Apr 252005
Once again, I read Buck Daruma’s journal, and he makes me see myself.
So here’s a promise I make myself — every day, starting today, I will write. Not email, not blog entries, not stuff that has to be good or that has to be for publishing.
Just write. Just fucking write.
I need to do it. I’ve stopped writing completely. The last thing I finished was my Bad Santa story, and before that, almost nothing for months. I stop when I don’t have ideas that are good enough, when I don’t feel completely inspired.
I keep waiting for a bolt of of the blue, and it’s not coming. I just need to get down and get my hands dirty.
So. Every day. Even if it’s thrown away. Even if it’s only a paragraph. Even if it’s crap and I hate it.
I must do it. I must.
yeah, isn’t he a clever one?
Me too, but blogging has helped me to at least type something. It’s a baby step to writing something more literary.
Don’t reply and get writing, dammit!
D
PS Thanks for the link, Karl!!!
D
I used to think blogging helped me write. And maybe it used to. Now, it helps me avoid writing.
Blogging definately let me hear my voice and reassure myself I was saying something in a manner that while titilating… wasn’t shocking. A tightrope of sex ed and seductive story.
Several magazine articles later and 1/2 a book… lets not talk about how I haven’t worked on it since October… I think it’s a place to work out ideas.
That said- you can definately post a paragraph and see the reaction. I used a blog to see if a quiz would engage people more than trivia for the last seminar I gave- trivia won out. I got 16 responses from a small readership of 23. The quiz got zip. It was a really small effective experiment.
Thanks for the link.
You know, if you just write one or two lines a day, of anything – a thought, a sight in the park, a person you saw wearing a ghastly outfit – and throw none away, at the end a month you’d have a treasure box, but at the end of a year you’d have a gold mine of images and random words to draw from.
And one line will naturally follow another.
You have to. Even if I have to stay up until 2 am, I force myself to write every day. It’s like this little deal I’ve made with my muse. In exchange, she’s usually in residence.
I love my blog, but sometimes I let it be my excuse not to write (and then I get rushed on deadlines which makes everyone stressed and unhappy). So I try to let my blog be something that I do in addition to my writing and if I get something good from it, that’s just icing.
I write everyday, crap or not. It helps me clear my head, and probably helps me not have to visit my therapist quite so often