Look, I wrote past midnight last night, so technically I did my words today. And I have, like, nothing. I came up here because it’s becoming a habit to come up here at night, and that I will admit is a very good thing. Habit-forming is what leads to more writing. My biggest excuse is almost always, “I had something I wanted to work on, but i just didn’t make it to the computer to do it.” Not an excuse so much as a reality maybe. But I know, showing up is step one. A BIG step one in fact.
Step two would and should be “and have something to fucking write about.” I suppose I need to look at the idea that the blog/diary/journal thing is only serving one need. It gets me at my desk, it gets me typing and posting things. It is public for the reasoning that I am seeking some accountability, from myself first and foremost of course, but if Levi sees it or anyone else checks in on me to make sure I’m doing what I promised myself I would do, it’s a crutch maybe but it’s not the worst thing in the world.
But I also need to start getting back to thinking about stories. The stories I’m really hoping to work on right now would be swell. I’m obligated in that it’s both what I most want and because I promised my partner I’d work on it. But even one minor distraction would be okay.
But it’s a lot. This last week was an accomplishment. Small victory but still a victory that I need to make myself recognize. So trying to push myself up to the next “gear” isn’t necessarily something I should rush. I need to want to write. Anything, just to love the act of writing again. And then I need to hone that. Focus it. But when is too soon and when have I waited too long? I’m trying to let it feel natural. If it doesn’t yet, I’m probably not there.
I will also need to start taking some stuff out of public posts too if I’m doing story-writing. Maybe. I don’t know, I thought not too long ago about doing a project called “open door writing.” In Stephen King’s book “On Writing” I think it was, he says something about “You write with the door closed, you edit with the door open.” And that is a good general rule for a lot of writing. But I have already shown that accountability for me is a benefit. Twenty-something years ago I went to a meeting of a writing group I was very lucky to be invited to, but I had no idea what it entailed. It was people, “actual writers” in my eyes, who got together and did readings of the stuff they were working on with one another. I freaked out. I wasn’t a writer, part one, not in my head. And I sure as hell couldn’t openly display something I was working on to anyone else and have to look at them when they read it. Even now, any time I write something, if i leave it to my wife or Anne or Levi or whomever to read it, I don’t watch them do it. I try to not even ask about it. I’d been working on a Ronnie story last year some time and I remember that I did send it to Erin. But I heard nothing. Over a year had passed and I mentioned it as the last thing I’d worked on and she said that she had loved it, and it was the first I knew that she had even looked at it. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s bad. I don’t know. Would it have freaked me out more had I known at the time that she wanted more of it and I couldn’t produce what I thought she wanted? Maybe. But since I haven’t produced more of it since without having known that she liked it at all, what’s the difference? I still left the thing unfinished and have felt like shit about it ever since.
The open door writing was also something I was going to pitch to my friend Phil because we’ve talked both about writing stuff together and podcasting together and I thought that a show on writing was, again, something that would motivate me. But the blog was supposed to motivate me too, and it turned out to be an idea that dried up quickly. At least it adjusted to this. The CapJournal. But I know, it’s really easy to come up with an idea for a podcast. Execution is everything. As I’m currently on hiatus from all the shows I’ve done or was doing, I both hunger for it and also wonder if my time with it has passed. Same thing as writing, i love doing it when it’s happening. And then I feel like crap a lot of the rest of the time because I feel like the weakest part of any show I do. I talk too fast, I talk over my co-hosts too often, I ramble on without points, and I make dumb and sometimes overly offensive and gross jokes that even I don’t think are funny. It’s nice to take everything you feel is awkward about yourself and put it out there on the internet for public scrutiny every week. And even nicer when you find that most nobody gives a crap about you anyways.
One of the things I was hungering for though was going to be a spin-off from Podcast of Terror with our dear friend Jack. We were going to open door write the script to the third Gremlins movie. At least that’s what i thought the project was going to be. It may’ve turned into something else, I’m not sure. But we just couldn’t get things lined up with schedules and such, and Jack’s got a LOT going on with his life, and Matt does too. And I should but I don’t. But again, I love the idea of talking story with other people, and I love those two guys so fucking much that every moment I get to hang out with them is what gets me through most of my weeks, so it seemed like the best thing that could ever happen for me. And it’s not like it can’t still at some point maybe. Timing is a real dickhead. But like the comic with Levi, or stuff I’ve wanted to do with Anne or Corky, I can’t and don’t want to put my happiness on other people to accomplish for me. If the Gremlins 3 podcast can’t happen, it’s not like the parts of it that I wanted most couldn’t happen in some other form. But it feels less important to me to do it strictly for making myself happy. I still treat myself like I’m the part that would drag the project down anyways.
This took a turn. I know it wasn’t a happy-go-lucky post from the beginning, but it wasn’t mean to be a shit on myself one either.
I guess, back to a solid point, I don’t have to “journal” every day. I have to find my way up here and write. Something. Anything. That’s my exercise. But if you do a rowing machine for years and years and then you never get in a fucking boat and put some of that muscle into taking a kayak upstream… it’s not useless time or anything. But it seems weird. You could’ve been using a stairmaster. You see and use stairs all the time, it would at least have something it was applicable for.
Also, Erin wants a rowing machine. We probably won’t ever get a kayak. I’m defeating my own metaphor with my silly reality.
Also also, I was listening to MCR on the way to get coffee today and I started to drift backwards. I may need to find some new music that doesn’t automatically conjure the same images in my head all the time. Not that I’m giving up MCR any time soon. But something else could hopefully spark some new energy in me. BTS has a new song, I should really check out all this KPOP the world goes on about.
