I am no longer a writer…

       Since graduating with my MFA, I can’t write anymore. I can’t. For various reasons, I am not longer a writer. I am a reviser:

Not my image... I don't write.

1. I can’t even get through a fucking facebook post to a friend without reading it twice, revising it three times and having to click that damn pencil icon to edit it AGAIN after it was posted. Nothing is ever finished…nothing and it bugs me. I used to write blog posts off the cuff. NOW off the cuff is a week of writing and editing around teaching, my day job, and a fear that my scholarly friends won’t like it…BULL SHIT
2. Everyone is a damn critic. NOT that they aren’t right…but it seems to me that as soon as you get a MFA and get serious about it, you start sharing your work (well before that, but follow me here). And suddenly everyone has something to say about some part of something which was once something you liked but NOW…NOW you hate it because it’ll never be good enough…EVER.
   
3. There are no deadlines and thus no time. Before I said, “Nope, I can’t do that because I am way too busy with school”. I had deadlines, books to read, papers to write…I was actively writing and doing so daily because I had to. Now, if I have a moment in the day I try to get something down, but who the fuck is it for now?! Me…yes I know…it always was for me. But so what? This brings me to #4…
   
4. Not knowing what do with what I do revise (remember I am NOT a writer anymore) What the hell will I do with thousands of poems, hundreds of pages of finished manuscripts, and screenplays? What will happen to pages and pages of my revised words if I don’t get them out there? I need the time to submit, and in many cases, the money. So what will come of them?  I will do nothing with them and I’ll be found under them. It’s the literary equivalent to the cat lady. I can’t have cats…I’m allergic.
   
5. Writers (they can call themselves that) make up reasons not to write. Family, jobs, I’m tired… oh and my favorite cop out…I need a break. From what?!?!?! Writers sit on their damn asses all day contemplating thoughts and making their work feel to make others feel or some such bull shit. I don’t want to feel anything, I’ve felt enough.
   
6. People assume that you can write their…whatever.  I can’t tell you how many people have said, both when I was in school and especially now that I have gotten out of school…”Oh good, now that you’re done you can help me with my memoir”. Grr…piss off. Why don’t you go to school for a few years and pay several thousand dollars to learn that you know NOTHING but how to revise and THEN see if YOU want help anyone do anything? Yea. Piss. Off.
   
7. I’d rather drink coffee in a dark coffee house and write, err revise as well. There’s something so sexy about being that scholarly and mysterious…isn’t there?…but you know what? IT ISN’T LIKE THAT. First off it’s too fucking loud next to the cappuccino machine and the barrister keeps talking and that shit is distracting. Secondly, you can never find an outlet to plug in the PC, MAC or iWhatTheHEllEver you’re typing on. Third…it’s too damn dark in there AND you cannot sit by the window… it is as cold as an ice cube’s ass in the winter and hotter than it is under a fat man’s man-boob in the summer. Lastly, the drinks are expensive and you can’t just sit there all day and NOT do it, you have to buy SOMETHING…but once again you can’t because you’re a writer! Writers have no money, so none of this is possible. (and if you can afford it then you have enough to build your own studio, go write there you lucky bastard)
   
8. Once you’re a writer people ask you dumb ass shit. People keep asking to see what you write, or asking you what you write about. When you explain, they don’t get it ANYWAY or they talk endlessly about how they could never do THAT…WELL I CAN’T EITHER!! Especially since you’re bothering my ass with your dumb shit questions! It’s easier to say it’s currently being revised. A work in progress if you will.
   
9. Revisers go on sabbatical. I want a vacation where I’m paid to consider work and actually make headway with it. I prefer that to being a whiny ass writer who is content to belly ache about their shit and how there is no time for it to get done.
10. Writers talk about their work all the time. I’m not sure I want to discuss my work with anyone, whether they have a MFA or not…I don’t care…know why…opinions are like assholes. THAT’S WHY! Don't believe me? Click the 'next blog' link up there...go on...click it.