On Writing and Dealing With Depression

I’m a writer.

Because I’m a writer, I see the world from a perspective of someone who sees all the layers. There are layers behind all the surface information we receive every day. I’m always looking at where things originate. What is underneath the motivation for that political policy? Why does the meat look different at McDonald’s versus Five Guys?

Because I tend to look deeply at my world, find stories everywhere, obsess over relationships and personality quirks because they will one day make it into one of my books, I have developed an outlook on the world that looks beyond the surface level at darn near everything.

I probably suffer from periodic depression even though I have not been diagnosed by a professional. It affects my day-to-day writing life considerably.

I write entire paragraphs or lines of dialogue in a screenplay and then erase the entire thing out of fear. I listen to criticism though, making myself better at what I do, and that’s healthy. But I obsess over the details like H.P. Lovecraft scribbling through most of the sentences in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and then refusing to send it to a publisher. My workspace is a mess.

I sell a minor amount of books. I check the sales every day only to find them blank or maybe a few purchases happen month to month. I…