Jan
10
Opening Remarks
Filed Under Site
Back at it again.
It’s amazing how many things one can find to do with the day, how many excuses one can make to do something other than what is valuable. This is an odd time in my life. I have new and challenging responsibilities, yet more free time. Even now, before I walked into the dining room to write this, I took a moment to load the dishwasher and had to talk myself out of making a pot of coffee.
For as long as I’ve wanted to be anything, I’ve wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be able to call myself a writer. Until recently, I’d kept a journal since high school. Sure, it was mostly full of romantic woes and complaints about work, but also more creative and thoughtful content. It kept my pen moving, my mind searching. What I’ve always lacked was focus, purpose. A couple of months ago, I quit writing in my journal. I’d told myself it was practice, that it would help me become a better writer, that it would help me get published and to finally become the writer I wanted to be.
I’d slowly realized that the journal had become a crutch. This device was not a venue for exploration, but a stand-in for productive work. If I was filling up pages, I had convinced myself that I was moving toward some goal. But you can’t really move toward an ill-defined goal. There was no literary fairy that would show up after I filled in volume eleven and crown me a “writer”. The journal was an end in itself, an excuse. So I quit.
This was a liberating experience. I wasn’t tied to the book, to recording events and slogging through bad moods. I began to write differently–in more ways than one. To break the years of muscle memory, I started typing my personal works instead of writing by hand. I was shocked at how the change in process alone freed my mind. And I began to write pieces: essays, commentary, terrible short stories. And I had fun.
But I’m getting that nagging sensation once again. If I’m not writing for a purpose, then I can find endless dishwashers to load and pots of coffee to drink. So I’m going to write it all here in public. I’ve had blogs in the past and understand that the best sites center around a topic: bird watching, political punditry, furries, what have you. I racked my brain (and my wife’s) about my focus. I made a list of 101 ideas. I built a model car. But the thing is, I’m interested in everything. So that’s my focus: everything. It occurred to me last night. I have trouble committing to a single hobby, so why should I try to write inside that same box? I’m going to go where my head leads me and build a giant pile of work. And maybe something will emerge, if only consistent public practice.
I have other reservations about blogs and the implied self-absorption. So I’m going to treat this site as more of a collection of columns, something I would be proud to show anyone as a body of work.
But right now, I have to get back to that pot of coffee.
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