Shooting Blanks
The blank page is winning, y’all.
I still get up early every morning; I still open the ol’ notebook, but then the page stares me down and I’m the first to avert my eyes. I don’t know what to say about anything at the moment. As it turns out, my entire existence in the military, in public service to military communities, has only ever been an exercise in woke nonsense. Time to put a stop to all that and submit to our AI-crypto-whatever futures.
But I’m going where the energy is. I’m reading a lot. That, at least, has finally shaken loose after a couple of years of feeling like a chore. I discovered Brandon Sanderson and found him intriguing/delightful:
I read a Belinda Bauer crime novel for my local book group and thought she nailed the character with Aspergers:
I picked up Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow on the free swap shelf at the library and am thoroughly enjoying it. It’s better than the miniseries, of course, which we also liked. I didn’t expect the book to be so … droll? But it’s as magical as you have all said.
And I’m finally tackling Black Lamb & Grey Falcon, the definitive tome on the Balkans by Rebecca West, as research for my current novel in progress. What a writer. It’s from the 30s so a tiny bit of the language is dated, shall we say. But otherwise, wow.
On other fronts, I battle on. My website guru says WordPress might be imploding*, so on her advice I’m looking at Substack as a possible replacement. I’ve signed up for two ghost story festivals/workshops/conferences, for fun but also to help with my WIP. I’ve also signed up for a short course with Consequence Forum, a military lit journal, in an ongoing effort to wrestle my nonfictional military experiences onto the page. I’m making as many writing dates with friends as possible so we can (positively!) pressure each other into producing some work.
It’s only February, way too early to declare that I won’t meet my writing goals for the year. But lordy, I could use some encouragement.
Thanking you in advance for any thoughts you’d like to share.
*Let me know if you’d like me to share her newsletter on this topic. It’s really dismaying, considering MOST websites run on WordPress!
As a fellow traveler on the writing path, I use the strategy outlined in The New Diary… when it looks like the blank page will win, just shoot bullets, not sentences. I give myself permission to write literally anything. Random thoughts, dreams, to do lists, things I’ve been thinking about, the outlines and characters of whatever I’m watching on telly…anything to help drain my swamp brain. Sometimes very specific insights/phrases/topics on my primary writing target will be revealed once I’ve drained the other things distracting me. I also give myself permission to NOT write anything, using Oliver Burkeman’s suggestion for ‘dailyish’ habits. Do you use a similar strategy?
Your comments are so welcome, Maggie, and such a good reminder that I am, in fact, writing (in much the same way as you describe – my notebooks are a hodge-podge of lists and dreams and story and observation). I am not sure what my desperation is that the mess should start adding up to something, though. It’s been singularly non-generative lately, and the swamp seems to be a magically refilling one. I would love to wake up and be able to focus. Or at least not scramble my metaphors.
That blank-page image at the top of your post is disconcerting. So uncomfortable. Serious heebie-jeebies happening over here.
In addition to what you mention in your reply to Maggie, you are writing thoughtful book reviews too, which I do enjoy reading. And these posts, of course. Your words, all of them, always make me feel better about things, even when they’re about the bleakness of AI-crypto-whatever futures, and the possible implosion of WordPress. For one thing, you remind me I’m not alone. And you’re so darned insightful, and funny.
Please share your website guru’s newsletter about WordPress with me. As it happens, I’ve signed up for a webinar about Substack, and it sounds as if I may actually need to do something about “find new web host” besides continue to move it forward on my to-do list.
Ellen, thank you for being so unfailingly kind and supportive. And thank you for saying that I’m insightful, especially when that’s the entire pickle I find myself in – feeling like I have nothing to add to a conversation that’s going nowhere, anyway, because it has us all so thoroughly gob-smacked. But I look forward to the AI-crypto-whatever near future when we’re all one big happy Magaland and no longer need tariffs or annexations or deportations or wars. In the meantime, thank you for helping me feel less alone.
Will forward you (now two) newsletters from my guru about the WordPress sitch. xx