I saw this painting on a friend’s blog a couple of days ago and I’ve been in a spasm of angst ever since.
Circe Poisons the Sea, by John William Waterhouse
In Roman myth, Circe poured poison into the sea to kill a rival sea nymph.
This painting has made me stop and ask myself what poison I am pouring. I fear I spew a constant stream of poison into the sea of my fragile psyche.
I can’t write. I’m a hack. I’m deluding myself to think anyone would want to read my blithering. My writing is boring, corny, convuluted, illogical.
Poison.
What is the antidote? What can I pour in to counteract the harm I’ve done? What can I do to stop myself from pouring more, more, more?
In The Sower, Alek dreams of a poisoned stream. When blood pours in, the stream is purified.
I don’t want to bleed.
Your critique group offers tons of anti venom, no? What about your adoring family–including your sil who recently read the WHOLE thing?
My dearest Margot,
Gene Fowler, an American writer and journalist is the author of the quote "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."
I don't want to bleed either; I'm not sure we can avoid it. Let's limit it to no more than a couple of drops, shall we?
*C*
I used to do some very real damage to myself with self-talk like that, not just about writing but about everything. It took me years to stop, but I finally found something that worked for me. Whenever I had a "poisoned" thought, I made myself stop and replace it with something new. If I thought, "your writing sucks and you'll never make it," I had to tell myself to stop, and then replace it with something like, "this piece has problems, but you can fix them." Sunny, happy, everything-is-wonderful thoughts never worked for me, but I could coax my brain not to reject thoughts that acknowledge an imperfect reality and then offer hope. And so gradually I stopped beating up on myself. And now I feel so, so much better.
I've been meaning to do a whole blog post about this, but I haven't yet.