Writing Woes

Among the many words that were used to describe me, some of them dealt with my skill with the written word.

I've been called eloquent, a word-smith and a silver-tongued devil. I've written short-stories and poems. I've been published and I even gave a talk on writing and translating. As much as I like to read and to write, I feel as if I'm not doing enough of either.

Time is an issue but the lack thereof is no excuse. I, as many other would-be writers, often fall into the trap of editting rather than writing. It's the bad habit of focusing on a page that has been writing at the cost of writing more. Editting should be left for last, after all is written, so they say.

However, that's not my problem. I know I can find the time to write and I've been progressing well with writing instead of editting. Especially now that I stopped creating RPG campaigns and scenarios, so my creativity flows into characters and plots for use in stories.

What keeps me from writing as I should is that I've started to feel as if my thoughts became this unruly and disorganised mess. Whenever I dig through my ideas, and sort out themes and plots, I have the nagging feeling of nothing making sense. I look at what I wrote: beginning, middle and end... and it seems wrong. It's akin to having a deck of cards thrown up into the air and looking at how neatly organised it is lying on the floor.

It wouldn't be a problem if it happened post-writing, that's what editting is for. Unfortunately, I'm feeling this way when I form something as simple as a series of events. I think of things happening and how they lead into other events and actions... but it all feels wrong, somehow... and I simply can't place it.

It's an issue of form. I have ideas, too many at times, but I doubt my ability to make them coherent; to present a thought in a manner that can be understand, to extrapolate it further within the body of the text and to end it with a semi-finality.

This craft that I had, mayhap I've lost it, or am I simply mad?