Eden Onpeng

I’ve experienced a weird mind shift this past week. I had a good time celebrating our friends’ birthdays. Saw our baby in the ultrasound. I’m still riding the high from the weekend.

It feels as if I’ve split from the person I was just a couple weeks back. I can no longer relate to the novel I was working on. I tried reading it and it was all doom and gloom. It makes sense, in a way. I worked a lot on it right after my sister killed herself and while I was grappling with childhood trauma, and a lot of this writing reflects the dark place my mind was in at the time. At the time, I was able to relate to the sinister, oppressive elements of the world I created. But now it all feels too gloomy, or maybe I have left. The chapters I felt resonated with so much at the time now feel cringy to read through.

The wise advice is to step away from my novel for a bit, but I feel a bit bummed out about my writing. This is my second draft novel, and it is only 40k words in. The first one is done but not yet revised. It seems that maybe a long form work like a novel might not be the right fit for me, especially with a baby on the way.

Is all my writing fueled by unhappiness? Am I unable to create when I am happy?

I wonder if I can channel things aside from pain in my writing. This would be interesting…