I was a writer for a month
I have ADHD. A lot of you probably knew that already. I talk about it often.
ADHD presents differently in different people. One of the main features of mine is that I'm constantly looking for things that will catch and hold onto my interest. My life is an endless search for novelty.
I've been having a rough couple of years. There have of course been bright spots, but overall things have felt weird and bleak. The world and country I live in are in shambles. Composing work has been slow. My anxiety disorder often gives me a sneaking suspicion that everyone I know secretly hates me. My PTSD means it's not uncommon for me to randomly feel unsafe.
I've been needing something good to happen.
In early April, inspiration struck. And it wasn't musical inspiration. I felt inspired to write... I never know what to call these. A personal essay? Creative prose? Basically, I wrote a flowery thing that was definitely not a normal blog post. It was the most alive I'd felt in months, pulling these words out of myself and putting them out into the world.
Writing it seemed to awaken all the latent emotions within me. I felt melancholy, but that wonderful kind of sadness that comes when you watch a sad movie or listen to sad music. It felt so profoundly beautiful to be feeling something again after months of numbness and boredom. I thought what I wrote was pretty good too, so I was proud. And when it ended up getting by far the most upvoted I'd ever gotten on Bearblog, despite me not sharing it on any social media, I was absolutely thrilled. I tried a new thing, and people thought it was good!
I wrote and posted more of these over the next month or so, including what I honestly think is the best thing I've ever written. A bunch of people emailed and signed my guestbook to tell me that they liked my writing (thank you all so much). This was it. I'd found the thing to make me happy. I would continue music as my career, but I would also have a secret other life as a writer. I had a project idea that involved combining my writing and interactive music. I was all in.
ADHDers can probably guess what happened next.
I wrote a short story called Moss. I got some nice messages about it, and I think it's a good piece. But for some reason I didn't feel any strong emotions towards it, despite it being a vulnerable piece. I tried again, doing a stream of consciousness type piece after I had an anxiety attack. Same thing: no big emotional reaction to writing and posting it despite very vulnerable subject matter.
I was over it.
It's a little embarassing that it only took writing four pieces for me to lose interest. How could something I was so excited about, that seemed to have finally lit a fire inside of me after months of feeling nothing, suddenly be boring to me? It felt so unfair. It still feels unfair, honestly.
I'm not saying I'll never do creative writing again. It hasn't been that long, after all. I wouldn't be surprised if inspiration randomly struck tomorrow, now that I've declared to the world that I'm over it. But for now, there's no point in trying to force something that doesn't bring me any kind of joy, even if I (and apparently some other people) think that I'm decent at it.
This isn't the first time that I've decided something was my new life passion and then lost interest a few weeks later. Hobby hopping is common among ADHDers, and I am super guilty of it. It's a quirk that I've learned to accept about myself, as annoying as it may be. At least getting into writing didn't cost me any money! (cue b-roll of all my unused yarn, embroidery thread, and drawing supplies)
Now, music.
Sometimes I feel like my passion for composing waxes and wanes, but the truth is, it's always there. It's just that sometimes my love for music feels less like a burning flame and more like a mule digging its heels in. I keep doing it because of course I keep doing it. It's not like there's any possible world in which I'm not composing music at least some of the time.
Throughout my little foray into being a writer I was still working on music. Specifically, I've been composing music for a game and a short film. They're both such cool projects, and the people I'm collaborating with on them are great. I've been really fortunate recently to finally get some really cool jobs after a long period of things being very, very slow.
But I've realized that for me, there are really two separate types of artistic fulfillment: collaborative and pure self-expression. I'm happiest when I'm working on both types of projects. Composing for other people's games, films, podcasts, etc. obviously checks the collaborative box. I've recently realized that the game I'm making, Divinuet, also feels more fulfilling in a collaborative way than a pure self-expression way, despite the fact that I'm game directing it and doing the bulk of the work myself. I do have other people I'm working with on it, and a huge aspect of making the game is a collaboration of sorts with long-dead people who created tarot definitions and art.
For awhile, creative writing was fulfilling the pure self-expression urge. And that was nice. But it sapped up all of my self-expression creative energy, and I stopped writing music just for the sake of writing it. All the music I've been writing lately has been for a game, film, or podcast. I thought that was fine, because I was still making a lot of music, and I was enjoying doing it! And I was getting personal creative fulfillment from writing personal essays.
Turns out that's not how it works for me, I think. I also need to be writing music that exists to just be music, rather than to be part of a larger piece of media. Turns out I really, really miss it.
I was trying to figure out for weeks what killed my interest in writing these prose pieces, and I think that was it. Writing was taking away time and energy that deep down, I wanted to be using to make music. And that turned me off of writing completely. At my core, the thing I want to be doing is music. It's always music.
I do think there's a balance to be had. I think I'm a pretty decent writer, and I did genuinely find a lot of joy and connection in writing and sharing such incredibly vulnerable essays. I do think the inspiration will strike again someday.
But I also now am sure of something I kind of suspected deep down all along: along with the media composing I love doing, it's important for me to be writing standalone music, music I make to express something and that can stand on its own, rather than existing as part of another piece of media.
I've started working on an EP. It's about soap making (one of my few long term hobbies!) Expect to hear more about that in the coming months.
I plan on continuing to blog, but I think they're going to be mostly my typical blog posts. Divinuet devlogs, thoughts about music and the film and game industries, lists of things I've enjoyed recently, that sort of thing. But who knows, maybe a secret writing will still make its way in there occasionally.