Yes Bad Thoughts, Again Today

A lot of people on social media have been talking about how it’s been difficult to write recently because they’re suffering from a mental illness or just general stress, and I get that. I’ve been there.

What I’m suffering from at the moment, however, is that I don’t have any connections that will help me publish my writing. It’s not that I’ll never be “a writer” because I can’t write, but rather that no one has held the door open for me and gestured me inside and asked, “Hey, can you write for us?”

Also, I am a very shy and very delicate flower.

And also, I’m not “young” anymore. Nobody cares about you if you’re 35 and don’t have any writing credits. You’re basically a professional amateur at that point.

And then also, I actually do have a ton of academic publications, so people who are willing to publish “emerging writers” aren’t interested in me or my work.

So every morning, every time I sit down to write, I have to go through the same cycle of “no one cares” and “this doesn’t matter” and “you’re useless” before I get to the “but do it anyway.”

I’m struggling to get things done this week, but once this week’s deadlines are behind me I think I might have to sit down and make a concrete plan concerning how to spend more time on social media, specifically Twitter. I also think I might take up smoking again.

Unfortunately My Evryday Life Is Not a 4koma

I’ve been thinking about drawing quick and sketchy autobio comics, but

(a) My life as a writer who sits and writes is very boring, and
(b) There’s nothing funny to say about academia, and
(c) It’s still a pandemic and I don’t get out much.

I was thinking about writing about my husband, who is actually an interesting person, but a lot of our interactions require footnotes. Or maybe I’m just bad at writing jokes?

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Anyway, I feel like people who get the joke will get the joke, but I’m not sure how relatable something like this is to the average person on Twitter. Idk, it might be easier to work with “pages” instead of trying to pare down stories to fit into a four-panel format, but first I have to get better at drawing. And like, the irony of this is not lost on me, but I think it would be easier to draw quick gag comics if someone else were writing the script.