This week is sure to be much more busy than last week. I've got my writers' conference part of the week, and work to fit in when I'm not there, and then writing every day.
It's a sure bet that podcasting, video production, and blogging must fall by the wayside. Except that I have that arduous Valentine's Day episode of my show to get done (only about halfway through at this point), so that means video production and this blog will have to go.
So, don't expect any more overlong, rambling, personal posts like you've gotten over the last few days. Yeah, the cries of disappointment are deafening.
The thing is, this blog probably isn't really for you. It's more for me, or, if I exited, for people to remember me by. I've written on it for more than fifteen years, with, apparently, more than 1400 posts, so, I guess it'd be a good way for somebody to get to know who I was and what I thought about.
But I don't know. There are things you say and there are things you don't dare say. Because people could misinterpret them, could take offense to them, could use them against you sometime in the future (heck, the things I feel and think today I might not feel and think a dozen more years down the line). And sometimes, things you think or feel are just personal, and ugly, and make you vulnerable, and human.
At the beginning of the month, I took a car ride and recorded an entire podcast where I talked about what's going on in my soul. I still haven't finished editing it and sending it to the Southern Hemisphere. But it's easily the rawest, most real me I've ever shared with anybody, and after I am dead, maybe it can be released, because, as I've noticed at the various funerals I've gone to over the last decade, once you're dead, people don't remember the real you anymore anyway, they remember a sort of Seals & Crofts' Greatest Hits version of you.
I went to the storage unit again today, and as I started to record myself singing a song, a car drove past, and my immediate instinct was to stop singing and hide. What if they saw what I was doing? What might they think? What if they made fun of me?
But the whole point of going there and doing that and then putting the videos up here is to try to overcome that inclination. So what if they saw? So what if they thought I was making some sort of dorky SnapChat video for my gay would-be boyfriend? So what if they called me on it?
Ultimately, it shouldn't matter. I was doing something I wanted to do, for my own reasons, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Unless my singing is wrong, which I guess I'll allow.
If I had a modicum of confidence, I'd be somewhere else at this moment, doing something other than typing this. Hopefully with more money and friends and ambition and success. But I don't, and there's really nothing shameful about sitting on my gluteus, typing on my blog, by myself.
I got some writing done today. I didn't make it to the library (although I considered going instead of sitting and writing this post), but I did take an hour today, went to the park, ran up and down the stairs there, and then worked on my story "Never Let Him Go" until I reached the end.
It's probably my least-vital, least-exciting "Dead & Breakfast" story. But that's okay. Maybe sometime I'll write an actiony one that culminates in half the Noble Oaks building burning down. But for now, it was the story I wanted to tell, with these characters that I've really enjoyed visiting with over the last six months. And tomorrow, I'll move on to the next one.
Is that reaaaaally the best you can do? a buttholey voice asks in the back of my mind. Yeah, it is.
Words Today: 1,452
Words Total: 14,684
4 comments:
I've been having a bad week, myself, and I'd like to think that the certainty of writing daily--plus the certainty of seeing Rish Outfield squirming alongside me on that great fish hook that dangles from the sky--has helped me get through the days.
Speaking of striving impotently against entropy, have you tried leaving your dead phone's battery out for hours, then plugging your phone in with the battery in and power off for hours/days before powering it back on? I know it's a long shot, but you know what they say about every shot you don't take...
My victory lap for today: I broke 12k words, bringing my average up to over 1000 words per day. Not the shabbiest.
You definitely don't give yourself enough credit for all the amazing things you do. I am sure I am not the only one that appreciates you exposing yourself (ok poor word choices...how about "putting yourself out there"?).
Rob, I hadn't tried that. I did put a new battery in the old phone to see if that would make a difference, but it still wouldn't power up.
At this point, the only thing I'm bummed about losing on that phone are the pictures (though it does suck that I lost all my telephone numbers, and there was a recording I did of me brainstorming a Broken Mirror story for a contest I never entered, but with my productivity this month, I could actually sit down and write the darned thing if I really wanted to).
I am pleased that you are getting something out of reading this blog . . . and that reminds me of a story I wasn't going to tell in today's (2-12-20), but now I think I will.
Beastie, thanks a lot for saying that. I am working harder than I ever have before (one time, in 1993 or so, a guy I knew challenged me and my friends to a push-up contest. So, I participated in it, doing as many push-ups as I could before my arms gave out. I lost, quite definitively. And the next day, I couldn't BELIEVE how bad it hurt to pick stuff up, or even to raise my arms above my head. Now, in 2020, I challenged myself to a push-up contest on Sunday. I did as many as I could before my arms gave out. On Monday, I was fine . . . so I did it again. Today, I'll do it again), and I hope people will enjoy these stories I'm writing, the podcasts I'm putting out, and the videos I'm making.
Even if nobody does . . . it's still good to do them, rather than nothing, which is just a bit easier to do.
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