Negative Nelly's Noose

I'm having one of those self-loathing days. The sun is sorta, kinda shining; the children are happily playing in their pyjamas and I have my much-awaited coffee. I'm pretty happy it's the weekend and I'm spending the whole thing with my family. 

Doesn't change the fact that she lingers in my veins; that girl who's been coming up in conversation quite a bit lately: Negative Nelly.

Nelly is insidious. You could have everything in life going quite swimmingly but then she comes to crash your wave with her surfboard of despair. I'm feeling like I've wasted 4667 hours of my life working on a load of crap when maybe I should've been doing something worthwhile like washing dishes, improving on my finance knowledge or cleaning the grout with a toothbrush. I should've been doing anything but allowing myself to become deluded enough to think I could write a worthwhile book. 

Haven't I read other writers' work before? They're all so much better than me. Why do I bother? Why hasn't anyone stopped me? The worst part is, I've been waffling on about it to anyone who'll listen, and even letting people READ IT!

I'd be better off going outside to trim the lawn with kid-friendly scissors. 

I think writing is like drug addiction, or being in a bad relationship. It's a roller coaster of highs and lows (but with less track marks). You suffer the lows, trusting that a high is sure to follow at some point. A deluded, useless, pie-in-the-sky high. One of those highs where you say, 'I know why I bother! Because it's the one job I really love when I don't hate it. It's the one thing I've always had a knack for when I feel I suck at most other things. Because sometimes I read my work and I laugh in all the right places; because it feels like maybe there'll be some sort of legacy of me through my writing, however small. Because my daughters see me with my laptop and promptly whip out paper and pens to make their own picture books. 

Insanity prevails and I start thinking of reasons not to put my manuscript in the recycling and delete all of its files (including 'director's cuts'), and then I'm ascending on the freaking rollercoaster. I'm beginning to find my second wind and next thing you know, I'm eyeing off my pretty blue laptop.

It's a cruel and unusual curse, wanting to  write, but it's one I wouldn't trade for anything. Even those days when I feel like  putting my head in the toilet bowl and just flushing. Luckily, I'm too much of a busy creative mother and writer to have a pristine toilet so I never quite go that far. 

Nelly, I'm flushing you down that permanently stained loo! Until you resurface... 

Let the delusion begin!