If you stopped writing for a long time

[pegkerr]

If you stopped writing for a long time--and I mean a LONG time, on the order of several years--and then managed to start again successfully, I would like to hear a little about your experience. Why did you stop? What did you need to resume? What prompted your resuming? Did you fret about not-writing when you were not writing? Were you afraid that you had given it up for good? When you resumed, how long did it take you to have faith in yourself?

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part 2

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Again, my real apologies for leaving a comment this long (it has actually been severely edited!).

Did you fret about not-writing when you were not writing?
Oh ghod yes, constantly. Daily. Every other minute. In fact, that was a big part of what drove me back to writing: just feeling that awful about not-writing. It was depressing and frustrating me. I think Samuel R. Delaney, observing his wife's writing block, said not-writing is just as strenuous and stressful, if not moreso, than actually writing.

Were you afraid that you had given it up for good?
Oh yes. I'm still terribly afraid of that. I frequently feel I missed my chance to have a career or even write all the books I have ideas for, that the rest of my life will be pointless. This is sometimes not helped by the fact that since being on LJ, I've developed close friendships with some v talented and successful writers. I love what they write, and rejoice in their success, but it makes me feel like even more of a wannabe, a failure, an amateur. Trying to learn not to compare my progress with anyone else's is v hard.

When you resumed, how long did it take you to have faith in yourself?
I'm still not sure I have that, because I am a perennial Doubting Thomas type and it is difficult for me to have faith in _anything,_ which frequently causes a lot of pain. There is a sort of AA attitude that you can have hope for having hope, if that makes sense -- like even if you don't have it, the possibility of it is there -- and I sort of do that. I do not have faith that the stuff I write is good or aesthetically great or will be published and make money or even that anyone else will ever see it. I just have faith that I enjoy writing and let myself do it -- I was going to say "deserve to do it," but that's not right. I try to just go v v slowly, which is frequently v frustrating, from one stone to the next, and not think about what I should or shouldn't be doing. That is faith enough in the process for me I guess: just trying to do it daily, without a lot of expectations. Just because I like doing it and miss it terribly, feel incomplete, feel actual pain, when I don't.