Screaming into the Void.
aka – The Existential Despair of Nailing a Scene You Can’t Show Anyone Yet.
You know that feeling? That soul-destroying, fist-pumping, maniacal laughter-inducing moment when you nail a scene? When you write something so perfect, so ridiculously funny, so YOU, that it makes your entire shriveled writer heart swell with chaotic glee? You’ve just written a scene where your brooding love interest says something so devastatingly good, so agonisingly perfect, that you want to print it out and frame it in gold.
And then you sit back, grinning like an absolute menace, ready to show someone, anyone – only to remember:
It’s a first draft.
And no one. Can. See. It.
Not yet.
Not while it still contains typos, unfinished sentences, and notes like [figure this shit out later].
Not while it’s still hanging on by the sheer force of your deranged enthusiasm, not yet ready for the cold, analytical eyes of critique.
And so you sit there. Alone. In the dark, cackling to yourself like a Victorian villain, because no one else can know. No one else can see what you’ve done. Not yet.
And worse? You know future-you will betray you.
Because right now, in this exact moment, this scene is perfect. It is the pinnacle of your craft. It is a gift from the Writing Gods themselves.
But in a week?
You’ll read it again and think, 'Ah yes, this is garbage. How delightful.'
You will begin the ruthless dissection. The line edits. The restructuring. You’ll rip apart your own genius like a feral dog because that’s what we do.
So what do you do now?
You sit in the quiet, vibrating with the need to share.
You resist the urge to send your husband the scene with a disclaimer: LOOK, I KNOW IT’S NOT READY, BUT JUST –JUST READ IT AND TELL ME THIS ISN'T JUST SO FUCKING FUNNY.
(You fail. You send it anyway.)
But if you don’t have that? If your writing process is a lonely void? You sit there, alone, unhinged, knowing you just did something brilliant– knowing it may not survive the edits, knowing no one else will ever feel this exact rush.
And that?
That is the bittersweet, chaotic, infuriating joy of writing.
(And why we drink.)
That being said – I NEED A WRITING BUDDY.
Someone who understands the madness of screaming into the void with a first draft you can’t yet share. Someone who won’t judge when I send a message at 2 AM that just says I THINK I ACCIDENTALLY WROTE THE BEST LINE OF MY LIFE.
If this is you – f you, too, live in this writerly torment – let’s be manic together. Drop a comment, DM me (@joyceabarnacle), whatever. Just get me out of my void.
#WritersLife #WritingCommunity #SendHelp #IAmNotOkay
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