Procrastination Paradise

Greetings, fellow humans of 2018. It’s been quite the year, eh? I know it has for me. It started off strong—my Akron Soul Train Residency came and went (and went extremely well) during the first quarter of the year, and then my inspiration to write kind of fizzled after that, with maybe a few short bursts here and there. Maybe I just used it all up and needed to refuel—I don't know.

I’m not even really sure where I’m going with this blog post, to be honest. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. No, I’m going to do like I do and just sort of wing it. See where it goes. Put fingers to keys, words to screen, and hopefully, after the dust settles, what I write will make some semblance of sense. Maybe even have some coherence.

We'll see, I suppose, but I wouldn't get my hopes up too much.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid is spinning on my record player, because I needed some “Electric Funeral” in my life. This was recorded before they spent more money on cocaine than on the music. It should at least be a 50/50 split. I don’t know. Cocaine has never really been for me, and I feel like, at 36, I’m too old to start that shit now. It would just be sad, at this point. Too mid-life crisis-y for my taste.

In my experience, it’s better to use drugs to help find inspiration, rather than relying on them for inspiration. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. It’s best this way, when they're more of a tool than a crutch. I’m finding that meditation works really well for that, too. It’s also much healthier. I’m no spring chicken anymore, so I have to think about that shit. I’ve already started falling apart enough—I don’t need it to get any worse.

Finding inspiration can definitely be tricky. It might not always be, but sometimes it is. Even if I know what I'm going to write about, even if I’ve already brainstormed it and outlined it and all that business, actually sitting down and punching it out is the hard part.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I am something of a first-rate procrastinator. Even in grad school, even during my short but busy journalist days, I have always been one to wait until as close to the deadline as humanly possible to complete an assignment. It usually always worked out for me, which is probably why I have kept doing it all these years. The results speak for themselves, anyways. Well, it has gotten me this far.

Every writing advice column/blog/magazine is loaded with the sorts of advice that the aspiring writers who subscribe to them will follow and have varying degrees of success with in the real world. I used to subscribe to that advice, too, writing so many words a day or for so long a day, or whatever it happens to be this week, but to be honest, I think the best advice I have ever gotten is to just find what works and stick with it, no matter what the experts say.

The key is to just keep, keeping on, even if that means only sitting down every once and while, when the inspiration actually does strike, and getting out what I am able to get out during that time. I just keep doing it, no matter what. Eventually, something will click and I’ll finish what I set out to finish. It might not turn out how I originally thought it would, but that’s okay. It’s almost always for the better, that way.

So maybe I’m doing more guitar-playing than writing right now, but that’s okay. I will come back around to the writing again. See? I’m doing it now. That’s all the proof I need. It might not be the thing I need to focus on writing, but it's something. That, the short story collection, might be far from done, but if I continue pushing myself, continue story by story, page by page, word by freaking word, no matter how long it actually does take, I will get it done, and it will turn out exactly like it's supposed to turn out.

Maybe the trick for me is motivating myself through sitting down and writing a blog post first, because I feel pretty super-jazzed about writing right now. Hmmm, maybe there's something to that. I'm not sure, but I'm just going to go with it, because at least it's working now, and that's all I really need.

Introspection

I think I have it.  I think I know what I am going to write.  I get that first kiss feeling and put my fingers to the keyboard, although sometimes I prefer pen to paper.  It matters in the moment.  It's that impulse.  That naked outside by the poolside on a sunny day feeling.  Smoking a cigarette without regret of the consequences.  There are always consequences, aren't there?  I am not sure anymore.

I put my pen-tip to my tongue in my mind in my position of thinking while I type at the keyboard at my fingertips.  Jimi Hendrix and Hunter S. Thompson.  I am trapped in a different time, in another place, in my mind.  Was I really born now?  In the future that Science Fiction authors used to envision?  Haven't we at some level made it to that point?  There are resonances of dystopia all around us.  "Do you want a dystopia, sir?  Erase dystopia from the dictionary."

As the semester draws to a close, I sit here, oddly relaxed, entering in and out of oblivion.  I am watching a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, and it is both inspiring and disturbing.  That's how Dr. Gonzo would have wanted it.  That was how Raoul Duke wanted it.

I don't want my life to be like that.  Aside from recognition, what did it get him?  I look up to him as a writer, but I can't accept that being creative and expressive necessarily leads one down that road.  Same thing with Kurt Cobain, someone should have told him (and probably did), "Buck up man, you're a rock star now."  I am sure that it's fucked up beyond what I can possibly imagine, but seriously, if you can just chill out and ride the wave down slowly, you will enter into a new sort of cognizance, which is only possible through time.  Through relaxing.  Through not letting the things get to you. You move on.

You grow up, you learn to deal with life in a different, invigorating way.  I can't imagine the type of things they went through.  Even though I feel close to them as a fan, I only know them through the things they wrote. The stuff written about them.  While some might argue that is the best way one can truly know anybody, as through language is how we define our world, I am not so sure that is even that accurate.

There has to be another middle ground other than suburbia.  Something not so soul-sucking.  I don't want to just accept my materialistic programming and try to make money as my take on religion.

That's why I write.  Not because I hope to be a bestseller, because it is what renews me, over and over again.  I sit down at the keyboard, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and I am reborn unto the pages.  That for me is enough.  Enough to keep going.  To keep hashing it out, to keep making the effort to keep going, to keep living and breathing and learning and making new connections with people.  It is easy to be pulled into the dark void that seems to be opening up below us, but, like Wile E. Coyote, as long as you don't look down, and keep looking ahead at your goal, you are not going to fall.  Whatever you do, don't hesitate, don't stop, keeping going, keep looking ahead, and breathe.

Flexibility is also a Virtue

Hello all.  I know it's been a while, but I have very  busy with school and life and what not.  No complaints, it's just that in prioritizing my life, unfortunately it's things like this blog or working on finishing proofreading my short story collection that I have to forgo into order to give myself the time that I need to find a new place to live, buy a car, plan for my family's future, do my school work, plan for my class I'm teaching, grade papers, and work on my thesis --- which unfortunately has been a bit neglected lately too, a problem which, I am addressing this weekend.

Anyways, the point of this is, since I am literally "self" publishing, I am delaying the re-release of Tales from the Fringes for two weeks, to November 1st.  I have been proofreading it, and there is not a lot that I have to change, but I don't want to not finish proofreading and risk leaving any "stone unturned" --- to use a cliche.  I don't see it as a setback, but as a necessity.  Unfortunately, for the time being, until I actually have more time (i.e. I am out of school and I have a regular sort of job), my publishing schedule will have to be flexible.

That being said, since I am paid over winter break, I am not planning on working so that I can do some significant work to my thesis and also finish up Out in the Garage so it is ready on January 14th --- since that date has significance to me, personally.  Anyways, I know it might be disappointing to some of you, but my goal is to put out a professional quality book, and not one with a significant number of typos.  That just takes time and planning, and flexibility when my schedule doesn't work out how I want it.

I have been thinking a lot about my future, lately, and what direction I want to go after August 16th, and I am really have major doubts about going on and pursuing a PhD. --- at least not right away, and, maybe, never. I am also considering going for another year to either pursue another MA in education so I can teach high school English, or another year and getting my MFA as well, so that I can still potentially get a tenured teaching position, and I can more actively pursue what I truly love doing, writing fiction and poetry.  It would also broaden my qualifications and open me up to more jobs --- since there are plenty of businesses, such as greeting card companies or advertising firms, that need creative writers.  I just can't see being in school for another four years, making next to nothing, trying to scrape by, when I can an extra year in school and pursue the same type of career.  I don't know.

I haven't made my decision yet.  I am honestly leaning towards entering the workforce --- since one of my strengths as a writer is my adaptability --- and pursuing a career in something like technical writing (which I would need to research and grow comfortable with in the next 10 months).  I have already started perusing the job listings for the Akron/Cleveland area and doing some preliminary research (for like the median salary for technical writers, etc.) and I am not intimidating by what I am finding.  I am basically looking for the type of job that I can make a decent wage doing something in the writing field.  The type of job that allows have a life outside of work so that I can have a family and can afford to pay off my debt and save money and can read and write like I enjoy doing.

I am glad that I am attaining the level of education that I am currently pursuing, and I feel more confident in my abilities than I ever have before.  The question that I have to ask myself is, what is the dream?  When I am truly honest with myself the dream isn't getting a PhD. in English, it's in getting a job that I enjoy that allows me time to be with my family and friends and to indulge in my creative pursuits.  When I think of it in that way, it allows for more flexibility.

It's not like I will never read another book or challenge myself to understand a complex idea.  Education is something we must all strive for, no matter where we go or what do we in life.  School is a place that focuses on the pursuit of it, but --- at least in my experience --- there are a lot of people who take that for granted.  There are also a lot of people who take for granted that we don't need an institution to gain knowledge, that true knowledge is something we all strive for all our lives, no matter what our situation.  If more people continued to strive for knowledge instead of whatever else their priority might be, the world would be a better place.  Ignorance is not bliss.