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title: 750 Words
date: 20140302 22:31:59
tags: #writing
seven hundred and fifty words, that's what they say you need to write before you really know what it is that you're writing. Could be. For me it's been so long since I really wrote, really wrote what I wanted to write that I have no idea what's going to come out. The truth is I sold my writing self out before I even knew that I didn't need to do that. And maybe I did need to do it, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't done it so there's that.
But the thing is I'm not sure that matters a whole lot, I'm not entirely convinced I needed to come down this low to realize what now seems clear, I got suckered by the man so to speak. Not that I actually see it in those terms, more that I let myself down. I started writing only when they told me to write, only when I was getting paid, only when I had to and at that point I was finished. I dread writing, I have to force myself to stay here in the chair, to not get up and wander that house, not go find a cigarette somewhere as if that would somehow make it easier to write but that never worked, hasn't worked in years. The truth is that I'm out of practice, I need 750 words to warm up and I've got a lot to say so I've got to just keep pressing on keys, making the clackity noise and going.
I came out here to write a novel because I decided that that was, or maybe I felt that that was what I ought to be doing and the music was getting in the way,. the cleverness of the words, the poetry and beat were getting in the way of the narrative, which was what I really wanted to chase, but I was afraid to do it. So moved out here to Athens to prove I could do something, to prove I wasn't afraid. But I still haven't followed the narrative. I got to AThens right around the time the internet started to pull us early adopters in, the tractor beam grabbed me and that became the narrative. True, I did write a novel somewhere in there, or most of one, but I never had the courage to finish it. Never forced myself to stay in the chair and finish what I started. It's easy to start things, so easy in fact that I start hundreds of things, but it takes real discipline, or real will or real something to keep yourself chained to that chair, to keep pressing the keys even when you want to give up, want to walk away, want to do something much simpler like build a website. So you abandon the narrative.
But it's always there in your head. Those characters, you can see them in your mind, walking down the road, just their backs at first maybe, a white shirt waving across their backs as the wind blows over the world that is beginning to take shape. And then one day they turn around and you see the facial features, the texture of their skin, the jawline and the eyes, the endless depths of imaginary eyes. And you know how they will eventually get back to the boat, eventually sail down to the stilt city you have already sketched out in words. The will dock there, have adventures, set plots in motion, sail all the way around the world perhaps, sink just outside the harbor perhaps, one never knows these things, only sees the beginnings, the cast and the set, from there you have to start writing, you have to put the fingers to the keys and keep pounding until something happens.
If you're anything like me you have to pound for quite some time. If you were to read a draft of this post you would have already slogged through nearly double the words you've had to slog through as it is. Sometimes it takes a long time to get that boat out of the harbor and you have to work your way there, fight almost. It's strange that, that feeling when you know you're circling around the point you want to get to, is that fear that stops you from diving right into it? Is it caution? Is it a desire to feel out the subject before you commit? But you have to commit. Maybe you commit and you fail. It happens to me all the time. In fact it's the only thing that happens to me, or at least it feels that way. But you can't get anywhere without committing.
Granted there are times when you should commit and kill. How do you know when something sucks? I don't know? Two weeks from now I will think this entire rambling thing is an utter piece of shit and that I ought to be embarrassed to have put it out there and what's more I'll want to delete it. Does that mean it really sucks? Maybe. Maybe not, I'm not sure.
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