Man, I don’t see how real aspiring writers do it. I don’t see how they work some day job and then go home and have any kind of discipline to write over months and sometimes years to produce their work.
I’ve taken a much-needed break from writing over the last few months partly because my day job is zapping all my creativity and work energy and partly because I was just tired of writing. When I was writing my blog last year on the Houston Chronicle online Commons I had the luxury of not working (if you call being jobless and depressed a luxury) and could ignorantly affect the routine of one who writes for a living without all the hard work and years of struggle that usually precede that.
Part of my acceptance of mediocrity and not living up to my potential as you may see it is to be able to freely admit that I am not driven enough to follow a dream of any sort for any extended period of time; especially if it’s done in obscurity and without adulation and if I’m really not getting paid for it.
A side issue that I think weighed on me more than I realized when I thought about starting up again was also partly what caused me to pause in the first place. When I moved my online essays over to Blogger from the Commons it was about the same time I accepted Facebook into my life.
I realized I couldn’t restart the process without acknowledging this social phenomenon that has become part of my daily routine and the existence of the people that populate that routine. I had been writing in relative anonymity as BobLoblaw and couldn’t tell you if anybody other than my little Commons girlfriend, Gwen1999, ever read what I wrote before.
I thought I would recycle a lot of my old content for a new broader audience through this social-networking juggernaut but I didn’t stop to think how writing for people that know me, or knew me perhaps, would alter the honesty or the way I approached my more serious content.
Now I actively welcome the challenge but initially writing with the idea that someone was almost certainly going to read what I wrote was suddenly daunting. It’s made even more so by the fact that I care about what the people that will read this think. Although I bill myself as the most Self-Indulgent and Pretentious Person in the blogosphere, I don’t really want anyone I know to think that about me but I guess its part of the territory.
Anyway, there is no way I can crank out a couple of columns a week again with my current schedule so I’m going to shoot for one or so a week but rather than recycle stale stuff, I’ll revisit some of the issues I’ve dealt with like depression and interracial dating with a new voice and a new audience..I hope. But, I will have to share some of my favorites from the Commons from time to time, like "My Fifteen Hours in County." Gwen1999 thought that one was hilarious.
Enough about writing about writing; thanks for your indulgence. My next post will be your reward and I guarantee you will never look at a mime the same way again.
I’ve taken a much-needed break from writing over the last few months partly because my day job is zapping all my creativity and work energy and partly because I was just tired of writing. When I was writing my blog last year on the Houston Chronicle online Commons I had the luxury of not working (if you call being jobless and depressed a luxury) and could ignorantly affect the routine of one who writes for a living without all the hard work and years of struggle that usually precede that.
Part of my acceptance of mediocrity and not living up to my potential as you may see it is to be able to freely admit that I am not driven enough to follow a dream of any sort for any extended period of time; especially if it’s done in obscurity and without adulation and if I’m really not getting paid for it.
A side issue that I think weighed on me more than I realized when I thought about starting up again was also partly what caused me to pause in the first place. When I moved my online essays over to Blogger from the Commons it was about the same time I accepted Facebook into my life.
I realized I couldn’t restart the process without acknowledging this social phenomenon that has become part of my daily routine and the existence of the people that populate that routine. I had been writing in relative anonymity as BobLoblaw and couldn’t tell you if anybody other than my little Commons girlfriend, Gwen1999, ever read what I wrote before.
I thought I would recycle a lot of my old content for a new broader audience through this social-networking juggernaut but I didn’t stop to think how writing for people that know me, or knew me perhaps, would alter the honesty or the way I approached my more serious content.
Now I actively welcome the challenge but initially writing with the idea that someone was almost certainly going to read what I wrote was suddenly daunting. It’s made even more so by the fact that I care about what the people that will read this think. Although I bill myself as the most Self-Indulgent and Pretentious Person in the blogosphere, I don’t really want anyone I know to think that about me but I guess its part of the territory.
Anyway, there is no way I can crank out a couple of columns a week again with my current schedule so I’m going to shoot for one or so a week but rather than recycle stale stuff, I’ll revisit some of the issues I’ve dealt with like depression and interracial dating with a new voice and a new audience..I hope. But, I will have to share some of my favorites from the Commons from time to time, like "My Fifteen Hours in County." Gwen1999 thought that one was hilarious.
Enough about writing about writing; thanks for your indulgence. My next post will be your reward and I guarantee you will never look at a mime the same way again.
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