June 4, 2015

I am forcing myself to sit down, put my hands, to the keyboard, and write.

I don't feel like writing - I've done plenty of it already today. I sent 26 emails today, 11 yesterday, and 39 the day before - not to mention the countless instant messages and verbal conversations that fill up the few minutes of each day that aren't spent staring at a screen. My fingers fly on that keyboard, spewing forth overly friendly greetings, gently phrased orders, requests for information, and reassurances of cooperation. Hour after hour after hour.

When I get home, it's very difficult to write the things I want to write. My fiction has suffered badly - I painfully choked out three pages' worth of a scenario from a book I've wanted to write for several months, but by the end of the third page, I had degenerated into boring, predictable dialogue and unnecessarily detailed descriptions. Unusual for me. My blogging is also suffering - as I mentioned on Sunshine and Shadow, I really am planning new things for both of my blogs, but part of my absence is also due to plain old writer's block.

I'm getting quicker and more skilled every day at business communication - rapidly choosing the best phrase from an arsenal of variants on "please" and "thank you", in order to put together the magic combination of words to get what I need from overworked executives and stressed students. My ability to communicate has never served me better - even my supervisor defers to me in matters that require smooth, ingratiating language and a perky tone of voice. Yet because this kind of communication requires so little creativity, I worry that my actual writing ability is suffering. My storytelling ability is atrophying.

Soon I'll be in grad school - again, doing all the writing I can possibly handle. But again, a very different kind of writing than fiction. I wonder if it will serve me better, or if it will take me even further away from my hope of publishing a novel someday?