The Hum

Scritchy Scritchy

When I was in school, especially the last two years, I fell in love with pencils again. I bought a little sharpener and box of No. 2 pencils and used them for all my notes and homework in that time. Since I graduated, I’ve continued the use and find that I love the way the graphite scratches across paper, the feel of the pressed wood barrel in my hand, and even the smell of them. When I’m typing I may tuck them behind my ear or grip it with my teeth like a dog with a bone. There’s something very, very satisfying about pencils that recalls grade school and childhood.

Hi, I’m Jason and I write science fiction (mostly) adventures that I hope you’ll read and enjoy. I’m the only one to blame for that.

Pencils, man. They make you look smarter.Organ of Record

When I finished school I had such grand plans to write and write and capitalize on my newly ingrained homework habits. Life, of course, had other ideas and August and September have turned out to be a total loss as far as creativity goes. However, the last two weeks have seen me start and nearly complete 1 short story, begin 2 others, and finish the first pass revisions on a solo novella. So as bad as things were – and there was despair at times – there’s blue sky above for as far as I can see. I feel like myself again. The ideas are flowing freely. Words are coming, my critical eye is kicking in, and I’m back. I’m finally fucking back at it.

There was a lot going on – a LOT – in my life in July and August and September just sort of got caught up in it all and gave in to the melancholy. Some of that translated into the shorts that are in progress and somehow more promising than what I anticipated but a lot of it I had to actually deal with. It’s the sort of average, everyday stuff that everyone deals with but my focus had been so finely tuned to one aspect of my life that when it all blew up, I wasn’t sure what to do. Crying wasn’t enough, drinking sure didn’t help, and being a lump on the couch watching whatever was on TV was worse for me than the things that exploded. Grief gets into you and doesn’t let go, doesn’t relent. Grief is powerful and can be overwhelming, especially when piled up, but it ends, eventually, and life begins anew.

Or at least, that’s where I’m at now.

I finally finished my read-through of BLACK MOON and have copious notes about this and that, but most of it was about character. When I sat down to start compiling these notes (because I print out the manuscript and write on it like I’m grading a paper) I realized I should focus more on the characters and see what delineating them more would do for the plot.

Turns out quite a lot. As I’m fleshing out these wonderful and not-so-wonderful people, I’m making more notes about scenes that need to be added that show the things that are now really important about the characters and add a whole lot more depth to the world of the story. It’s a wonky process to write, read, define the characters, then revise, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I like it. It’s got me excited for the story AND the process. I feel like, after months of crap, I’m finally back to where I thought I would be at the end of June.

So I’m revising my plans, as one does, and settling in for some writing that I hope will indicate a leveling up for me. Cross your fingers.

At Capacity

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to that person in your life who can help you work through the bullshit that weighs you down. Your friends love you and want you to be happy, which I’m sure you want for them, too. The thing you have to do is recognize what it is that will get you to a place where you can be happy. In my experience it’s not money or time to do whatever I want, but time spent doing the thing that I love the most: writing.

I have to create in any way I know how, or my mental health will skid off the rails and send me careening down a dark, dark path. So I take time off from work to take a day and just be with a piece I’m writing. Recently I had about three and a half days that I spent with friends, my wife and a manuscript and it was the most glorious vacation I’ve had in months. The pandemic did things to us, changed us in fundamental ways that it will take years to recover from.

But one of the things I hope doesn’t change is that comfort of being alone with my thoughts. When we were in lockdown, I spent time alone in the house with my wife also spending time alone when we both would have been working if the pandemic had never happened. I find, now that things are returning to what once was ‘normal,’ that I miss those hours I don’t get any more. Or not as often. Routines were disrupted into new routines that have also been disrupted but aren’t quite the same as they were before.

So if you’re like me, you should take the time to do what makes you happiest then share that with your loved ones. I hope you take care of yourself and get regular physicals as well as check in on your mental health. You’re the only you we’ve got.

Truer words were never printed. Source: https://boingboing.net/2010/09/01/woody-guthrie-pencil.html

I’ll see you when I see you.