WARNING:  This post brought to you by YouTube (not actually, but hey, if they want to sponsor it, I don’t see myself complaining). No animals were harmed in the writing of this post. This post was written in front of a live audience. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the writer’s views. Do not try this at home.

Have you ever spent so long writing something that eventually all the words moving from brain to paper/screen make you want to gouge your eyes out? Does it ever seem that the longer you write, the worse the writing gets? That’s me at the moment. And all the other moments too.

I’m approaching the end of a major book draft with no more gas in the car, no more wind in the sails, no more steam in the soup. Basically I’m fizzled. But the problem is that this has happened before. It seems like my writing always sets off on a great start, gains momentum, carries through and follows through, and then, at the moment it matters most, somebody poisons the waterhole and every last part and parcel of every last hint of any word sounds stupid to my ears.

A large part of this is that the further into a story I get, the more my actual writing style changes. It’s not supposed to change. Not like that, I mean. It’s supposed to get better, grow stronger, become unbearably gorgeous and attractive. It’s supposed to steal your last breath with the awe and wonder of it all. But no.

Instead it makes me want to vomit. It’s scum between my toes. Love…Well, you get the idea. It’s aggravating.

You’d think I could use some of that pent up rage to write even better – something about funneling my own emotion into my writing. Except I lost that skill eleven years ago and haven’t been able to get it back. Trust me, I’ve tried (in better news, I’ve only now stumbled across a new category tag for my site – basically “I doom and gloom” tag type…I do this a lot).

So what’s the world coming to where writing gets worse the more we write and motivation dies the more we accomplish? It’s coming to town, that’s what the world is coming to. Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.

Apparently it helps write semi-articulate blog posts that are negative. Apparently “apparently” starts with an app, but that’s irrelevant too!

But anyway, I’m beginning to lose focus. They say some people work better under pressure (best on a deadline) and sometimes that applies to me, but I mean seriously, what’s a person supposed to do when under a – albeit self-imposed – deadline when the writing gets worse and worse? You can’t just not write, because that accomplishes nothing and produces even less. Maybe sometimes you simply have to vent about it and then get back to the writing with a fresh second wind and less of the Debby Downer perspective (…wait…that’s a “real” person?). That’s what I’m going to do.

Signing off from the Land of Nowhere, this is T. D. Speirs, yadda yadda manada.