I sometimes write as if I’m writing for my bully. She’s female, my age, and we went to school together. She’s dead now—died several years ago. Too young to die. And yet, because of how uneasy I felt knowing she existed in the world, the fact that she no longer does is, unfortunately, nice.
It’s strange how her image still shows up. I picture her standing there, listening to what I’m saying. Stoic posture. Arms crossed. Lips tight. She barely glances at me. I talk, she rolls her eyes. A pointed shoulder shift does the trick. That’s usually all it takes.
Why in the world do I do this to myself? Anyone who doesn’t enjoy self-torture would ask. The simple answer is: another writer does it. An author whose work I respect. The hack, I think, is that it keeps you honest. You give yourself an observer who doesn’t give a shit—who’s ready to attack the second you get too high and mighty, or start to drift. She’s always one step away from turning her back on me completely.
And I like that. I prefer someone uninterested, bored with me. It’s grounding. Especially when all I do is blab on here—having someone checking their phone, glancing at the weather (looks like an ice storm this weekend), makes it clear: it’s not enough to just say something. Sure, I need to say something, otherwise what am I doing here? But how I say it, why I say it, the beat-for-beat accountability—am I bullshitting myself? Am I just talking out of my ass?
She’s there. And her edge keeps me ready.
That’s one thing I’ve been doing lately when I write. Another is learning to notice when I’ve slipped into that slowed-down, overcorrecting, deleting-words place. Editing when it’s not time to edit. There’s a thing that happens in writing—like the angelic harmonies of Crosby, Stills & Nash—when my thoughts sync up with my fingers. It becomes a chant-like meditation. When I hit that spot. That itchy, unreachable place just under the bone that sticks out when I twist my arm behind me and inch my elbow forward with my other hand, trying to get closer. You know the one. Do you do that? Never mind—you couldn’t care less anyway.
I’m over this post. I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m not here to make you smile. I don’t even know why I’m here. To be a better writer? To help you feel less alone? Those are reasons I’ve told myself before, but honestly, I don’t know. It’s something to do. I do the thing, and here I am doing the thing, shrugging and saying, yeah—that’s all it is.
No matter how much I’ve wanted writing to be earth-shattering, brain-exploding, some kind of value-proposition business plan for humanity, it’s not. And you know what? I think that’s really cool. Because then I can drop the expectations to the ground. I can talk to my dead bully. And I can do this just because I want to.
Which, like I said, is really cool.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 