No Echo.
Its finally getting to me. Its having a peculiar effect on my brain.
I haven't been able to go for walks, you see. I triggered a dormant health issue by walking into town and back, I mustn't have warmed up correctly, and my right foot has been wearing a molten metal horseshoe ever since. I've been commissioned to write a couple of things and I'm writing them with more than usual care. So I hate them. I'm sitting there loathing each stupid, idiotic word, every hack notion, every poorly constructed sentence. I've been writing for about seven years now, always confident that however ham-fisted the writing, as I drag my knuckles over the keyboard, the ideas would at least be good.
But maybe they're not.
I've heard nothing from a theatre company, the BBC, two close relatives, two friends, a TV production company, a festival and an illustrator. All in the last month.
I've been sending a lot of writing off. More than usual. No one ever replies. I send it out and...nothing happens. I check the sent box in Gmail because I'm certain that I've sent it. And I have, there it is. I check the address. The address is correct. And yet there is total silence. No one replies. These aren't random people I've decided to pick on. There's too much pain involved involved in "cold calling", especially at the moment when I'm really not feeling it. These are people who have actually asked to see my work. Sometimes they have paid for it.
And yet there is no feedback.
Normally I wouldn't care. I'm well used to being ignored. Its the job. If you're a writer expect to be ignored. And quite often robbed. But these are not ordinary times. I can't escape the perceived rejection. I can't go anywhere or do anything. The doubt settles in me. I feel like I'm wasting my time. I can't get drunk. All I can do is write more and more invisible prose. Firing it off into the ether: silent, black fireworks in an empty night.
Or I can sit and watch box sets of Buffy. Or I can graze. Or I can do Zoom calls where all I can focus on is how fat and old my face is compared to those of my peers, and about how oblivious they are to this terrible change. When I appear on screen suddenly, horrifically transmogrified into the Elephant Man they don't raise an eye-brow. Its almost as if they can't tell the difference. Its almost as if that's what they think I look like.
People have being posting pictures on social media this week: "Me at 20". Its pictures of them when they were twenty. Its not rocket science, folks. I have been unable to do so, however. I don't have the emotional fortitude at present to deal with the inevitable hilarity that would ensue. Men of a certain age, my age, are unable to say nice things. Its not in their make-up. Women cluck around their friends selfies and tell them they're beautiful. Its the law. There is nothing wrong with a woman using her phone to take a picture of her carefully presented face and her friends telling her "Yes, what you have done is a good thing for you have shown yourself to be beautiful. You are to be congratulated." I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea.
If I were to post a picture of my face where I think I look half decent, painful experience has taught me that all I could expect are people pointing out my physical flaws, drawing unflattering comparisons to ugly men both real and fictional, and disbelief at the extraordinary effeminacy of taking a picture of my self at all. I am a meek and average sized poppy getting my head lopped off anyway. And I would never post a picture of myself at twenty as the difference is so stark, the losses so obvious, the corruption and degradation so marked, that people wouldn't be able to resist.
Maybe I should stop sending out the work and just send out photographs of my stupid face. At least I could rely on getting some sort of response.
I haven't been able to go for walks, you see. I triggered a dormant health issue by walking into town and back, I mustn't have warmed up correctly, and my right foot has been wearing a molten metal horseshoe ever since. I've been commissioned to write a couple of things and I'm writing them with more than usual care. So I hate them. I'm sitting there loathing each stupid, idiotic word, every hack notion, every poorly constructed sentence. I've been writing for about seven years now, always confident that however ham-fisted the writing, as I drag my knuckles over the keyboard, the ideas would at least be good.
But maybe they're not.
I've heard nothing from a theatre company, the BBC, two close relatives, two friends, a TV production company, a festival and an illustrator. All in the last month.
 |
| Actually surprisingly like me at 20 |
I've been sending a lot of writing off. More than usual. No one ever replies. I send it out and...nothing happens. I check the sent box in Gmail because I'm certain that I've sent it. And I have, there it is. I check the address. The address is correct. And yet there is total silence. No one replies. These aren't random people I've decided to pick on. There's too much pain involved involved in "cold calling", especially at the moment when I'm really not feeling it. These are people who have actually asked to see my work. Sometimes they have paid for it.
And yet there is no feedback.
Normally I wouldn't care. I'm well used to being ignored. Its the job. If you're a writer expect to be ignored. And quite often robbed. But these are not ordinary times. I can't escape the perceived rejection. I can't go anywhere or do anything. The doubt settles in me. I feel like I'm wasting my time. I can't get drunk. All I can do is write more and more invisible prose. Firing it off into the ether: silent, black fireworks in an empty night.
Or I can sit and watch box sets of Buffy. Or I can graze. Or I can do Zoom calls where all I can focus on is how fat and old my face is compared to those of my peers, and about how oblivious they are to this terrible change. When I appear on screen suddenly, horrifically transmogrified into the Elephant Man they don't raise an eye-brow. Its almost as if they can't tell the difference. Its almost as if that's what they think I look like.
People have being posting pictures on social media this week: "Me at 20". Its pictures of them when they were twenty. Its not rocket science, folks. I have been unable to do so, however. I don't have the emotional fortitude at present to deal with the inevitable hilarity that would ensue. Men of a certain age, my age, are unable to say nice things. Its not in their make-up. Women cluck around their friends selfies and tell them they're beautiful. Its the law. There is nothing wrong with a woman using her phone to take a picture of her carefully presented face and her friends telling her "Yes, what you have done is a good thing for you have shown yourself to be beautiful. You are to be congratulated." I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea.
If I were to post a picture of my face where I think I look half decent, painful experience has taught me that all I could expect are people pointing out my physical flaws, drawing unflattering comparisons to ugly men both real and fictional, and disbelief at the extraordinary effeminacy of taking a picture of my self at all. I am a meek and average sized poppy getting my head lopped off anyway. And I would never post a picture of myself at twenty as the difference is so stark, the losses so obvious, the corruption and degradation so marked, that people wouldn't be able to resist.
Maybe I should stop sending out the work and just send out photographs of my stupid face. At least I could rely on getting some sort of response.
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