Quiet Rebel Writer

On days like today, when the Chicago weather is shitty and it’s a Monday and all I want to do is hop back into bed, writing feels like a chore. The act of pulling words out of nowhere and making them into some sort of coherent document is drudgery. I’d call it a case of the Mondays, but I might get jacked by a wooly mountain man type (see below, the 2:30 mark, for proof).

I hate the term writer’s block, because I don’t think this phenomena is limited to writers. No matter your field, there’s the days when work you may normally enjoy, may normally zip through and perform well, is a slog. Creative work, technical work, any kind of work has got to have this feeling.

So how to break the block? Lots of sites give good advice. But most Mondays (and occasional Tuesdays, and Thursdays, or any crappy Idunwannawork day) I just try to persevere. One of the few unfortunate side effects of working at home is I can indulge my lazyass-ness and dead head. I vacillate between barreling on through and giving in to my lethargy, especially easy since my office is currently in my bedroom, next to my luxuriously mussed up bed. I swing between sitting at my desk and taking the afternoon off to recharge. When it comes to projects considered extracurricular, the act of writing and staying on task is even more difficult. This blog post? Taking freaking forever.

But there is one method I can use that satisfies my schizophrenic self on days like today, which gives in a bit to the lazy ass but also pushes me back towards that driven lass. I look at writing I love. It reminds me of what’s possible, and why I want to write in the first place. It brings me back to the place where I remember how much I should be grateful for, how I should be ecstatic each day that I get to live out this freelance writing gig. It inspires me to keep working, to keep creating, and to keep dreaming that someday someone else will use my writing when they’re frustrated and stuck to unstick them. I don’t limit myself to novelists or other book writers. I look at songwriters and their songs. I look at screenwriters and their films. I look at magazine writers and their awesome articles. Sure, there’s a lot of crap that you can find in all those fields. But that just makes the quality that much more valuable and special.

So I propose a Monday date. On this most troublesome of days, when inspiration seems lacking and work a thing devoid of passion, I’ll present some specimen of stellar writing. For the writers in the house, perhaps this little piece of perfection can boost your own powers. For the non-writers, perhaps this offering can do something similar, and encourage you to find inspiration from your own field.

I offer the first Monday date material after the jump, but send in your own suggestions!

We’ll start with some song lyrics today. I have never written a song, and don’t aspire to. I can’t write poetry and often just don’t get it. But in the best songs I find enjoyment and awe. I find inspiration for my own writing.

This song is simple but heartbreaking: Ben Folds Five, “Mess.”

There was a time when I had nothing to explain
oh, this mess I have made
but then things got complicated
my innocence has all but faded
oh, this mess I have made

and I don’t believe in god
so I can’t be saved
all alone as I’ve learned to be
in this mess I have made

all the untested virtue
the things I said I’d never do
least of all to you
I know he’s kind and true
I know that he is good to you
he’ll never care for you more than I do

but I don’t believe in love
and I can’t be changed
all alone as I’ve learned to be
in this mess
I have made the same mistakes
over and over again

there are rooms in this house that I don’t open anymore
dusty books of pictures on the floor
that she will never see
she’ll never see that part of me
I want to be for her
what I could never be for you

but I don’t believe in god
so I can’t be saved
all alone as I’ve learned to be
in this mess I have made

Although the band is long gone, the website still exists that lists these lyrics, their discography, and song samples. Check it out.

Till next Monday.