The excruciating existential crisis called "being a writer"

How this princess of procrastination is finally getting her act together after moving to a village fit for a King. Here is me, telling tales from Transylvania.

Jan 18, 2024

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Writing the title of this note on my iPhone I type with 2 thumbs (I have broken my finger and sprained another one by dropping a tree on it). The automatic spelling checker grabs the opportunity and changes my attempt to type “exercise” to “excruciates”. Yep, it’s pretty much how it feels right now. I feel an almost physical resistance to writing lately. Excruciating may be a tad of an over statement but I do find it painful.

Spell check is also how my cats ended up being named Apollo and Lollipop. I can’t for the life of me remember the word I was actually trying to write in a WhatsApp message while bringing two screaming kittens home on a train. Apollo died recently and writing this down, it now takes all of my self-control to not throw my phone to the side (my new puppy dog Muki chewed through my laptop cable and I have to order a new one) to go into the garden. I feel a strong urge to sit by API’s grave and have a sob. I don’t know why but for months now there is a constant sense of sorrow right beneath the surface. Even before Api passed.

Last week I started a daily writing journal. It lasted a day and a half. Monday and half of Tuesday have been jotted down.

Today is Sunday. I woke at four and watched some Big Bang and eventually fell asleep for another hour or so. Sheldon kept himself up for four days trying to find his “productivity inducing anxiety” sweet spot in an attempt to solve his lack of achievement after ditching string theory. Being kept up by barking dogs gives me the type of anxiety that induces mostly snotty cries and sheer desperation.

There are 21 dogs within hearing distance from my house and every night it’s mayhem. I keep my dogs inside and they rarely bother to even lift an ear let alone join in the incessant barking. I haven’t slept for six months now. Not properly. I have tried valerian, melatonin, sprinkling chamomile and lavender oil in my bed, made moon milk with sour cherry syrup and ashwagandha, and three types of earplugs, and eventually, I tried getting very very drunk and knocking myself out for a night. None of it worked. After the first two months, I figured I would eventually just become so exhausted that a solid 8-hour sleep would become inevitable. I have since given up that illusion. Maybe that’s why I constantly feel like crying. Slightly unhinged due to sleep deprivation. Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur….

I had my coffee and then took my dogs out. I had intended to hike up the hill (it’s not far and the views across the hills and forest are magnificent from there) but they decided to play along the stream for a bit. Only yesterday I found out that it’s called the Katarina. Named after a beautiful woman who lived here around four centuries ago. It speaks to my imagination and have made a note of finding out more.

Maybe this is where I should elaborate on where I live. It will help to give context to any future writing exercises that will refer to my surroundings. I am the proud owner of a small stone house dating back to the nineteenth century (it first appears on the village map in 1837). It sits on a small piece of land that borders a forest inhabited by all the types of wildlife you can encounter in Transylvania. Access roads to the village are two dirt roads that both snake through a forest through the hills. Tucked away we are in a biodiversity paradise. The village officially counts 70 inhabitants but there are probably only 60 people around daily. Its most famous resident is the King of England.

The house was last renovated in 1911 so it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that I have at least three years of building and DIY ahead of me before I can call this house “finished”. It doesn’t have running water or plumbing and until recently also didn’t have electricity. Which my ADHD brain now immediately connects to what my brother said about starting crowdfunding and finding volunteers on various platforms. And now my brain wants to Google those for the thirtieth time. I hold on to my phone, close my eyes, and breathe for ten seconds until it passes.

When people ask her what she does for a living, she simply says: I live in Romania, and that pretty much keeps me busy all day.

Renovating a house while working freelance and wanting to become a “real writer” is a bit of a challenge when the inner workings of my mind resemble all the monkeys from all the circuses running around and wreaking havoc in a single space. And the circus director ran for the hills after a nervous breakdown. Sticking with one thought or one activity is my biggest daily challenge. I have tried any list-making app, project or project-planning platform, and read Getting Things Done by David Allen twice.

I now blame Romania. It’s the favorite saying of a friend of mine, also Dutch and also here in Transylvania. When people ask her what she does for a living, she simply says: I live in Romania, and that pretty much keeps me busy all day. It’s true. Days fill up all by themselves, time passes, you feel constantly occupied, not to say busy, and at the end of the day, you’re left wondering what the hell you did all day. As not much got done.

After seven years here I haven’t finished a single book. I have stacks of notebooks, half-finished and half-researched essays, and academic papers (I was supposed to start a PhD this year at the University of Sibiu but have postponed) on anything ranging from cultural appropriation to human trafficking. Snippets of poems, and conversations with friends, they are all monkeys in my brain.

Snippets of poems, and conversations with friends, they are all monkeys in my brain.

As a copywriter for two decades, I have become so used to pitching, selling products, and polishing other people’s words that I feel lost without a brief. I initially tried self-imposed briefs, entering writing competitions, or asking people to give me a topic to write about. The last time I had a video call with my brother I proudly showed him my new outhouse. When I told him that I had just googled whether bears are drawn to or deterred by human feces he said: your life is weird. You should write about that.

The only thing I have published so far is a short story in erotic review. I am not sure if becoming the next EL James is in my future (although I did watch all the movies again last week on Netflix during another one of my sleepless nights). I will write about vampires. Although I will be the first to point out to you that that is not what Transylvania is all about (even though a friend in London did think that Transylvania is fictional. Imagine her confusion when I told her I was moving here. May as well have said “I am moving to Narnia”.)

I have no idea where Substack will lead. Will I find structure in weekly columns, personal essays, opinion pieces, and fiction? Or will my rambling be all over the place? It makes me think of an essay I wrote once for Dutch classes in high school. My teacher stood by my desk holding my graded paper and before putting it on my desk he commented: Your spelling? Impeccable. Your grammar? Faultless. But what the fuck are you talking about?!

PS The next time I was called into the principal's office for calling this teacher an asshole, I referred to this incident and said, I give as good as I get.