Taking a break from rewriting, I am writing a brief short story about a cutlery drawer, that likely I can’t ever publish anywhere because it steals things that actually happened and makes them funnier (like I do with conversations I have with Geoff, which he complains about even though I almost always take his wittiness and Oscar Wilde-ify it so everyone can marvel at how clever he is). At first, I was all happy because I’m tired of fixing my old stories and I thought that writing new stories would cheer me up. Then I remembered that writing new stories is just as miserable as fixing old stories. In fact, writing is miserable. Especially when there’s still snow everywhere. Especially when I have to shovel it.
Winter. Awful.
But I can see, with this new story, where I’ve plateau’d. All I do is tell, when the whole point of fiction is to show. I used to show everything and people were confused. Now I tell too much and people are bored. I’m bored.
At a plateau, you’re supposed to keep going. It should even be easy because unlike going up, you’re just walking straight along. It’s not like I enjoy hiking up. In fact, any incline, no matter how small, I whine from top to bottom because I hate it so much. But, apparently, I don’t like walking straight along a path either. I’m a self-entitled child of the eighties and nineties: why can’t I be great at something instantaneously and without having to work at all?