.  I have the distinct sensation that there are tiny little hobgoblins about the size of a pinky toe's nail with wicked razor claws at the end of long fingers trying to dig their way out from within my skull.  Another week and I'll start getting kind of depressive, anxious, and possibly a bit irritable.  After that I'm a bit ashamed to admit what happens.  It feels pretentious and emo just to mention it.  But it isn't good.  I won't cut myself or anything, but I might start listening to The Cure in a room lit only with candles.

Black candles.  Black like my soul.

I could buy the computer I want right now, but it wouldn't leave me enough money in my account to clear the various auto-withdrawals that I have set up.  All I need is one thing to land--either a paycheck that is due any day now, or my mom taking care of her half of the plane ticket for my visit.  Until then, I am considering using a "private" entry on Livejournal or putting things on Google docs just to have a place to do some fiction.  Just so I don't fall apart and weep or something.