Retreat: Strategic or Just Directioned Flight?

So I have to have something turned in for workshop tomorrow.  And being in the throes of total writers block, I’ve opted to send in a chapter from a novel I wrote last year. Yes, it’s cheap.  But sometimes you have to be cheap.

I’m still working on the Fantasy of the Far East story.  Having scrapped every idea I had, I’m toying with a straight monster story.  Don’t know.  Hopefully with the pressure delayed until Thursday, I will be able to get something together.  I’m utterly depressed with how writers blocked and generally ineffective I’ve been these past few months.  My mother says this is a biproduct of grief and stress. My fear is that it won’t pass.  I had a discussion with the person who recommended me to the graduate program I’m in now, and he happened to mention that the last two people he’d seen who went through this program stopped writing forever. I’m so terrified this is becoming me. 

On the bright side, I have started a few stories over the past week, though I haven’t finished any.  I do have ideas.  I’ve been working on writing everyday. 

I like to believe I have some control over my writing life.  I don’t believe in writers block.  If I want to be a professional, then I have to act professionally. At the same time, I know I have to cut myself some slack for my life.  I need to rediscover my fun in writing.  I think because of everything that has been going on, I lost it.  And the compounded stresses of having to write for a grade is only exacerbating things.

But in the end, it’s not what happens to us, but what we do in response to it that shows us the mettle of who we are.  I refuse to betray myself and my dreams.  At least this week I have a second chance.  It’s not something everyone gets all of the time. 

I just hope I’m not writing this same entry on Wednesday