#see i feel like i answered that question verrrrry differently than any fiction writer would

[britneyshakespeare]

#39 :D

Thank you Maria :D hope you're doing well btw xoxox

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

Honestly? I've felt for a long time that it's more of a habit than a passion. I mean, it's a mix of both. But I've gone through very inspired and creative-fueled stages of my life where I produce an awful lot, and I've also gone through eras where I'm lucky to force myself to write one poem in a week. Right now I'm more in the latter than the former, but it's so flexible and I can go back in forth quickly. Probably the bipolar and ADHD in me affect that a lot.

At this point my muscles as a poet are so developed, which is not to say I think I'm great, but just that, like a muscle, it's a part of my body. It's like riding a bike, except I never actually learned how to ride a bike. I've written thousands of poems though, and I've been doing it pretty consistently since I was very young and very much unlike the current version of myself that I am. That fact is that I just know what I'm doing on a structural level, regardless of whether or not I'm producing anything "good."

Some people like to wax philosophical about poetry, as if you have to have a deep urge, as if it has to be fueled by passion and emotions, but it's really fucking not that way, for me at least. In my opinion that's kind of an immature standpoint, not that it's wrong for everyone. But at this phase in my life, I write because it keeps my brain fresh. I make a toy of language more than I pour my heart onto the page. I don't think I'm wrong for that. What people think doesn't make someone a poet is actually what marks me as a long-term poet.

It's been almost 10 years for me. I don't have a constant well of inspiration to drink from. I'm not above drinking from the toilet. (Oh, hey, I already made that joke in a poem 2 and a half years ago.)

Ask me writing asks :D