How To Write When Everything's on Fire

Hello, my name is Elias, and I haven’t written a creative work in well over four weeks.

Obviously, this isn’t some smoke-filled AA meeting. Still, I strongly suspect that I’m not the only one who is struggling right now. All-too often, what we love becomes something we lose all interest in. Maybe we even come to believe that we never were the person who “did that,” to begin with. That doubt, that despair can be as addictive as any other substance and just like any other addiction, it does nothing but destroy.

I’d love to lay it all on the election and that is HUGE part of it. As a survivor of the “Reagan Recovery,” I’ve seen what happens when stupid-cruel people are given unchecked power. And, we’ve seen this act in previews. There is a lot (civil rights, economic prosperity, representative government) to lose and many of us will.

However, in truth, I’ve also been stymied by work. What they don’t tell you about late-ish life career changes is you never seem to stop feeling like you have to prove yourself. I’ve been at my latest job for a while now. I've enjoyed greater success than I could've ever imagined. It has been life-changing. Still, every day, I feel like I have to justify being there. It’s exhausting.

COME TO TEXAS! You’ll hate it.

It’s also been four months since Hurricane Beryl shellacked the Texas Gulf Coast. After months of fighting with the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, I’ve thrown in the towel. Twenty-plus years of state-law mandated windstorm insurance means nothing when you file a claim. We’ll be paying out of pocket for repairs to our house. 

Damage that "doesn't exceed" my deductible.

And while my Missus is steadily recovering from breast cancer and six, (6) surgeries in eight months, she still has bad days and rough nights. She is also my priority over everything. As a result, I’ve absorbed a lot of the stress mentioned above to protect her and give her space to heal.  

Short answer: no time, too much worry. Nice, neat little bow, I tied that up with, huh? But that’s not it, not entirely. 

 

Imposter syndrome? I’ll have you know that I’m not good enough to be an imposter! 

That is closer to the mark. See, as we watch the Fall-of-Rome reenactment, as my Missus struggles every day to walk, sit up, and work without being debilitated by pain from her cancer-maintenance meds, I really have trouble believing that my story has any merit. That any of my stories or ideas matter at all.

 

I write crime fiction. There is no way I can compete with the criminal facts occuring in real time. I’ve dabbled in science fiction yet I see science-rejection—a hundred years of proven public-health policy dumped—by the masses with a shrug. My stories read “quaint” by comparison. Besides, who wants to read what they are living through?

So, what’s the point?

Interview with a Vampire, author Anne Rice spoke of how writing helped her emerge from the grief of losing a child. If writing did not cure her substance abuse, (and it didn’t) Anne said at least writing gave her a coping mechanism. The longer she wrote, the later in the day she started drinking.

Rice wasn’t just writing to deal with her grief, or to postpone beer-thirty. She was writing to explore thoughts. To analyze life and death and fear of both—otherwise why write about the undead?

 

“Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable…I dare you.” -Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You

 

Rice and Coel, Saint-Exupéry and Orwell—all wrote to process their feelings, their fears, and maybe-maybe-maybe their hopes. It’s the same reason why people read what we write, why we read what others write. Often, they/we are looking for perspective on life from a different vantage point. Like every other writer, I began as a reader, following the path laid down by others.

 

I begged my mother for books before I could even read because I wanted to know the story beyond the cover. Once I learned the rudimentary skills of reading, I was off to the races. Curious George, Sam-I-Am, and Aeosop’s fables et al opened the world up just like it is—a big colorful story to exprience. Books sparked my wonder at machinery and advancement. Stories took me even farther down the path of life beyond chronic illness and hiding from landlords.

Still my prized possession.

Yet in February of 1977 love became need. Stuck in a hospital with Rheumatic Fever, eight-year-old me was scared to death. The older-kid in the shared room held onto the (shared) television remote. I had no interest in sports and the TV shows he watched scared me as much as the hospital. So, every couple of days, for almost three weeks, my mother or my sister or my parish priest would bring library books to me and I devoured them. 

 

It set a precedent. Hardship—childhood illness, family dysfunctional, chronic homelessness—were all soothed by the healing refuge of reading. In C.S. Lewis, E.B. White, and Robert Louis Stevenson I found friends. They saved me from despair, fear, and loneliness. 

 

But once I became moved to emulate those I worshipped, I found something more. As I began writing in my early teens, I began to really process past trauma as well as current circumstances. Octavia Butler, Frank Herbert, and Lois McMaster-Bujold taught hard lessons in their works and I was an apt pupil. 

Before you misunderstand, it was not a prodigy moment and mostly the introspection was against my better judgment.  

At 15, I decided to write a comic book with a character concept stolen borrowed from an 80’s B-movie. Yet, draft after draft, my words pulled from the fantastic to hard experience. I wrote about what being an outsider does to people. How quickly good becomes bad once polite convention is tossed over for sacred cows and petty prejudices.

Sure, my tough guys and bad women know how a punch in the face feels. They also know that the emotional recovery takes longer than physical recovery. Mostly, my characters know what cold and hungry and lonely does to a person’s outlook and scruples. 

When you remember your "why," you'll find your way. 

My first stories were for myself. Later stories were to explore those ideas of "Who's good, who's bad, and who decides?" I just wrote. Without regard for what would sell or what might resonate with the reader. Or if what I wrote even mattered. As the late-great Andy Warhol said, "that’s for other people to work out."

So, how do you write when everything is on fire? Just like that. Write. In stops and starts, snatches and grabs, if you have to but you write. 

Remember, you started writing because you didn’t find what you wanted to read or were dissatisfied with what you found. If that hasn’t changed, write. You started your story, poem, novela, or script because you wanted to read it. And if you want to read it, so does someone else. Write.

Keep writing. 

In the days after my wife’s first cancer diagnosis it felt like I had to keep physically and mentally moving. If I sat still with my thoughts, fear would eat me alive. If I wasn’t strong enough to play and joke to keep her spirits up, fear would eat her alive. 

My little blog about crime fiction, crime fact, and crime opportunities seemed distant and small. Especially when arguing with medical administrators over referrals and a $400 office visit charge. It seemed stupid to noodle around with crime-crap when I should be reading about how to navigate breast cancer care and provider roles.

But there wasn’t a lot out there. Like none. So I wrote a post about the call from my wife telling me that they had found something during her “you-don’t-have-to-be-there” routine mammogram. And then I wrote about waiting in the car for the doctor to call me inside for her reading and diagnosis, (COVID protocols). That started two-ish years ago. I’m still doing it.

Around the same time Fiona Quinn asked if I would like to contribute something to her blog. I love Fiona’s writing and she was a true friend to us both when my Missus was knee-deep in her cancer battle. Fiona's invitation was an artistic lifeline. I wax poetically about genre, writing, and throw in the occasional review. It keeps my toe in the water.

Still, those blog posts are more than just live-action-writer-cosplay. Those posts are a promissory note to myself. My novel will be published. I will do it myself. It’s time and that will be my reward for rebuilding our house. But that’s tomorrow.

In the three-days since I started this post I have, in fact, written 1200 words. After a dream triggered by too many chili-oil dumplings before bed, I have dug out a dystopian-future short story that was rejected from a contest. Previously, I cut it down from 5300 words to 3000 for the contest stipulations. But now I think that it wants to be a novela. 

Not for a contest. Not for Asimov’s or Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines. Nah, I’m writing this for perspective. In writing outside of my comfort zone, I see a place to process my fears regarding this administration. I see an outlet for my hopes, too. Maybe I’ll also figure out what it all means to me. 

It’ll be good practice to publish this one first. 

Maybe my novela will help someone else process different fears at a different time. We’ll see. And that’s the ultimate how-to for writing. “We’ll see.”

I own the photo of George Zaffo's book and my ruptured ceiling. None of the rest belong to me. They are all used here for educational/instructional/motivational purposes, as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.