happy / done?

in

Two notions duking it out across brainmatter battlefield:

One, that I'm happy writing what I'm writing and publishing it the way I do. No interest in aspiring to go beyond short things and experiments published to newsletters and zines. Aspiration pointed only towards increasing the quality of the work.

And yet:

Two, the emptiness I've felt around most aspects of my life and self at one point or another has, as of this pondering, consumed nearly all aspects and, for the first time since I left music school 20 years ago, seeped into the one area I didn't think it could: Am I writing now only because I haven't a clue what else to do with myself? Or because the alternative, not writing, is too scary to fathom? Is there something else I should be doing and if so, is the only way to find it to stop writing?

Synthesis(?): while I'm about 98% certain that writing will remain part of whatever the new normal shapes up to be (and that notion one will win out), that two percent is – or, rather, I'm in a state of mind where that two percent is – compelling, perhaps dangerously so. Likely cause: utter exhaustion.

Duly recorded here solely as a reflection of the current status of my process of processing.

note to self / 20230717

in

If I'm lucky, perhaps this summer will be the summer that I learn my lesson: that it's ok to take time away, to work less, because eventually, I will want to work more again. It – whatever it is – needs space to become what it wants to become. Case in point: after reducing my worktime to one workblock per day, the vast majority of the last half hour being spent in the pangs of diabetically-mandated hunger, I've come back 'round to wanting to work twice a morning, two 90-minute blocks, my preferred schedule. Not sure what caused it, other than I was ready to get back to work – and I'm all but certain that I needed the time away to recognize that.

note to self

in

Trying to keep this bit – for my money, the finest bit of wisdom in a book full of it – at the forefront as I navigate my own resoundingly unproductive (and maddening) creative period:

"The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you're empty... The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given – that you are not in a productive creative period – you free yourself to begin filling up again."

shut up linear brain

in

Pretty sure that my (one of my many) problem(s) over the last few writing weeks is that I've slipped back into a pattern of thinking too linearly. Seems to manifest itself most when working in fiction, so I probably should have spotted it before and recognized it as the problem, or at least part of it. Most likely some residual trepidation about fiction that I was long ago able to (more or less) abandon with non-fiction; like anything, it takes time and practice and the occasional renewing of vows.

Solution: return to "slips of paper" or the zettel/Obsidian way of parsing out individual notes from the notebook cacophony, tag them, and stuff in a project file (or the general digital brain catch-all if devoid of a certain project). Embrace the chaos, resist the urge to organize too soon; order and a whole comes later.

Tagging as Note to Self so I can reference if not the entirety of this piece then at least its title.

of speculative lifefiction

in

Need to stop looking at the Insta stories of one side of the family and tuning into the relayed happenings of another as both trigger me into wondering if any of the choices or the sacrifices I've made for this creative malarkey were worth any of it as I stare down decade two of offering little to the world beyond these picayune maunderings, weird shit, and triggered speculative lifefictions directed towards my illegible journal of what could have been if only if only.

Being that I was born 10 years before any of my cousins on either side to a complicated upbringing, I've felt, for the last 30, like the starter kid of both families, the beta launch: I am a cusper, the lost generation, born either ten years too late or ten years too early – though, considering all of my friends (wife included) are anywhere from 10 to 20 years older than me, I'm guessing it was the former.

I know I can't change the past and I know how pointless any and all of this speculative lifefiction is so maybe all I’m doing here is logging a reminder to myself. Note to self tag, activate.

links/2023w07.2

in

or, how i tried to accept the chaos

in

Too much of my time has been wasted in a fruitless and deleterious effort to impose (too much) control over the chaos of my process: need to accept it, let it come, let it do its thing... trust it (within certain bounds – bounds, not shackles and a plastic bag over its head). Feel like I started my journey there this morning: once I resigned myself to its embrace (instead of attempting suffocation), MainFictionThing finally – thanks to an assist from Oblique Strategies: "What wouldn't you do?" – inched forward. Recording this here as much as a record of the morning's events as a reminder to myself. Will start a new "Note to Self" tag for these kind of posts. (Turns out I already did.)

Speaking of Oblique Strategies: someone needs to make an Obsidian community plugin for these. I use an app and then copy and paste into my working Canvas, but it'd be great to be able to create an OS card for the boards...

in

Reached an acceptance - though probably closer to a resignation - that my "career" as a writer will (most likely) go nowhere. Unlike previous resignations to this, I'm good with it. Doesn't mean I'm giving up or quitting writing – to not write would be akin to not breathing for me – but rather that I'm going to keep doing what I do: show up each morning and write what feels right in the moment, release it, and let the chips fall where they may. Whatever happens happens; I'm going to focus on what I can control – namely, doing work that holds meaning for me and striving to always be moving forward with my craft. Beyond that, fuck it.