I hate what I love to do. I’m a tortured artist. I am terrorised to write. Albeit a bit dramatic, lately I’ve been feeling incredibly resistant to do the one thing that brings me immense joy. The thing that makes me feel purposeful, contented, warm. The thing that is good for me because I’m good at it. Would you call it imposter syndrome? Or a lifelong period of writer’s block? This creative conundrum has been gnawing at me for most of my adult life and presents itself like an intrusive thought that fumbles around in my brain a few times a fortnight. It’s a wicked voice filled with trepidation that makes me seriously doubt what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. In plain terms, writing sometimes gives me the ick.
For years I have built a large percentage of my professional and personal identity on the fact that I, Katelyn Bulner, am a writer. That’s how I have always remembered myself as and projected myself towards. At eight-years-old, I had this lined exercise book where I would repeatedly write acrostic poems for all my cousins and close friends. On occasions when I spent weekends at my grandparents house, I would lock myself into their side room so I could work on my debut novel about an orphaned Egyptian princess on their dusty, old PC. That story ended up being a solid 20,000 words that my mother still has printed out and stored in her bedside drawer to this day. When I attended university to study creative writing, I graduated to compulsively scribbling cryptic lines in my iPhone notes, or more commonly, using my time working at the local pharmacy to furiously jot down ideas on the discarded receipts. I was fuelled and fulfilled by writing. It was my main source of passion and pride. So, where did it all go wrong?
I recently sat on my friend’s pink sofa and wailed over a tequila cocktail that I don’t own a notebook, therefore, I am not a legitimate writer. I don’t feverishly stop in the middle of traffic and scribble my thoughts. I don’t routinely sit down, crick my neck, crack my knuckles, and get to work. There is a pressure to always ‘be on’. To speak with eloquence. To use ‘big words’ in the most natural of conversations, like dichotomy. It was only the other day I went to say ‘nasal spray’ and I said ‘nosal’ and hoped that no one would call me out on it. I didn’t stop thinking about that mispronunciation for two days. On the occasions where I do set aside time to write, it can feel like I am pecking out words and critiquing them before they’re even conceived. It’s a slippery slope that leads to feelings of ineptitude, frustration, despair. It’s no wonder why some writers use the language ‘hurting’ to describe the creative process of writing. Paralysed by perfectionism and plagued by the need to succeed, I have begun to feel like my talent is waning, or more gloomily, I question if there was any there at all. If I was going to be a New York Times bestselling author with an accompanied Netflix deal, I would have done it by now. Surely I should have won some kind of literary award or attended a writers residency, right? Why? Because so-and-so did. We are all guilty of finding ourselves in the deep trenches of comparison. We exert ourselves on the assumptions that we’ve somehow ended up behind in the race – no longer even swimming in our own lane, but adrift in the great unknown mass. This feeling of incompetency goes beyond our jobs. It bleeds into our relationships, our dreams, our sense of self. We fear the goals we have, and more commonly, the time in which we have to complete them.
Being a writer isn’t something I do, it is something I am. When you choose a profession that requires so much of your personal self, it is hard to separate and distinguish between the two. The dreaded follow-up question when I proclaim that I’m a writer is “Well then, what do you write?”. Do I respond with my 9-5, which is working as a senior copywriter for a fashion brand? Or do I diverge to self-deprecation and say I write a silly little blog that provides me with no money and very little merit? It’s hard to not measure success by those two barometers. For years I have been saying that my biggest goal in life, my one true North Star, is that I will publish a book. A memoir or collection of essays, preferably. Of course, there is the actual writing of the damn thing. My go-to excuse is that I simply haven’t lived enough of life to feel qualified yet to dish out on it. Or, the easiest fall-back is to simply blame it all on my parents. I am loved and believed in far too much by mother and father, and as a result, I have grown up feeling like I am ’special’. Like I can do anything I put my mind too. Like I am entitled to success because it is my destiny! Of course, that is not the truth. I do work hard, but I am also lazy. I do want to achieve great things but I lack the drive to chase after them. Like all good things, there is nothing worth having if it comes too easy. I believe the recipe to success is hard work, originality, and a dash of luck.
There is an ideal model of how a creative should commit to their craft, but the reality is, bills need to be paid. Actors are waiters. Musicians are store clerks. Writers are corporate ants. These two things can co-exist. I used to think that I had to approach life in a linear trajectory where each year had to better the one before it. I would have a better title, more money, (I’d also somehow be thinner?), and ultimately, have more self-assurance. This is all bollocks. There are diverges, set-backs, accelerations and haltering stops. And sometimes, there are no directions at all. We can plan all we want but there is still so much that goes far beyond our control. It can be tiring to try for the fear that our efforts will be exhausted and we’ll have nothing to show for it at the end. It can be painful to feel like someone else’s best will always be better. The only thing that separates us from failure is the ability to not give up, for we should never let the fear of striking out keep us from playing the game. And no, I don’t follow sport references; this baseball quote was in the script of Hilary Duff’s Cinderella Story.
The irony of this piece is not lost on me. Like I said, it’s a love-hate relationship. When I do make the time to write, I am reminded of why I came to do it in the first place. It feels like magic. When the words seamlessly flow, I feel my feelings deeply. When I step away from a finished piece, I don’t walk away, I float in a bubble of euphoria. When someone praises my work, I melt. I continue to write because there is nothing else quite like it. Because when it’s good, it’s fucking good. I go back to inhaling books and furiously jotting down newly discovered words or phrases that I like. I research writing courses, I get ‘aha!’ shower moments and I become genuinely interested in proper grammar usage. I develop an itch that can only be scratched through the act of writing. I forgo all else and surpass my 30-minute timer because “I’m just too in the zone”. I start to believe in myself again. Ultimately, it’s this very last thing which always draws me back. To this profession, to this place, to this piece.
kateybulner.com 