Depression and Writing

It's the received wisdom about writing: you go to fairy land and you come back mad or a poet. Or a mad poet. In reality, that's the nice way of saying all writers have to look at the world sideways. Sometimes it's too far askew to be helpful.

That's what I'm fighting now. When I look at a keyboard, or a pen, or blank sheet of paper the least helpful part of my brain starts talking. Nothing I have to say is important. Nothing I want to write is worthwhile. 

Fighting that voice gets much harder when I do the silly thing and compare myself, often to other writers I know or admire. So now I have to scrap that voice forever and start fresh.

What I have to say is worthwhile.