I've spent the past few days at a place with no internet connection. I didn't bring a laptop, and I avoided the TV until tonight - GO BRUINS! But such is my dedication to this blog that I've poached my brother's computer and a painfully slow connection to bring yet another thousand words into being.
I have nothing in particular to write about this week. Let's call it a stream-of-consciousness piece. Haven't done one of those in a while. It's a rather dressed-up sort of a way to say that I'm about to spew a bunch of bullshit. Get out now while there's still time.
This was another week that I was really tempted to post "on vacation" and leave it at that. I took a picture of my son with his little fishing rod, sitting at the end of the dock. I'd thought that I might post that up and leave it with the caption "sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words." Clever, no? And yet once again, the twinge of my writer conscience compelled me to sit down and write, even though no thought of a topic was extant.
I'm on a roll. With this entry, I'll have matched my first round on this blog with 20 entries. I've done better this time, though. Last time around, I frequently posted late, and I missed a couple of weeks. With this, I'll have published by my deadline every week for 20 weeks. I'm gonna allow myself a bit of self-congratulation, even though I'm coming into my 20th post absent much in the way of style, substance, content... I'm just going through the motions and fulfilling my obligation. Like my friend Scott Cook says about touring with his band - it's a lot like working blue collar, a whole lot of gettin' 'er done.
As I type this, I'm watching the sun set behind the mountains surrounding Shuswap Lake. It's been a wonderful break from reality. I'm staying in a place that I'd hesitate to call a cabin - it's more of a house that's much fancier than any place I've ever lived. I've been out exploring on the beach and along the forest trails with my boy, reading good books, ignoring my phone, and playing guitar on the beach. Couldn't ask for a better place to sit and reflect and be truly grateful for all of the love and good opportunities in my life.
I was thinking a little bit about what I wrote last week - ending off my missive with that bit about my words being carried on the winds of love or something to that effect. I almost deleted it, it seemed too hippie, even for me. I realize that I'm constantly running the risk of pigeonholing myself by my attire, diet, frequent acoustic guitar playing and large beard, and I don't know that I need those sorts of phrases following me around. This was a case of feeling that I need to get out of my own way every once in a while and just let what comes out stand on its own. It's a rather nihilistic project to suppose that people want to read what I have to say anyways, so it's not like I'll have any means of veiling myself from criticism.
This blog began as a promise to a writers group that I joined about 6 months ago. There was threat of physical punishment if I failed to make good on my promise to deliver a thousand words by our next meeting. We've been too scattered to meet the past couple of months, and I miss the encouragement. Sometimes I coast and don't work very hard on my posts. Like this week - just banging out a few words to hit the count and the deadline. Next week we'll be meeting for the first time in a good while, and I'm going to renew my commitment to working harder on my writing and producing better content.
I'm barging into people's Facebook lives every Sunday with entreaties to read what I've written. Is it arrogant to presume that anybody would actually be interested in taking valuable minutes out of their lives to read something like this? I'm in frequent conflict with myself about this blog. To write and ask of others to read or listen is unquestionably an act of vanity. There are other facets as well, but there is undoubtedly an element of self-aggrandizement. I like to hear that people enjoy reading my work, but I don't respond well to simple compliments. I think that they ought to be commensurate with the work that was put into the piece. I think that I said something similar a few weeks ago when I nearly missed my deadline.
It's a game of statistics. Write a thousand words every week for a whole bunch of weeks and they'll start to bell-curve. There'll be a few outliers, like Week XII, which I think is my best piece of writing to date, then there'll be works like this one that don't amount to much, then a bunch of decent pieces to fill up the middle. But I don't want to write just filler. I want to be an excellent writer. That's what I'm aiming for, and I need to put in more time if I want to make good on that goal. Maybe I just need to add the threat of physical punishment back into the mix - write something awesome, or we'll beat you senseless!
Word count: 914
I have nothing in particular to write about this week. Let's call it a stream-of-consciousness piece. Haven't done one of those in a while. It's a rather dressed-up sort of a way to say that I'm about to spew a bunch of bullshit. Get out now while there's still time.
This was another week that I was really tempted to post "on vacation" and leave it at that. I took a picture of my son with his little fishing rod, sitting at the end of the dock. I'd thought that I might post that up and leave it with the caption "sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words." Clever, no? And yet once again, the twinge of my writer conscience compelled me to sit down and write, even though no thought of a topic was extant.
I'm on a roll. With this entry, I'll have matched my first round on this blog with 20 entries. I've done better this time, though. Last time around, I frequently posted late, and I missed a couple of weeks. With this, I'll have published by my deadline every week for 20 weeks. I'm gonna allow myself a bit of self-congratulation, even though I'm coming into my 20th post absent much in the way of style, substance, content... I'm just going through the motions and fulfilling my obligation. Like my friend Scott Cook says about touring with his band - it's a lot like working blue collar, a whole lot of gettin' 'er done.
As I type this, I'm watching the sun set behind the mountains surrounding Shuswap Lake. It's been a wonderful break from reality. I'm staying in a place that I'd hesitate to call a cabin - it's more of a house that's much fancier than any place I've ever lived. I've been out exploring on the beach and along the forest trails with my boy, reading good books, ignoring my phone, and playing guitar on the beach. Couldn't ask for a better place to sit and reflect and be truly grateful for all of the love and good opportunities in my life.
I was thinking a little bit about what I wrote last week - ending off my missive with that bit about my words being carried on the winds of love or something to that effect. I almost deleted it, it seemed too hippie, even for me. I realize that I'm constantly running the risk of pigeonholing myself by my attire, diet, frequent acoustic guitar playing and large beard, and I don't know that I need those sorts of phrases following me around. This was a case of feeling that I need to get out of my own way every once in a while and just let what comes out stand on its own. It's a rather nihilistic project to suppose that people want to read what I have to say anyways, so it's not like I'll have any means of veiling myself from criticism.
This blog began as a promise to a writers group that I joined about 6 months ago. There was threat of physical punishment if I failed to make good on my promise to deliver a thousand words by our next meeting. We've been too scattered to meet the past couple of months, and I miss the encouragement. Sometimes I coast and don't work very hard on my posts. Like this week - just banging out a few words to hit the count and the deadline. Next week we'll be meeting for the first time in a good while, and I'm going to renew my commitment to working harder on my writing and producing better content.
I'm barging into people's Facebook lives every Sunday with entreaties to read what I've written. Is it arrogant to presume that anybody would actually be interested in taking valuable minutes out of their lives to read something like this? I'm in frequent conflict with myself about this blog. To write and ask of others to read or listen is unquestionably an act of vanity. There are other facets as well, but there is undoubtedly an element of self-aggrandizement. I like to hear that people enjoy reading my work, but I don't respond well to simple compliments. I think that they ought to be commensurate with the work that was put into the piece. I think that I said something similar a few weeks ago when I nearly missed my deadline.
It's a game of statistics. Write a thousand words every week for a whole bunch of weeks and they'll start to bell-curve. There'll be a few outliers, like Week XII, which I think is my best piece of writing to date, then there'll be works like this one that don't amount to much, then a bunch of decent pieces to fill up the middle. But I don't want to write just filler. I want to be an excellent writer. That's what I'm aiming for, and I need to put in more time if I want to make good on that goal. Maybe I just need to add the threat of physical punishment back into the mix - write something awesome, or we'll beat you senseless!
Word count: 914
the winds of love are no false force,
ReplyDeletenor fruitily boosted intuition.
remember being led toward a place that made you wild,
and the line that was completed when you arrived.
the winds of love were blowing past your lover,
and past you, and we were all going the same way in some way.
when the winds of love tickle your whiskers,
you should trust your whiskers and be blown.