The Bloody Doors Off

I’m pretty sure this appeared on a report card. At least once.

And you know what? I don’t. Not when it comes to writing. I’m not Shakespeare, nor am I Melville or Andy Sedaris. But I have a voice, an ear for dialogue, and a hell of a sense of narrative. You want me to create and embody a character? Done. But they’re gonna have their own lives, and fuck you if you don’t like it.

Backing up.

I rejoined a rebooted online RPG a few months ago. Hoped it would spark my writing. Turns out it took the play to kick the other stuff into gear. Problem is, my characters have their own trajectory, and I can’t be arsed to visit every member to make sure I’m not stepping on toes. There’s one writer I can free form with. We’ve been in sync for years. We ‘yes and’ each other ALL the time. Nothing’s off the table. We roll with the punches, sometimes literally.

Our characters’ first (re)meeting involved my guy trying to run down her character with his car. (He didn’t think she was actually real.) It was a fucking great scene. But ultimately, the idea isn’t to rehash old relationships or storylines, and we’ve barely written together since. I simply can’t, not with these two. There’s too much history between them right now and my brain screams ‘this isn’t right’; they’re meant to be as thick as thieves, not barely in each other’s orbit’. This is my issue and I own it. So I don’t write him right now. Not if/until he comes around.

And now I’m struggling with the other character. As bright as the fucking sun I know every move she’s going to make in any situation. But I’m hamstrung because I have to consider everything. Which leads me to second-guessing, which leads to writer’s block. And when someone (rightly) reminds me of the rules of the game, I get abrasive.

Thinking I know better. And I do, for my characters.

When I did rewrites for the play, they were based on suggestions and comments from the dramaturge. They weren’t demands. They weren’t rules. I listened to the characters and considered the narrative, and let them go where they needed to.

I had a meltdown this afternoon, over unrelated stuff. Tonight I shut down and am suffering anxiety and writer’s block because I don’t play well with others.

It’s October, all over again.