Marching into Summer a Guilty Man

Somehow I’ve left writing. It didn’t leave me, but I am a child who waits for the perfect environment. I need to be alone. I can’t be tired. I must have the perfect Jazz album playing. I have to have had a good day. I need to feel like I’m not being pressed for time. […]

Somehow I’ve left writing.

It didn’t leave me, but I am a child who waits for the perfect environment.

I need to be alone.

I can’t be tired.

I must have the perfect Jazz album playing.

I have to have had a good day.

I need to feel like I’m not being pressed for time.

Time is really the greatest enemy of mine. I don’t look at it right. It takes four hours to get to work. (It takes 15 minutes on average [but it takes an hour to get home]) I won’t start something I don’t think I can finish. I panic. It’s better to never try then to either miss a deadline or be late for something.

I read these essays on how other writers manage their time. Some writers wrote while working, parenting, spousing, and getting into other parts of life. Others didn’t do anything but write. Some wrote on napkins and small pieces of paper that they compiled into a great work of literature. Others wrote on a typewriter. Others use a MacBook Pro, and they write where the coffee is the color of toffee and the steamer interrupts the hip hop.

I wrote a blog post everyday for a year. None of the above environments ever happened. I wrote a lot of those posts on my back and on my IPhone. It might have helped me write a lot, but it didn’t actually grab me that discipline I thought it would. I stopped.

Now I have rewritten this several times and I feel like everything I write is stupid.

I went from a Joe Henderson album to a James Chance album.

And why do I even care about writing well? No one reads unless it’s boy wizards or a book that vindicates a feeling. No one even reads the hours on a store’s door. No one reads a menu. It has to be obvious.

Sometimes I lie in bed at night and be watching TV or trying to sleep and I just think about how I wish I was doing something creative. I lie there thinking about the process. I see myself writing, drawing, painting, designing, but when I come down to my “office” and open the laptop, I stare at a blank screen for a few minutes before drooling on myself scrolling through Facebook.

Everyone is writing more than me.

So I left writing.

I didn’t have anything to tell you on Facebook.

No opinions.

No declarations of adulting better than you.

No kid pictures.

No selfies.

No links to questionable news sites.

I just hang on to the awful thing to be invited to things. It’s also handy for birthday reminders or any news from my softball team.

Honestly, if I wasn’t on my softball team, I’d quit Facebook forever.

It’s ruining my writing. It’s ruining my reading. It’s ruining the world.

So I lie in bed with my back to my computer while I think of what I want to write instead of writing it.

Some say it is just as easy as just doing it.

Just do it.

No excuses, bro.

Just fucking write!

I will sit and scroll through Twitter or Instagram instead of write. I will stare out the window and stare at the cars driving by. I will turn on TV. I’ve got Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and I have the MLB package. I am savvy with YouTube. I will watch porn. I will do all of this instead of write. Draw. Paint. Create.

It sickens me. I have turned my back on who I am.

The world spirals and spirals closer to being something I don’t recognize, but I won’t write.

I have thought I was gonna die, but I won’t write.

I am on my second, third, or fourth chance at life, but I won’t write.

I am told on a daily basis that I am creative, but I won’t write.

So here I am trying to find writing again. Or something.

Mostly I am disgusted with myself.

I am better than this.

4 Comments

  1. Favorite line: “No declarations of adulting better than you.”
    Thank you for writing again.

  2. I get it Dave! I work for my self now and when I’m not buried with work for my shop with crazy deadlines I do all the things you just wrote about only instead of writing insert machine parts. It’s like I get paralyzed by my fucking head thinking about how I need to get out and do work in the shop but I just can’t get out there and turn on the power. The only way I found that works for me is to tell my self just go put an hour in. Some days that’s the best I get but others I get started and it all starts flowing and I get a bunch of parts done. And by the end of the week I have some orders done so I can get paid down the road some day!
    As for FB I agree with everything you said, I have lost people as friends because they don’t like my thoughts on something or the politics I agree with! Really sad! My beliefs are mine not yours, I try not to make anyone need to believe the same as me, everyone has a right to believe what they want. They don’t get that most peoples gut level values and morels are ingrained in us by the time we are 10 years old. They come from our parents, teachers and the other people we grew up around, so Ranting on FB is not really going to change them!! I’ve had friends tell they only want to have friends that are like minded?? Pretty close minded is what it sounds like to me but it’s their life not mine to live.
    Thanks for writing Dave, got me to write a couple paragraphs today which is a lot for me. Keep trying, some times I get your stuff and other make me laugh and some I just don’t get but that’s OK too. Even though we have not actually talked in person for years it makes me feel connected to what’s happening in the world for you. That’s the best part of FB for me is I’m connected to a bunch of kids I grew up with and we connect now in a small way as to what is going on in each others lives. Try just doing it for 10 minutes?? What’s the worst that can happen ???

  3. I read everything you write. I check on your facebook often to see if you have a new blog. Please keep writing. Get a flip phone and forget about FB and Instagram and Twitter. I agree it is keeping is from being our best selves. You are truly gifted.

  4. Dude. I hear you. I’ve always identified as a musician, have been playing guitar and singing since I was 12, and most of my life I’ve been writing songs and playing shows. The last 2 years, I haven’t had any creative energy to play. I’ll pick up my guitar, get disappointed at what comes out, and not touch it again for a few weeks. I used to play every day. People ask me all the time what I’m doing musically and it’s gotten to a point where I just say, I don’t want to talk about it. Hoping to get that creative power back, but honestly the weight of the world doesn’t help. Needing a perspective shift.

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