More on Junot (I swear I’m not a stalker…)

From an MIT newspaper article about Junot Diaz that Marci sent me:

So how did he triumph over his writer’s block? For one thing, he set aside the sci-fi book that wasn’t coming together. Beyond that, it was a matter of persistence and hard work.

“I just bullied myself through it. I just kept throwing myself out into the wilderness of the word,” Diaz says. “I would write 200 pages, get [expletive] depressed and crazy, sit around for two months, and then come back and write another 200 pages. It was endless. Sometimes they don’t come easy.”

Ah goodie, a peek at what lies ahead.

I mentioned this to Andy, and of course we got into a little fight about it. It seems like when it comes to my writing, we always end up arguing. I say he just doesn’t understand, when of course he does, he’s already written a book, plus he knows me really well. And he says I’m just too unmotivated/distracted/scared/easy on myself. Which isn’t always true. But probably sometimes is.

I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe, as with many of my flaws (cough cough being too argumentative cough cough) I recognize my problem and want to change things, but at the same time, I don’t really want to put in all the effort that that change would take.

Maybe it’s me being defeatist since it seems that whenever I do put in all the effort it takes to change, I eventually run out of steam and regress and totally explode in the opposite direction.

Or maybe, as Junot said, this is the [expletive] depressed and crazy period of the cycle, and in a few days I’ll write 200 pages.