The Silence Speaks

So, as keen readers of this blog will be aware, there… hasn’t been much to keenly read of late, on account of the fact that I haven’t been writing anything. Or I mean, I have been writing; just not here. Without wanting to turn this into a round of Writer’s Excuses, the past few months have consisted largely of a crisis of confidence that can roughly be summarised as Me vs. My Brain, with the winner as yet to be determined. I’ve written a lot of fanfiction since midyear, because it’s the only type of writing that I haven’t come to associate with pass/fail pressure, and as such, it’s been the one thing keeping me both sane and even mildly convinced that writing is a thing I can actually do. Everything else has been like pulling teeth. I’ve run late on pretty much every deadline, either self-imposed or externally set, since about June, which I hate, and it’s now reached a point where my inbox is full of unanswered correspondence and supposedly simple writing tasks (proof this, approve that, respond here) that are actually paralysing me, because part of my brain is just constantly screaming shut up you’re fucking hopeless you can’t do this, and, yeah. It’s not fun.

But I’m getting better, as evidenced by the fact that I’m actually writing this post. Slowly, slowly, I’m starting to get things done again. If I owe you a reply or writing, please be patient with me. I am trying – you have no idea how hard I’m trying right now – and I promise, I haven’t forgotten; I’m just struggling. But I’ll get there in the end.