I’ve been writing since 1999, when I created a blog before it was known as a blog on the free web space that my university offered me. For the two decades that followed, I have written millions of words, much of it about how to fornicate. There is a challenge in organizing the chaos in your brain into the coherence of the written word, so I had to develop many habits to make my living as a writer. Upon my turn to faith, I thought that writing would become much easier, since I was now sharing the good news instead of instructing men how to sin, but truth is writing has become harder than ever.
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to describe writers as degenerate alcoholics. The reason, I believe, is that writing creates so much mental tension that the flesh demands a release in the form of drink or other harmful behaviors that yield an immediate dose of caused pleasure.
There were three pillars of pleasure that allowed my previous writing: coffee, alcohol, and sex. Coffee would be taken first, to create a buzz in my brain that motivated my fingers to more effortlessly dance across a keyboard. Then I’d drink alcohol at night to relieve the stress of writing while also counterbalancing the jittery effects of the coffee. And then finally the orgasm, which I’d receive either manually through masturbation or through sex with a woman. The orgasm was usually the culmination of my reward for a writer’s job well done.
I have greatly underestimated how much those three rewards fueled my writing, because now that they have been removed, along with most of the monetary rewards and the infrequent but ever-present prospect of cheap groupie sex, it has become twice as hard to write. During a writing session, I stare at the blank screen and the blinking cursor in states of immobilization for longer periods than before. I have to construct little outlines for 800-word articles that I used to spit out in one go with no preparation. Every sentence I now type I must fight for, and only rarely do I enter a state of flow where the words are gushing out.
God gave me the talent to write and then Satan hijacked it for his own ends, coupling it with a constant need for pleasure. I have had to disconnect my talent from those pleasures and write for God’s sake, for the uncaused joy he gives me at times I cannot predict, for a greater reward that will not come in this life. I can still write well enough, as I hope you’d agree based on my output in the past year, but every little article has become a fierce battle now that I cannot “unwind” after a hard day.
How can I manage to write more books? I don’t have any worldly fuel to keep me going, and it’s obvious that my own power is weak. The answer must lie in my prayer rule and faith. Unless I have an idea that is approved by God, that will serve His plan for the salvation of my soul and those who read me, from where will I get the motivation? How will the river of words be transmitted from my mind to the screen? I know I will never earn as much money as I did in the past or reach the height of internet fame that peaked around 2016, so it’s for God alone I must do this. May He be pleased with all that I will write and share with the world.
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