I haven’t written for a while. Anything. The most recent thing I wrote was the “Coming Soon” placeholder so that Writing Wanderer wouldn’t have a blank screen for the mythical being known as Reader to come across. But alas, this mythical being is few and far between right now, and may in fact only be one lass, though a mighty fine one she be (yes you).
I would know. Or should know. But only to a very limited extent right now. You see, I haven’t been keeping up on the promise I made to myself years ago when I first bought and built Writing Wanderer. I started out on WordPress to see if blogging was my thing. I knew writing was my thing, but I wasn’t getting very much traction with my stories or my book, so I thought maybe a good way for me to break out of my block would be with my blog.
But it wasn’t.
Not even close.
Yeah, I wrote some articles and posted some pictures and talked about my travels backpacking Europe and hiking the local mountains in Montana. But I never really got going with it. I could never get into it. Why?
I never felt comfortable enough to write anything that interested me enough to write authentically. I always wrote about what I thought someone else would want to read. I wrote what I thought my cute-friend-at-the-time-that-I-just-met-and-wanted-to-impress Rachel might want to read, even if what she really wanted to read was the most honest, authentic pieces I would write (which she did get to read, just not over the internet). Oh, and that cute friend turned into my partner-of-seven-years-and-still-going-hard love (ja du). So yeah.
I haven’t written for a while.
And not just on here. Especially not on here, but not just here. Last year, for a good part of the year, I was going strong on my book. It felt good. I’d been working on the idea of it for over a year, started writing it the month before I turned 31 (I had told myself when I was younger I would write a book by the time I was 30. Funny how that sounds so similar to what I’d heard in movies, read in books, seen on TV. And at the time I was saying it I believed it. I was young, I had years ahead of me, a whole life to live before that time would come around. But it never came around to the part of me actually writing that book. I put it off and put it off, working and traveling and working and traveling, and then by the time I was 30 I had almost stopped writing altogether (though this is somewhat fake, as I’ve never been able to stop completely – even when I don’t write I’m thinking about it) and wasn’t even close to coming up with a book. And then one day in winter at Rise N Grind in Hollywood I started writing what I thought was just going to be a short piece.
It wasn’t even a story – just a personal essay between me and a very dear loved one I had recently lost. I became consumed with the writing – the subject matter was still very raw inside and I had to get it out. I’d been crying for months and while that was starting to settle down I still thought about it all the time and it felt so good to get it out on the page. It was just me and him, just like it used to be when he was alive and I would talk to him. In fact, it was the story I would tell him while he was in the hospital and I was trying to help him recover from what he would ultimately succumb to. And so I kept writing and writing that day in Hollywood and then I kept writing even after we left. It was so real and so personal to me it didn’t feel like I was writing at all; there was nothing I had to force because it was already there waiting for me. All I had to do was put it down.
And I did. Not every day. And not all the time. And sometimes it would only be a little here and a little there. But gradually, after several days, I realized I had something. I would even begin imagining myself locked up on Benzedrine and pumping out a full novel in less than a month, maybe even a week, thus fulfilling my original bravado and postponing the day I would have to admit life always wins in the end. Of course, I never did lock myself up, and I never did write a novel when turning 31. However, I did start writing my first book while I was still 30, and though I turn 33 in less than three months, I’m still going strong on that same book, albeit slowly) and then after I turned 31, especially during the spring and early summer, I was going strong on it, writing five pages a day or more, sometimes even ten. By last fall, I had put together over 120 pages of written material. (If you do the math, there have been long stretches of silence with this book but I’d have to think hard when and why and that’s just not going to work right now. Also, I’d much rather throw these in endnotes but I’m having a hell of a time figuring out how to edit the site right now and will just be content with these awful ()) But then things started to slip. I lost another close friend, this time self-inflicted, and that sent me reeling for some time. I got caught up in my work. And I had to travel back and forth between Montana and Los Angeles. And then last fall, LA just didn’t feel the same to me as it had when we moved. And then we decided to move back to Bozeman for the winter. Which meant that between September until now, I have written very little on it. I’ve probably written more for Writing Wanderer than I have for it.
Not much.
But that’s not to say I haven’t been doing anything. I’ve been very busy. Indeed, I’ve been so busy with my business and moving back full-time to Montana for the winter that I haven’t had much time to do anything else, particularly those things I find most fulfilling on a truly personal level.
I like to create. And while there’s a certain element of creation in business, it’s not the level I need for being truly fulfilled. To get that, I need to be writing and painting. Perhaps coding too, but that’s still up in the air. I need to be interacting with art and life on a level beyond the practical needs of the everyday. When I feel most at home and at my best is when I’m writing and in a groove for several hours at a time and I’m so deeply concentrated I don’t care what’s going on around me and I lose myself to what I’m doing (editor’s note: the original statement stated “When I feel most at home and at my best is when I’m writing and in a groove for several hours at a time and the keyboard keeps chattering and I’m so deeply concentrated I don’t care what’s going on around me and I lose myself to what I’m doing.” There was also a personal anecdote that was removed after this statement: “(now that the deep concentration is waining, I can point out that I could have chosen “chattering away” and yet most certainly did not – I cannot stand that type of prose – I don’t even particularly care for “keyboard keeps chattering” but it’s late and I can’t think well enough to remove it entirely – perhaps when morning comes and sheds new light I will remove it”) For obvious reasons these comments have been removed. However, in order to show authenticity and indicate honesty, we have included them here for your awareness.). Sometimes I’m able to do this through painting as well, but less so over the last six months.
If I haven’t been writing on my book for some time, and I’ve chosen to neglect Writing Wanderer for years while still paying the annual hosting fees, why start focusing on the site now when I don’t have the time to write my book and make more paintings?
Good question!
Let’s just say it’s an experiment. Another one. And this time I have seven additional years of experience to help me. Perhaps I’ll expand on this another time. As for now, it’s 1:16 in the morning and I have work not so very far off.
