When it’s been a while since I’ve written or created anything I can be proud of, I start to feel like I’m the most worthless person in the world. I feel like I never want to write again because I suck at it so bad.
Yesterday, for instance, I spent hours writing a miserable essay about David Foster Wallace and John McCain and moral authority and suicide which may or may not have proposed that Sarah Palin killed DFW with a fleet of grizzly bears. The post was live for a few hours when I received a very nice email from a reader saying (basically) “No. No no no.” And I appreciated this email because 1) it showed that someone was reading my blog; 2) it showed that some generous person considered my writing superior to that horrible post; and 3) it convinced me to retract the post (breaking my no-retractions policy for the first time, but for good reason!), which delivered me from a lot of embarrassment. Thank you, wise reader.
But now I’m left with this feeling again, this feeling of being the worst writer in the world. I haven’t been writing much at all in the past few weeks but I keep dreaming about writing: writing epic short stories, writing the great American novel, writing feel-good poems about cats. This morning I wrote something awesome while I was sleeping and my arm jerked out to receive a high-five. I immediately woke up to see my unslapped hand hovering there over the bed. I was mortified that I’d been left hanging, but also that my subconscious writer brain aspires to high-fives instead of Bookers and Pulitzers. Maybe I should have joined a sports team instead of starting a blog.