The Breaks

One Minute Here, One Minute There

Our future is determined by the choices we make, yes? Good or bad, we are in a place of our own making because we did or said something that led to here. (Of course there are things that exert pressure on us to choose one way or another, but we are each mostly in control of what we choose.) Would it be valuable to go back and explore different choices or is it better to simply leave well enough alone and try to make better choices in the future? Hi, I’m Jason and I hope that you’ll choose to read things I write.

Organ of Record

Not much actual writing since the last entry other than doing research on the Milky Way, making notes, and hammering at some plot things, but that’s okay. Sometimes you need to reset after major life changes: take some time to rest, to do things you’d been putting off, see friends, or just sleep.

One of the things I’ve been working on is cleaning up my home office. For four years I worked away to get my bachelor’s degree and once I’d finished class I had time to figure out I was capital-Tee Tired. Exhausted is probably more accurate, but either way my brain was fried. Add in some stress in seeking a promotion at the day job and ultimately not getting it and you will have an inkling of what kind of tired I’ve been. It’s cool that I’m finally starting to think in terms of what I want to write and how I want to present it again, but it’s been too much to focus on actual fingers on keys writing.

But the home office. It was a wreck. Not the desk, necessarily, but my bulletin board over it is full of exhortations to keep plugging away, old deadlines now passed, ideas stuck willy-nilly here and there on scraps of paper and multicolored Post-Its and a couple of notes about the Kansas City Chiefs and their Super Bowl appearances. And the rest of the space is a junkyard of stacks of books, clothes I need to get rid of, and tons of paper that needs to be filed, shredded, or recycled. The path around my desk to the closet is just wide enough for the dog to turn around in and that needs to change. My time in chaos is over.

As I’ve been reorganizing, I’ve been reading bits and pieces of manuscripts I’ve unearthed (as I noted last time) and if I think about all the things I want to do with my writing, and the time I have now to do them, it will still take 10 years to accomplish it all. The least I can do is organize it. For now, it’ll be strategically placed piles because the jones to write is growing again.

Last week on Twitter, I pointed to this thread. Here’s the initial tweet:

From Twitter: https://twitter.com/rapscallison/status/1562442998717509635

And that dovetailed with a rabbit hole I’d been down recently regarding workshops, which can be great for some and terrible for others. I’d never considered anything about workshops being difficult for anyone based on the model. I think it’s essential that every person have enough information to determine that a group or service (of ANY kind) is of value to them, and that there are alternatives as much as possible. It’s a lofty dream, friends, but one I hope comes true. If you’ve got time, read up on the phenomenon starting with S.L. Huang’s history of writer’s workshops.

Remember, friends, writing isn’t just about the act of writing a story.

At CapacityA recent shopping list of mine.

A couple of friends have made forays back into music recently and I, still possessing an instrument from my youth, decided that I would like to learn some songs that I’ve been listening to obsessively. I retrieved the dusty Bentley acoustic with ancient strings from a corner of the office, struggled to tune it, and spent an hour reacquainting myself with chords and progressions I loved when I played in bands a hundred thousand years ago. I enjoyed it enough that I went out to buy new strings for the first time in 20+ years.

Playing some music and noodling around in an art I haven’t participated in for a while brought me real joy, which I desperately needed. My wife was surprised to hear me playing and seemed pleased by it and so did the dog. My fingers, however, showed that they were very unfamiliar with the process of forming chords and trying to move around the fretboard quickly.

There’s little danger of me inflicting any music of my own on you, so don’t worry. But having this other form of expression available again has kindled some excitement for writing more sooner than later. Recovering from the stress of the past 4 years is taking longer than I hoped, but playing some music and learning some new songs is something that I didn’t know I needed 6 months ago. My heart is full again, I guess.

I’m reading more (two books at once: Monica Byrne’s THE ACTUAL STAR and William MacAskill’s WHAT WE OWE THE FUTURE, with a collection of Haruki Murakami short stories on deck) and catching up on shows I’ve missed (including LOCKE & KEY, which is wonderful and compares nicely with SANDMAN (yes, I’m aware of the comics crossover)).

All that’s missing is the diploma that’s coming next month. I think once that’s here, I’ll be able to really get started again on being my creative self. Thank you for spending some time with me here, I’ll have more when there’s something to report. In the meantime, take good care of yourself. I hope your boss sees you as a whole person, too. I’ll see you when I see you.