When a Passion Becomes a Curse

Most writers suffer writer's block at some point along the way.  While this isn't my greatest issue when it comes to writing, the feeling is the same.  We writers have a grand passion for the stories we want to share, and when we can't do what we love with all of our souls, we suffer.  The darkness that resides in the mind of most writers is often a source of inspiration.  We can draw upon that dark pit that would otherwise eat us from the inside when we need to evoke pain, loss, and sometimes even joy in our words.  We keep the darkness from spreading by writing - and it might be a delicate balance, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

What happens, then, if a writer can't write?  Does the black abyss slowly start to eat away at us, do we fall prey to the darkness that we also secretly crave?  

Well, I don't speak for everyone, only myself, but I can safely say that on a day-to-day basis, I survive.  It is only when I have a moment that I realize how massive the darkness become, how it has seeped into more than just one part of me.  My conundrum now is not only how to keep it in check, to feed the beast as it were, but also how to make it work to my advantage.  

Never, in all my thirty years, have I hated writing as much as I do right now.  This isn't to say I have started to hate my creations - I love them now more than ever.  The less time I am allowed to spend with my literary friends, the more dear they become.  No, my issue now is a horrid college class.  English taught by an engineer is an oxymoron, and torture to an artist.  Anytime I try to let my passion eke out and splash a page, I am eviscerated in the grading.  And yet...I cannot bring my wild, writer's soul in check for the whims of one narrow minded man.  I am now left trying to salvage the raw wounds left from too long spent from what I love, all the while weaving an essay of supreme effort that can satisfy me enough to move one.  Because I have to move on, and I don't mean passing the class.  A year from now, ten years from now, the class will be a memory, but I will still be a writer.  And that is why this grand passion can also be a curse.  It never truly leaves us, but at times, it can be overpowering, and there is nothing to be done but survive.

L.E.