bloodsong1 | It is said that writers write.

As artists paint, or sculpt or carve or knit or crochet or stitch or etcetera. It is also said that finishing the project, whatever it may be, but especially for writers, is only the start. After completion comes the long dark slog of submissions, rejections, self publishing anxieties, formatting, editing, resubmissions, rejections, ad nausem until one day someone says "Yes, I will pay for this." and you sell it.

I started Urban Fantasy believing I had a very good idea. It was a catchy premise, the market is fairly strong and my idea wasn't in print six months ago. I worked very hard on it and then I hit the Wall. I'm still at that Wall, staring up at its grey concrete blankness and wondering what the hell happened. Meanwhile, Wistfull has its own Wall, not quite as high and crumbling in places and what's showing through the gaps is emptiness.

It is said that writers write. They write a lot. No really, A LOT! For every novel, short story or poems published there are a dozen to hundreds of uncompleted works, ideas that just didn't have It.

I look at my fanfiction, all 12 or so stories, two of which have Walls, with other people's characters lounging around and one original character also staring up at the Wall wondring what the hell happened when she can clearly hear the music from the other side. Again, I had good ideas. At least with the fanfiction I knew where the Walls were and what I needed to do to break through them. I don't have the energy.

Writers write and the ones who've made the long hard slog to that first check, and then the second, and so on, will tell you that persistence, and maybe a little insanity, is what keeps them going. They HAVE to write. It's in their DNA. They can't escape the urge, no matter where they are, how starving they are, or what explodes around them. They write.

Am I a writer? Do I have that drive? Do I have this urge?

A large part of me says yes. Then Indigo points at the row of grey blank Walls in various stages of disrepair, one with adapted music drifting through it, and all I see is grey blank Walls and feel overwhelmed. My nails are shredded and my fingers bleed from trying to dig through the demned things. I have no sledges or cranes or chisels. I'm exhausted from the Indigo, there's no sign of the Muse, I don't even hear her laughing.

Is this Depression?