A bit of a rant here.

So. Writing. Choices. Decisions. More writing. It's becoming an obsessive kind of thing, not the writing (well not entirely) but the decision I have made to become a writer. Apparently I have it lodged in my brain to make something of myself, to succeed at this whole business. Create something out of nothing, hope it's good, and toss it out into the world where it may or may not be accepted and people find it interesting. Daunting. Anxious. The worst part isn't even when I stumble and stare at the screen, wondering what the hell did I just write? Is it really as shit as it seems to me? Go back. Start over. Plot more, plan. Don't go too far, then you're just rambling and carrying on in a direction there's no point in going. Get back on track, continue wondering if you're doing it right. But what the hell is 'right' anyways? How the hell are you supposed to know that, when you have no actual basis for comparison. Sure, look at the quote-unquote professional's work, see how it's done. They've obviously got a grasp on it, they're out there making a damn check off it. So you learn, and you study it. But so much of the time it feels like working in a vacuum, my writing and creations just sitting there waiting to...something. Waiting. Toss it out in the world, wait for feedback. "It's good!" "Good job!" "That's neat!" Not that the praise doesn't feel good, it's pretty damn awesome and makes me keep going when I feel like just throwing the towel in and crawling into a crack like a cockroach. Then you try the daring task of sending something to a -insert ominous riff here- PUBLISHER. That's where shit begins to get twisted. There's absolutely no way of knowing A.) It got there, B.) They looked at it, C.) They gave an ant's fart about it, and my absolute favorite D.) THEY ACTUALLY LIKED IT. That's not entirely true, that last one. You know if they liked it when you here back from them, or so I've been led to believe. Nerve wracking, that is. Ulcer inducing. Hair pulling, teeth gnashing, knuckle popping, jaw grinding anxiety. And it's pointless you know that? Really, it is. The anxiety I mean. Not the sending it out there, if you don't do that it's never going to go anywhere but from brain to page then sit in obscurity for forever. But how do you just sit there and wait, knowing that somewhere some guy is at his desk, looking at your creation/vision/shit and judging it, the bastard, like they know you. Like they know how much it means to you, like they know how god damned hard you worked to make it. Like you're not different from the scores of other people whose work sits on their desk waiting to be weighed and judged, found wanting or approved. And then what happens? If - by whatever stroke of the universe's good graces - they do decide that there's something, some ephemeral, intangible thing about what you've done that's a cut above the rest. They contact you, "Fantastic stuff there old boy! Come along pip pip! We want more. Now do it again, but better this time. And even better than that the next time. Go on old son. More I say, more." And there you are, you're writing in a loop but every single time you have to top yourself. You have to keep growing, keep getting better, keep learning. Because when you stop doing that, you're done. No one cares if you hash out the same old business, you've got to constantly be stepping up your game. But that really only matters if you actually do get picked, chosen to ascend above the temerity you dwell in so that you can make a life doing something you love. Who really knows when, or if, that's going to happen. So you keep trying, you keep going. You keep getting better. You meet people, you learn things. Then, someday - fate willing - you do it. You make it. Or you die trying. Bang your head up against a wall long enough and something's got to give. Either your head, or the wall. I suppose it depends on how thick-headed you are. I guess we'll see.

That went on far longer than I intended. Oddly, I feel marginally better now. So, back to writing.

What's the point anyways?

You've had a bad day. Week. Month. Year. Life. I get it. We all have. Seriously, not a single particle on this so-called planet has gone its entire existence without experiencing some brand of hardship or anguish. Strife, turmoil. There's an endless assortment of flavors of 'bad' out there to discover just waiting for you. Sometimes you bring it upon yourself through bad decision making, bad choices, bad luck - that one's the best. Bad luck. Like the world has it out for you, and just decides to punch your life in the face.

Those bad times are like holes we dig in our lives, and make no mistake; we're the ones doing the digging. Usually the hole starts off simple enough. Shallow, maybe just a scoop. But depending on how you handle it, it can all just get covered over and you move on or you can just keep digging. And digging. And digging until you're so far down you can barely see the sky above anymore. Usually that happens when the bad starts piling on top of itself, every little - or big - thing becoming another shovelful on your way down. And by the time you stop to take a breath and look up you begin to wonder what the hell the point of climbing back up is, it's so far. It's too far. Easier to pull the hole in on top of you and lay down at the bottom.

But what's the point of that, anyways? You dug the hole, and seriously, you can dig yourself out. It's going to be a hell of a lot of work - climbing is always harder than falling - but it can be done. There's nothing there at the bottom, nothing worth anything anyways. Just more of the same things that got you there in the first place. Look up, that little speck up there that looks like light? That's the sky. The world. It's waiting. No point being on the bottom when life is waiting for you back up there, to give it another try. Maybe you'll have to start all over again, maybe you'll have to re-build yourself from scratch but that's okay. You're stronger now after all that digging, and all that climbing, and you'll always have that great big hole to look back down and remind yourself of where you've been and how much you have to look forward to the other way. Up. Always look up, look forward. Look back only to remember and learn.

If you're not moving forward - not growing, not changing - if you're stuck down in a hole, digging away and killing yourself inside, what's the point anyways?

Morning.

"Doctor, can I ask you some questions?" I asked feebly, tongue feeling like an alien object.

"Of course my boy, what seems to be the problem?" The doctor was kindly, and amiable in the way that only aging gentlemen with proclivities for outrageous mustaches cultivate.

"Well you see, I think I'm suffering from acute chronic migraines." I tried to focus in on the doctor, find a central point in the winding labyrinth of his facial hair, but all I could see were three to four hazily defined extra-dimensional entities. The hovering balls of pulsing transparency weren't helping.

"Migraines? Terrible, absolutely terrible I say. Would you mind describing the symptoms while I pour more tea into my face?" Which he proceeded promptly to do.

"Wait, what? Nevermind. Well, it hurts, really bad. Right here in this spot of my skull in my brain. That's the big thing that tipped me off. It's like a tiny, very angry, man is wailing on the inside of my head with a baseball bat of hatred." I had to lay down, I could taste something I hadn't eaten and the transparencies were multiplying.

"Well what if it is?" The doctor floated around to examine my skull more intimately, goggling fish eye rolling around like an ecstatic aesthetic.

"What if it is what?" I was beginning to feel like gravity was betraying me, a million invisible tons of soft invisible blanket covering me.

"A very angry little man. Surely that's not too outlandish, why just last week I examined a young girl who I found to be host to an entire village of  bumbling eunuch savants. They had taken up residence just behind her spleen." The doctor's mustache was turning into a jellyfish, tendrils waving and pulsing to punctuate every word. Combined with that fish-eye it was bordering on disturbing.

"That couldn't be it. It's migraines, right? Constant, debilitating pain accompanied by nausea, dizziness and sensitivity to light and sound. Right?" I had to figure out some way to throw off this blanket, it was beginning to smother my body and the pain in my skull was growing. I began to feel like my whole world was my eyes and my brain, they were the only things that I could move. I could move my brain?

"All sound like symptoms of a malicious skull beating courtesy of a brain pygmy. I am the doctor, aren't I? Surely I wouldn't have this impressive menagerie of exotic bric-a-brac if I were not, correct?" It was true. His office was positively littered with things that crept and crawled and hid under your toenails, waiting for the perfect time to burrow inside your body and mine your sweet, sweet, soul ore.

"That is true, doc. Listen, this is really getting bad. I can feel my brain pulsating, and I think my eyes are about to implode. Can't you just, I don't know, give me something for the pain? Make me feel human again?" Keep him talking, got to find a way to get out from this blanket. The jelly-mustache has been inching its squiggling tentacles closer, trying to sneak up on me, that eyeball was focused on higher dimensions. Keep him talking, find an escape.

"I absolutely can give you something for the pain. I am the doctor after all. It's that whole human business I think we'll have trouble with." Oh god I upset him. The transparencies were conspiring with the mustache, I couldn't see them anymore but I could feel their hateful intent. I couldn't see the doctor's hands either, they had disappeared. That's just not good.

"What are you talking about? I just need, please, I need something for the pain. It's getting really bad, I don't think I can do this anymore." The tiny little man had traded the bat for a bulldozer, he was going to get out and the doctor's mustache and the transparencies were going to strip mine my vacant flesh sack so that they could do god only knows what to my soul jelly.

"Stay calm my boy, I have exactly what you need. You'll feel so very much better soon." The death sentence had been cast. The crushing weight of futility barred any lofty attempts at despair. I knew now what that funny taste in my mouth had been all along. It was death, I could taste it coming.

Just then an exultant bellows rang throughout the office and at least six dimensions as the tiny man came bursting through my skull, his explosive escape accompanied by glorious rays of light. The jelly-mustache and the transparencies scurried to hide in dark corners and the fish eye steamed wailed piteously.

Somewhere the doctor was gibbering glossolalia, a message from some celestial plane. But I wasn't listening anymore, I just didn't care. The pain was gone now, and I knew the truth, the glorious truth. The little man trying to break out of my skull was me all alone. He was trapped you see, but now he was free. As my vision slowly dissolved into separate fields of angles I could see him. Rising into the night sky like a tiny triumphant angel, born aloft on wings of future dreams and laughter. Before my vision dimmed and all I am became everything that ever was, is, or will be, I turned and looked down at myself. Just a poor, shriveled, broken thing lying there. But there was no more pain. Not here where I was going, not anymore.

As I flew off I gave myself a jaunty tip of the hat, and a wave and said, "I'll see you when I get there."