The Artist's Panic

Hello and welcome to my panic room.

If you are a creator of any kind, I can not imagine a world where you don’t panic about a project you have yet to finish. A deeply rooted panic that curls through your stomach and up into your ribs. It makes it difficult to breathe as it constricts around your lungs and pours into your throat. Mouth dry, eyes stinging, it hits the brain where it sizzles and steam fills your once clear and precise vision.

I’m there, in the steam, fogged up and internally screaming.

My writing has been sporadic as of late. I wish I knew why but there are too many reasons to nail down one culprit. Fact of the matter is, the reasons aren’t even interesting or unique. They are ones plenty of writers have and can be summed up as life getting in the way. Not even in the way; more taking precedence over writing time. Speaking of time, that’s the overall villain here. There is never enough of it.

I am struggling. With my heart, my body, my brain, my energy. How can I commit to writing when I am trying to take care of my body and bring it back to something more familiar, healthier, beloved? How can I sit down and write when my brain is exhausted from the way my day job has turned into something unrecognizable? How can I churn out 1,000 words when my heart is filled with ache for friends, for the world? How can I spend what little energy I have on writing when my daughter deserves it all because she is only little for so long?

The artist’s panic comes at the point in a project where the path appears clear. I know where my novel is going. I know what I have to write and what work is required. I know the next steps and even the steps after that. I know how I write best and how to use my support system to stay motivated.

Yet, I am panicked. I am scared and worried this dream will die like so many of my other dreams. That my life will be what it is now and as happy as my life is, I can not let this dream vanish into the steam.

But I am terrified that is exactly what I am doing.

How am I ever going to get this done? How am I going to find the time? Do I give it up for two years until I have more time as my child grows more independent? Do I give up other parts of my life to focus on writing? I attempt to carve out time each day but somehow it is taken from me in the form of a meeting or no naps or I’m too tired to even think of something to make for lunch. What sacrifices can be made to the gods to get this done?

Creating is a constant uphill battle. It is impossible when you are at the bottom of the mountain. Even halfway is horror inducing because you could slip and fall back to the start. The other side of it would be to succeed, to reach the top and what comes next? Another mountain, I assume. But damn, it could be nice to reach the top once.

The panic boils down to the idea, the fact, if I stop writing this book, nothing happens. It sits there in my saved docs. My life continues. The book never leaves the folder. Can I live with that? Can I live without this story being shared? Can I live without a fully realized dream coming true?

Of course. Of course I can and would live.

There would be a sliver of darkness cut through my heart, however. Pointed and sharp when I turn or settle in a certain way. When I think of my story, my Old Orleans and Clara, Jack and Belle. When I think of the villain I’ve crafted and the world I built. When I imagine what it would be like to go to a bookstore and see it on a shelf. Hear people read it and love it and tell their friends. What I would have thought of it had I discovered it on a bookstore run? Would I love it like I do now?

Yes. A resounding yes. This is the book of my heart. This is the type of story I want to read. This is the kind of tale I want to spin with this book and the next and the next. Until my imagination runs dry.

Panic chokes me. It is so simple, so easy to merely stop. It is so easy to give into the challenges of finding the time to write. The obstacle of time and life and energy. The ever racing hour glass. The crocodile that comes for us all.

I am not complaining. In a way, it is a gift to worry about something I love so much being finished and sent out of the nest onto the wind. Something that will stay behind and live. Something I birthed and raised. Something I am frozen with fear about never finishing.

Perhaps the artist’s panic is not all bad. Perhaps it is what keeps us going. The edge we need to propel ourselves forward in spite of the obstacles we face. The panic that often makes artists drink, smoke, disappear into the jungle, spend sleepless nights under the stars asking the gods for guidance.

The panic is a muse. Taunting us, claiming us, shoving us into a terrifying spin. Making us do the thing by reminding us if we don’t, that panic will transform into that shard of regret we will feel in our hearts for the rest of our days. That tiny orb of ‘what if’.

I can’t live with a what if. Not with this story, not this dream. So I’ll panic because deep down, I know I have to do this in spite of everything on my shoulders. I panic because I am not sure how to figure it out or the best path forward but I know its there. I know I’ll find it. I’ll only panic til I do, like any good artist does.