First, a quick story:
"These are the chains that conceal the great beast beneath the
mountain."
Did you like that? Cool. I came up with it while on a hike last weekend.
I was advised to simply write that down and post it on this lonely blog as part
of my output. Output.
That's right, output. I made this blog so that I could write; practice
writing and regular writing. Written material whose quality I am not so much
invested in as I am its quality. It's my water whereas my longer works in
poetry and literature are my wine. Well, I should say that my literature is
like my wine. I don't drink, you see, so it's pretty damn fitting that I call
my own written literature my wine. Then again, I do read sometimes and have
read plenty, so I guess it's not a perfect analogy, but it is at least now
written down. It's transcribed from my undisciplined ind into a cohesive
linguistic pattern you can understand.
This is kind of a non sequitor and not an excuse to not write, but I
feel like I'm just imitating the YouTube vlogger TheAmazingAtheist, or at least
that's kind of the general voice I have while writing right now, though this
particular paragraph is sidestepping that particular expression at the moment.
It is perfectly okay to emulate others so long as it help one progress towards
his own voice. As Christopher Hitchens wrote (well, in the book I am about to
quote, he was quoting something he told his writing students) - "you have
a voice; use it." In other words: write, damn you.
I went through a brief period of overusing semicolons. I guess I assumed
that every unfinished thought merited this unique little dash of punctuation,
as my stream-of-consciousness rambling never really takes a breath so much as a
syllabic shift of inflection to indicate a rerouting thought.
Bubble bath. I don' know why I wrote that, it just came up. Lemon curry
comes up next. What else? Monty Python? That's apropos, given the lemon curry
reference I guess. Acoustic guitar. Nope; my brother isn't upstairs playing at
the moment. This is stupid. I prefer meaningful output.
I think a great deal around a given issue that bothers me. I'll think of
oblong and complicated ways of talking about the fact that I am talking and why
the hell do I need to talk so much? I'm not even really frustrated that I do
so; sure, plenty of times it does frustrate me, but it doesn't matter...
DRUMROLL...
NOBODY'S GOING TO READ IT ANYWAY! TA-DAAAAAA!
The perfect excuse, ladies and gentlemen! You're too kind, you're too
kind.
Ahem. Write plenty. Okay, I can do that. A friend of mine posted
something on Facebook about riding his bike past a swarm of tumbleweeds. I
jokingly suggested he write a 10-minute journal prompt, though I did expect he
would actually do it. (A journal prompt is where you basically write for a set
amount of time and don't let yourself stop for any reason and just unleash your
thoughts onto the page.) Thing is, my friend actually did it. He wrote out a
quick story (yes, longer than the one I posted atop this article) but he
fucking did it.
Wait, lemme go back to self-pity over mistakes like failing to write on
my article blog regularly, lamenting how nobody is actually reading my blog.
NO. Boring. It's weird; have you ever found yourself obsessed with a definite
answer? Personally, I want to be certain I am aware of my own blog so I want to
say things like this: "I'll write knowing that no one is reading but I'll
still put out interesting stuff so that if anyone does happen to read it,
they'll like it."
Okay, fuck this, it's boring you. It's not boring me; I could keep up
this "creative" output for another couple hours. I'd have to pause
for my wrists' sake mind you, but you're reading this because you're the
audience and I don't want to bore you, certainly. For the record, I'm perfectly
aware of my self-pitying tendencies, but I'll keep working with my therapist to
learn how to cope with that. You of course will want to be up to date on it.
So, the chains keep the monster beneath the mountain. Cool fantasy
story. Raises a lot of questions. Its content has nothing to do with this
article; I'm just writing because I'm trying out my latest attempt at
"regular output." Ha ha ha. Betting pool's open on how many weeks I
keep it up this time. I've got a tip for ya, mate: you won't need two hands to
count it. Cheerio.
By the way, I finished my latest poetry collection. See, that's
something a few people will give a shit about enough to read. I guess I don't
want to invest in something that isn't being read. And rightly so; it really
isn't an interesting blog. But it's not for you; it's for my practice. Run
along now.
