I am a bad writer.

I don’t mean bad writer in the sense of my writing is bad (at least, I hope that’s not the case), but that I am bad. I do bad things. I do not have an appropriately writerly persona.

Take journaling, for instance. I have lots of journals. Lovely journals. Journals with just the right kind of paper, the creamy velvety kind that calls to you in a sultry voice, “Get your fountain pen and touch me, darling, the sensation will be eeeeeeeeeeexquisite.”

And what do I do? The equivalent of the one-night stand. I curl up with the journal, make passionate love to it for the span of say, about, ten days, then abandon it. Harshly. As in, don’t write, don’t call, purge the number from the cell phone, have we met?

It’s a shame. I have generous writer friends who are far more faithful than I who are constantly introducing me to yet another journal (“It’s cute! I think you two would make a great couple!”). So I smile, accept the gift, and then proceed to toy with its affections. I use purple ink, so my journal will think it is unique and special (“It’s not black!”). I use a fountain pen, so it will imagine itself in an upper echelon from other journals of its type (“Anyone can fish a ballpoint out of the sofa–my writer uses a fine writing instrument!”). Sometimes, I even sketch in it, the writer equivalent of kinky sex. (*shudders with abandon*) If I’m feeling particularly cruel, I’ll toy with its affections by launching into an ambitious creativity exploration, like Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way or The Right to Write, and start Morning Pages (“She tells me everything! We have such a bond!”) and creativity exercises (“I’m essential to developing her craft!”). Those are the cruelest breakups of all, because one morning I’ll get up and find that getting DH and the kids dressed and in the car far supersedes myménage-a-deux with the Journal of the Week, and Morning Pages bite the dust. Or the creativity exercises just stop at, say, number eleven out of a series of twelve. Yes, I toy with my journals and toss them aside until I start eyeing another with the enthusiasm of a writer on the make in a seedy literature bar (“Hey, handsome, may I ply you with ink?”).

And all for naught. I am doomed to repeat the cycle, furled pages in my wake. I am a journal flirt. I want nothing more from my journal than cheap entertainment. A hookup. A scribble call, if you will.

And yet, I want to be better. I want to settle down. I want to develop a long-lasting, passionate relationship with a journal, something that will say to the world that I Am A Real Writer–I Keep A Journal, Of Course! Alas, I fear that will never happen. I know me. I am too attracted by a fresh set of pages to remain devoted to just one volume.

Don’t even get me started on “write every day.” It’ll take something along the line of the Anthony Trollope Dedicated Writer Development Bootcamp to cultivate that habit. (You did know that he wrote five thousand words every day, in longhand, before he went to his “real” job at the post office, didn’t you?)

Bad writer. No office supplies.

Originally published at mimidish.blogspot.com on February 15, 2005