Bleed It Out

What do you give to your stories? What part of YOU leaves to become part of the page? I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever pursued writing seriously understands what I'm asking.

Yeah here we go for the hundredth time 

Hand grenade pins in every line

There's a process. It can be painful. It must be repeated. While I've been aware of it, I'm not sure if I've really come to peace with it until the last few weeks. 

What we do, no matter the level of expertise or area of writing, is nothing less than soul mining. We dig, we scour and we cajole. Anything to conjure a few words, to articulate the things in our heads.

Dug the trench out laid down there 

With a shovel up out of reach somewhere 

Yeah, someone pour it in 

Make it a dirt dance floor again

Not going to lie, it has frustrated the hell out of me at times. Nothing is good enough for ME. Furthermore, there's almost zero extrinsic value in it. I can count the "Atta boys" I've gotten on both hands. 

And to be honest, even if Stephen King and J.K. Rowling co-authored a letter titled, "Why We Think E.J. is the Greatest Writer of All-Time" I still wouldn't buy it. This is my struggle. What do they know about it? 

I am Sisyphus, and that rock is never going to crown that damned hill so long as I'm pushing it.  

Truth is you can stop and stare 

Run myself out and no one cares

I realize this entire post is going to come off as the Angst-ridden Writer Guy venting, but I don't care. I don't care because I think I've needed to say it. And I think you might need to hear it. 

Writing is thankless. It's a battle with yourself that you'll never win. The entire point of it is to pour yourself--your words--out until it runs dry. To try and say something in way that only you can say it. Once it's done, you do it again.

And that's okay.

F#@! this hurts, I won't lie 

Doesn't matter how hard I try 

Half the words don't mean a thing 

And I know that I wont be satisfied

I'm not suggesting I don't write for the reader. I think you have to. Put the truth serum (i.e. Merlot) in me, and I'll tell you what I really want to do is entertain. If I can get the reader caught up in what I'm saying long enough to forget about their crying dog or barking child, I call it success. 

But ultimately it's more about stirring something in them, not just telling them a story. I also realize most of what I write isn't going to achieve that lofty aspiration.

I bleed it out digging deeper 

Just to throw it away

So that's what this is about. Embracing the process. Give it your all every last stinking time as if it is the last stinking time. Don't expect anything out of it but the process. Don't regret the suffering. Don't regret anything. 

Expect people to dance as you burn. Expect them to want more even when you've been bled out. It's called a challenge for a reason. 

I bleed it out digging deeper 

Just to throw it away

I've listened to the song BLEED IT OUT by LINKIN PARK (all of the big BLUE words in this post are theirs, as is the song below) a few hundred times over the last three years. Not joking. 

It's in my exercise mix and it gets me going. It has also put my b.i.c. (butt in chair) to write on many occasions when I'd just about given up. It's probably the closest thing I have to a "Rocky" theme song. 

If you're not ruffled by a little language, you should give it a listen.

Do you have a song? A quote? Anything that sums up what this writing thing is about?


~EJW~