It’s a rotten, menacing sky outside my window right now. Suits me. I’ve been feeling drawn out and tired for the last couple of months. Disconnected. Last night was prime example: saw X2 at the cinema. Everyone else came out going “Wow! Cool!” I left going “Yeah, OK, that was fun. Can I get on with something exciting now?” I’m going to go and see it again at some point, in the hope it’ll grab me better.
Except that I don’t seem to know what exciting is, lately. My enthusiasm is shot. I can’t muster up any fire, any passion. This, I’m sure, is the root of the problems I’ve been having with writing – there’s nothing in my gut that’s pushing it forward. This was brought home to me last night, reading Warren Ellis’ Orbiter on the tube home – this is a book he obviously gave a fuck about, writing it. There’s passion in it. It’s the best thing I’ve read from him since early Transmet. (I’m glad of this, because it’s a hardcover and cost me the best part of 20 quid, but it’s fucking lovely throughout.)
My own work’s been lacking in it for months. I stalled out last year, and by the time I was writing again, the fire just wasn’t there. This time last year I was sorting out the last bits of SIx Strings, a coming about wanting to achieve – about drive and ambition, and the things we throw away for it. I wrote Six Strings with a bellyful of coffee and a headful of booze, and I think it shows. It creaks in places, but there’s a drive in it that I like. Passion. A year later, nothing. A struggle to find the spine of a short story, and the scratchiest of notes toward something new that’s still not even got a shape.
Eh. I’ll get through it, but for the moment, it’s really, really frustrating.