That’s how I feel right now. Like my brain can’t find the right frequency and is just listlessly wandering the dial in search of it.
Oh well. Inspiration is a wonderful thing but it’s not necessary. There is always my failsafe measure : just start typing.
It’s how I started out writing things like this blog. No plan, no outline, no complicated intentions. Just start typing and you will figure out what you’re doing as you go.
This method is not for everyone. In fact, to some, it would seem like jumping out of an airplane with a ball of yarn and knitting needs with which to knit your parachute.
But it’s what has worked for me. Don’t daydream of what you WILL write some day – that is a fine way to make sure you never write it. Don’t write detailed notes either, and for heaven’s sake. do NOT write a deep and elaborate backstory for the world in which you are totally going to set, I dunno, some sort of story eventually, probably.
Nuh uh. That’s the deadest of ends. If you want to write, write. If the idea of writing right now frightens or upsets you, ask yourself why. Is it that you like the idea of writing and want to have written things but don’t want to actually do the writing? You know, the part that is actual work, and takes time and effort and thought and strain?
Well then it’s time to get real. If you want to be a writer, write. Do it RIGHT NOW. Don’t do anything else. Prove to yourself that you CAN and WILL be a writer BY WRITING.
That’s the only way to truly learn to be a writer. Thinking you can learn to write without writing is like thinking you can learn to ride a bike without riding. It just does not work.
Leave all that “preparation” bullshit to the equally bovine feces based creative writing courses and tutors and way too weighty books on writing where they belong.
And remember, nobody needs to see what you write except you. And if you hate it, you can just delete it and start over with what you’ve learned.
The most important thing is to start building up your writing muscles. The ones that translate thoughts into your head into words on a page. Over time, articulating your thoughts and emotions will become easier and easier, and more importantly, the deep part of your mind where inspiration is born will learn that there is an exit for feelings and thus a way to let them go and be rid of them.
Trust me, it will love it. Your deeper self has a lot to say, you just need to open a way for it to be heard.
But maybe I am wrong. Maybe, when faced with the prospect of actual work, you have decided you never really wanted to be writer in the first place. You just liked putting a halo on your daydreaming, but if it requires you to exert yourself doing something which is not nearly as much fun as mere mental masturbation, forget about it.
That’s the thing about true creative work : it’s work. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun but it DOES mean it can’t be easy. It will always require far more of an investment than watching YouTube or scrolling on your phone, and there is no guarantee that it will pay out any time soon either.
So make up your mind : are you a writer? Because writers write. It’s right there in the name. Or are you just a daydreamer with pretensions?
I didn’t plan on this being some weird kind of pep talk for other writers, but what the hell, here we are.
More after the break.
The life update
Oh yeah, stuff has happened.
Well, one thing : I saw Doctor Chao about my back today.
I will give Doctor C one thing : he has totally solved his lateness problem. It used to be that I would be lucky if I saw him within 45 minutes of my appointment time, and often it would be an hour and a half of waiting in the waiting room before I saw him.
And that’s bad enough for me, but what about people with lives?
Anyhow, that’s all in the past now. Now, the wait is twenty minutes tops. Still not exactly machinelike efficiency, but ever so much better.
Plus I brought my tablet, which is more or less working like normal now. It still sometimes refuses to charge but if I leave it that way for a bit then unplug the charger then plug it back in, that wakes it up.
So I am still wary of it, but so far, it’s behaving.
Now where was I? Oh right, the appointment with Doc Chao.
I told him about the terrible grinding pain in my back when I stand up after lying down, He looked ovr my chart, including my recent MRIs, and realized that my actual spine had not been imaged in a while so I will be going in for X-rays of my thoracic and lumbar spine region tomorrow, after Wound Care.
Apparently, you don’t need an appointment to get medical imaging done at Brooke Radiology any more. That was more of a Covid thing.
That’s going to take some getting used to, seeing as the LifeLabs upstairs from Brooke still treats walk-ins like third class citizens.
I guess they get off on it.
Doctor Chao also thinks that the problem might be osteoporosis. The spine doctors as VGH thought that might be it but were leery of saying so because I’m a dude.
A dude with virtually no dairy in his diet for decades, mind you. Sigh.
So Doc Chao is putting me on an osteoporosis medication (kind of curious how that works) plus a muscle relaxant for the back pain.
The muscle relaxant might make me sleepy. Fine. It’s not like I have a life it would take me away from.
Hell, it might even help me sleep better. And I am all for that.
Well I guess that’s the update for now. We’ll see what shows up on the X-ray.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.