july 8 odb
Regular readers of this blog will know that I've been working on a story. It's happening in fits and starts so I've shared it in fits and starts. First here, and then here.
I haven't written a story in a long time because way back whenever, writing became my job, and the last thing you want to do when you're done work is the thing you do for work. It's different, but it's not different enough, and because this is the way I felt about my creative work a lot of ideas simply didn't get put on the page. It took a while, but I've made peace with this. Eventually you realize that ideas are cheap and that motivation and execution are the hard parts. That helped a lot. I went from a guy who felt bad about things to a guy who accepted reality. When I couldn't pin an idea to the ground and flesh it out properly, I started to shrug and let it go because there was a high probability another idea would come along sooner or later.
I used to be precious about my writing. Like, the Dave writing. I didn't share much Dave writing with many people, and, when I did, I quietly begged my reader(s) to like it, and like me by extension. Back then, my writing was me and I was it. If someone thought I made a great point, I felt smart. If someone thought I wrote a beautiful paragraph, I felt beautiful. Back then I barely felt anything at all, and so when those smart and/or beautiful days hit, they hit hard. Big time hypermania. And so I'd bounce off the walls, and get a whole bunch of things done. Thing is, I'd also get so many things halfway done that by the time the high wore off and I was forced to readjust to earth's gravity, I did so in an apartment that looked like a tornado hit it.
I was painfully insecure as a younger man. I think and write about it sometimes. I don't feel some deep shame about it anymore, though. I used to twist myself into paralysis and then beat myself up for being paralyzed. There was no winning, only losing. Eventually I realized that thinking about the past can be is bad for you. That every second you spend casting your memory back is a second you can't make progress.
These days I don't think much about feeling and being insecure, about having a heart that was both broken and impenetrable, about not having the courage to fix what needed to be fixed. When I get the itch, I simply acknowledge what I was while understanding that now I am something else. Tomorrow? Every day is tomorrow, buddy.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch write
🌳 grass more
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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