Writing: Why Do I Do This To Myself?

Sometimes, writing feels like driving on an empty highway stretching out to the horizon. Sometimes, writing feels like trying to squeeze half-dried concrete through a pinhole. And sometimes, writing feels like digging your nails into the most sensitive part of your body and slowly peeling the skin away.

I've been working on an essay about a romantic-relationship-that-wasn't. I had feelings for a good friend. The friend didn't have feelings for me. And things got rather complicated from there. I thought that two years had given me enough time to be able to write calmly about this relationship-that-wasn't. It had not.


There are times when writing this piece has literally brought me to my knees, when I shut down my computer and kneeled on the floor of my bedroom, doubled over. Just now, on my fifth draft of this essay (I don't think I've ever written five drafts of anything before now), I spent an hour and a half writing less than 200 words, before closing out of Word in frustration and deciding that writing about writing this piece would be easier than actually writing it.


Why do I put myself through this, you ask? I've asked myself that more than once as I've worked through these five drafts (fifth one still in progress, weeks after I wrote the initial part of this post). Maybe it's too early. Maybe I need to wait longer before writing about this particular relationship.

But, for some slightly perverse reason, I have persevered. There are times when I've had to spend a week or two working on something else, but I have persevered.


Maybe it's because of something akin to what Gary said in "Depression and Writing": "Writing has been like unspooling a tightly wrapped ball of yarn into an itchy sweater. I'm always uncomfortable with what I've done but it feels like an accomplisment." Sometimes, my sweater has felt like it was made of needles instead of yarn, but making it has felt like an accomplishment. Like I have distanced myself enough, finally, to be able to do what a writer does and make choices about how to present a story powerfully. Like a mile marker on one of life's roads.


But it's more than that. It's like alchemy. There's something about taking a stressful, often unhappy time and transforming it into words. Words have always been my happy place, whether I've been reading them or producing them. And there's something transformative about watching what has been, so far, undefined, morph into prose. And when there is prose, there are imaginary readers. So I haven't just been transforming the story of this relationship-that-wasn't. I've been sharing it.

Sometimes, there are emotions–anger, sadness, resentment, love–that you don't get through unless you write about something for the first time. It may not be the right time to start writing about an experience. But you will never know until you try. I will keep writing until I feel finished with this piece (and who knows how long that will take?). In the meantime, I hope you will start. What is the most difficult thing for you to write about?

Read more of Rukmini's work on Floodmark.