The Flip Flop (continued)

One day your writing's great, the next it's crap. Same words on the page both days...

How to manage this drunken, unpredictable flop flop syndrome?

(Let me say up front that I didn't select the topic at random. I've been experiencing it on and off for years, quite intensely at times [most recently yesterday].  So what I'm about to write is as much perspective as it is therapy for myself.)

Everybody has the "just learning to walk stage" in which first efforts are just plain clumsy in a literary sense. I still have my very first versions of S7 and let me tell you, reading them is painful, well and truly so. Being able to compare that early work to my current work creates its own affirmation - but I have to give myself that. I have to be ready to accept the positive progression the comparison indicates. When I do, I help realistically define myself as a writer. The proof is in the progress. Hope is a river that runs in that.

The trick is to be mindful to update that comparison continually, to reinforce progress as it happens.

When I'm entertaining positive thoughts, I realize that I've worked this thing called writing... I left the comfort of base camp and started climbing this mountain that shoots into the sky and touches my dreams. When I look down, it's to where I started and sometimes I feel really good about the height I've achieved. I'm excited about the climb ahead, about my ability to keep climbing.

When I'm careless and moody... well, it's the opposite. Then I'm about ten feet above base camp, stuck in the rocks with no handhold above me. I'm the Beginner, the Unpublished, the Untalented, and worse, the Silly Dreamer... given to chasing results that only the Select Few ever achieve. Why bother? Woe is me!

The fact is, I'm learning to write. Like any learning process, enthusiasm will wane at times, doubt will nibble at the edges of intention (or even take chomps), and tunnel vision will take over. Part of successfully learning (and thus growing) is the act of enduring all that surrounds the process, and not letting your goals slip from your hands. Hold them, believe in them, and you will carry them through all that is necessary to arrive at the next waypoint, the next resting point on the mountain.

To become a writer is to accept the idea of expansion and contraction during the journey. It is to make mistakes and be willing to learn from them. It is to understand that the rise and fall of enthusiasm need not be tied to hope or your measure of your progress. You are becoming a writer. You are becoming more passionate about the craft. You are becoming experienced.

What your efforts lead to is in the story of your climb, the story of what happens on the mountain. Are you there? Braving the elements with hands in the crevices and feet stuffed in the cracks? Don't be afraid to look down... and don't be afraid to climb higher. I hear the view from your dreams is spectacular.