Balls to the wall

What? I dunno. SUPER BORED!!! What should I talk about today? Something super profound! Maybe this is the the real me, none of that pretentious bullshit trying to sound smart. "But I can't monetize stupidity!" he says. The biggest struggle in life is finding your place in the universe. At least for a whitely privileged human such as myself not in fear of starving or being eaten by bears. I'm listening to some bitchin' music right now that's distracting my usual melancholy writing style. Adele - Hello (Laibert Remix) is sick. I'm usually listening to Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool but not right now! Down the youtube rabbit hole we go.

I think most of this writing style is about procrastinating the real work. By creating silly distractions I delay the real work. At least it's writing right? I guess it depends on what your ultimate objective is. If your whole goal is to create A Tale of Two Cities, or 1984, or even Animorphs for that matter, then you probably shouldn't fuck around too much, because what are you really accomplishing by writing nonsense? I think it actually at least stretches the muscles responsible for the writing process. Training the brain to synthesize thought into word is an important habit to cultivate. Grammar and vocabulary selection is increased and quickened through repeat usage, that must be a good thing.

I was listening to the Nerdist podcast today and Chris had Max Brooks on (who I didn't know is Mel Brooks' son), writer of World War Z and many other great things and he made a very poignant statement about writing that really inspired me. He said, "anybody can write. A writer rewrites." Essentially, professional writing is about having the structure to focus on a specific idea or concept and really hammer it home through many iterations and much research. Blog entries could just as easily be renamed journal entries because that is the format I am subscribing to, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Oh boy, just switched to the Radiohead, now we're getting deep. No pressure. I was sitting in prenatal class tonight (my wife is pregnant for everyone out of the know) and a thought popped into my head. Growth comes from adversity. The things I'm afraid of the most are what I should be forcing myself towards, not specifically because I will actually enjoy doing them but more as a character building exercise. Being mindful and deliberate in our reality is an important step in evolving as a species. Through complacency and comfort we become soft and dull, mentally and physically. I think a lot of the current first world turmoil can be attributed to this concept, at least in my sphere of influence.

"Let go and let god" they say. Apparently words to live by for something such as myself. Thoughts fly by in an endless fractal universe, ungraspable by my conscious reality to put into words. There's no point stressing about capturing every idea that pops into my tiny ape mind to share with the masses. Some are genius yet fleeting (according to moi) but that is my reality.

Jess is capable of writing eloquently drafted essays that flow with ease that I may never be capable of producing. Our brains just work in different ways. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol. That doesn't mean my writing is any less meaningful, our methods are just at an impasse. I am envious of that ability though. It seems effortless. While I was jerking off for years during the naughties (haha) Jess was busy honing the craft through university, something I chose to rebel against. "I won't write what other people tell me to. In fact I won't write anything at all. I'll just play World of Warcraft for fifteen thousand hours instead."

I think I should just write one day for eight hours. None of this "just at nighttime" bullshit. That way I can really dissect an individual topic all the way. Write now I notice myself fearfully skirting around deeper concepts that take real work to unpack. I'm very resistant to the more "boring" writing of talking about one thing for an extended period of time. That's when I really have to look at myself in the mirror. Right now I can just flutter from thought to thought without much real thought (too much thought).

Hearing Max Brooks talk about writing and sitting in prenatal class got me thinking about reading more books about writing to give me that extra edge. The app GoodReads is always recommending these types of writing improvement books but I have chosen to ignore them up to this point. "I don't need your advice", I would think, but maybe its the hard choice and what I really need. The War of Art is still one of my favourite books, maybe it's time to take my knowledge to the next level. I have to finish my queue of other books first. This month is just going to be crazy with us moving and all. Exciting times for sure.

I feel like I should end right there but I just keep on going. I'm so envious of really good writers. Their technical abilities are transcendent, such as calling back to previous thoughts that tie everything up in a nice bow, or speaking in complex metaphor/allegories. Ultimately it comes down to creative ingenuity. Creating concepts not predictable by traditional means. I guess that's where the rewrite part of the equation comes into play. Trying to create these tricks on first pass is near impossible. You may have the framework of what your ultimate intention is but fleshing it out takes time. It's time to head back to school (figuratively).