Task Writing
The other day I was at Union Square and had an inspiration for a poem, and I decided to commit myself to actually write it. I just finished the first draft, and it was painful because it was written at a different point with a different mindset that I was under than when I was feeling inspired at Union Square, and also because it was a more specific and meaningful form of writing than journaling or general criticism, which I can burn dozens of pages in a sitting without a second thought (c.f., this LiveJournal, which at this point I've used for fifteen years (?). I'm not checking).
The painfulness was the point. Writing the feature length script was also painful and really did take sitting my ass down in front of a blank screen and just staring at it for excruciating lengths and forcing out a few words before things actually started moving. This is a common description of writing in books and articles and is exactly the obnoxious sort of life experience that can be described to you a million times by a million different people in a million different ways and still when you do it for yourself makes you go, "Fuck me, I was not prepared for this."
In order to force that discipline, I was underemployed freelancing and spending my time writing rather than searching for a job. It worked to get the writing done but once the money ran out I went and got a job.
(The problem might be that those descriptions make writing feel romantic the same way anti-war movies have entertaining battle scenes. The struggle of writing is dramatically communicated better than the boring fact that it's work.)
I once wanted to be a writer. It's probably better that I went into media production instead because I'm not sure I would ever had developed the task discipline of regularly writing before getting caught up in work and other things, whereas in media production the 'work and other things' ended up being the stuff that helped me develop the task discipline.
But the problem is that I'm pretty much in a corner now as regarding my goals and getting in the habit of writing purposefully, so I don't have a choice. I'm now paying more attention to my ideas and jotting down notes and trying to figure out a way to carve out time to regularly write.
I'm honestly worried that my attention to this goal isn't going to last long and I'm going to wake up another three, five, eleven years from now and be like, "Oh yeah, I still only have that one first rough draft of a feature film and a rough draft of a poem I wrote about transferring trains," but I don't have a choice to handle that worry in any other way than pushing forward for now.
One of the things that I realized also is that I need to revamp my idea and approach to Robinson Met Krasna. I originally wanted to make an ongoing series of essay / experimental films with a loose thread built around the continuing time travels of two filmmakers who inspired the name. It's not working because I've been vague in trying to keep the episodes out of context of the here and now (time travel, right?) and I got more involved with setting up 'the story'. Also the narrator has no point of view.
But I still need to do this project, because it's right for me to do, and because it's another thing I need to write. Robinson Met Krasna, I realized finally, is the place I have carved open to admit my own opinion about things, in the way that I don't really want to share in other formats or in social life. Robinson Met Krasna is for the points when I think about something and feel it's really important. If I feel something is really important to say, the narrator has to have a point of view.
With all the above in mind, the other issue is editing. I rarely self-edit, and when I have it's usually been superficial. Editing may prove to be as painful or moreso than writing, but strangely I'm not too worried about it. The thing is that I edit other people's stuff well. "But that's not the same thing as editing your own work" well yes but writing other people's stuff is about as painful as writing my own stuff, so... I'll figure it out when I get there.
After all, I need to write the second draft of the feature, and the second draft will require editing.
It's been a period of directional introspection recently. My job at The Skin Deep was the most meaningful job I had ever had, and there is a loss at having my position there fade away, but on the other hand I was also plateaued and maybe even stagnating. I'm now in a relationship, the first that I've ever had that has lasted longer than a year, and it follows a long period of recovery from an abusive relationship that I was in for a while. I had just hit a point of my life where I was aware and satisfied about how everything was going and then the United States surprised me by going full fascist. Somewhere between one point back when and another point here recently, I realized, my interests have changed a lot. I'm also in kinda a funky place where some things in my life were both a long time ago and not so long ago -- anything between about 2004 to today can feel like 'just yesterday' or an entirely different life that I left behind because I grew out of being that person.
I'm now making plans with a woman I intend to marry, own property with, and have children with, and have not yet done or committed to doing any of those things. Among the stuff that she's trying to do before all that and the stuff that I'm trying to do before all that, I have the sincere desire to do one more major broadening of my career and what it means, and I have no idea what that broadening is or looks like. It's not about 'finding meaningful work' anymore because I did that. It's not about learning the craft, because I did that. It's not about making a living doing what I love, because I did that. And of course am always continuing to do those things, but am now in the habit of it. It's just my lifestyle now.
So because I can't force the next big broadening, what I can do is dedicate myself to more directional writing, writing toward the purpose of completing and meaning something in a manner presentable or publishable, and be more mindful, open, and curious in the pursuit of new interests and reappraisal of my values. That part I'm doing.
Which reminds me. I posted to Facebook recently, "The Internet isn't fun anymore." I'm glad I admitted I feel that way on that platform (where I generally try to be circumspect and mostly just share quotes, articles, and art). I've complained about it before but won't go into more detail here. The happiest part of my current situation is that the introspection and curiosity I'm directing is no longer directed to the Internet but rather to the all the other 'stuff' around me. The Internet satisfied so much of my curiosity for so long of my life but it's actually overwhelmingly nice to be injecting the informational hits my brain needs periodically from other media, including poetry.
That said, if you're interested in a new favorite writer of mine, check out Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory. He's a macrofinance investor and former professor who wraps information theory, postmodernism, game theory, cinephilia, philosophy, evolutionary and behavioral psychology, and literature into a larger conversation about markets. He may or may not make money off his ideas, and I wouldn't presume to tell you that you could make money off of them -- regardless, he has an amazing aptitude for putting diverse areas of inquiry to task while making his arguments AND tends to explain different specialist knowledge simply and understandably.
--PolarisDiB
The painfulness was the point. Writing the feature length script was also painful and really did take sitting my ass down in front of a blank screen and just staring at it for excruciating lengths and forcing out a few words before things actually started moving. This is a common description of writing in books and articles and is exactly the obnoxious sort of life experience that can be described to you a million times by a million different people in a million different ways and still when you do it for yourself makes you go, "Fuck me, I was not prepared for this."
In order to force that discipline, I was underemployed freelancing and spending my time writing rather than searching for a job. It worked to get the writing done but once the money ran out I went and got a job.
(The problem might be that those descriptions make writing feel romantic the same way anti-war movies have entertaining battle scenes. The struggle of writing is dramatically communicated better than the boring fact that it's work.)
I once wanted to be a writer. It's probably better that I went into media production instead because I'm not sure I would ever had developed the task discipline of regularly writing before getting caught up in work and other things, whereas in media production the 'work and other things' ended up being the stuff that helped me develop the task discipline.
But the problem is that I'm pretty much in a corner now as regarding my goals and getting in the habit of writing purposefully, so I don't have a choice. I'm now paying more attention to my ideas and jotting down notes and trying to figure out a way to carve out time to regularly write.
I'm honestly worried that my attention to this goal isn't going to last long and I'm going to wake up another three, five, eleven years from now and be like, "Oh yeah, I still only have that one first rough draft of a feature film and a rough draft of a poem I wrote about transferring trains," but I don't have a choice to handle that worry in any other way than pushing forward for now.
One of the things that I realized also is that I need to revamp my idea and approach to Robinson Met Krasna. I originally wanted to make an ongoing series of essay / experimental films with a loose thread built around the continuing time travels of two filmmakers who inspired the name. It's not working because I've been vague in trying to keep the episodes out of context of the here and now (time travel, right?) and I got more involved with setting up 'the story'. Also the narrator has no point of view.
But I still need to do this project, because it's right for me to do, and because it's another thing I need to write. Robinson Met Krasna, I realized finally, is the place I have carved open to admit my own opinion about things, in the way that I don't really want to share in other formats or in social life. Robinson Met Krasna is for the points when I think about something and feel it's really important. If I feel something is really important to say, the narrator has to have a point of view.
With all the above in mind, the other issue is editing. I rarely self-edit, and when I have it's usually been superficial. Editing may prove to be as painful or moreso than writing, but strangely I'm not too worried about it. The thing is that I edit other people's stuff well. "But that's not the same thing as editing your own work" well yes but writing other people's stuff is about as painful as writing my own stuff, so... I'll figure it out when I get there.
After all, I need to write the second draft of the feature, and the second draft will require editing.
It's been a period of directional introspection recently. My job at The Skin Deep was the most meaningful job I had ever had, and there is a loss at having my position there fade away, but on the other hand I was also plateaued and maybe even stagnating. I'm now in a relationship, the first that I've ever had that has lasted longer than a year, and it follows a long period of recovery from an abusive relationship that I was in for a while. I had just hit a point of my life where I was aware and satisfied about how everything was going and then the United States surprised me by going full fascist. Somewhere between one point back when and another point here recently, I realized, my interests have changed a lot. I'm also in kinda a funky place where some things in my life were both a long time ago and not so long ago -- anything between about 2004 to today can feel like 'just yesterday' or an entirely different life that I left behind because I grew out of being that person.
I'm now making plans with a woman I intend to marry, own property with, and have children with, and have not yet done or committed to doing any of those things. Among the stuff that she's trying to do before all that and the stuff that I'm trying to do before all that, I have the sincere desire to do one more major broadening of my career and what it means, and I have no idea what that broadening is or looks like. It's not about 'finding meaningful work' anymore because I did that. It's not about learning the craft, because I did that. It's not about making a living doing what I love, because I did that. And of course am always continuing to do those things, but am now in the habit of it. It's just my lifestyle now.
So because I can't force the next big broadening, what I can do is dedicate myself to more directional writing, writing toward the purpose of completing and meaning something in a manner presentable or publishable, and be more mindful, open, and curious in the pursuit of new interests and reappraisal of my values. That part I'm doing.
Which reminds me. I posted to Facebook recently, "The Internet isn't fun anymore." I'm glad I admitted I feel that way on that platform (where I generally try to be circumspect and mostly just share quotes, articles, and art). I've complained about it before but won't go into more detail here. The happiest part of my current situation is that the introspection and curiosity I'm directing is no longer directed to the Internet but rather to the all the other 'stuff' around me. The Internet satisfied so much of my curiosity for so long of my life but it's actually overwhelmingly nice to be injecting the informational hits my brain needs periodically from other media, including poetry.
That said, if you're interested in a new favorite writer of mine, check out Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory. He's a macrofinance investor and former professor who wraps information theory, postmodernism, game theory, cinephilia, philosophy, evolutionary and behavioral psychology, and literature into a larger conversation about markets. He may or may not make money off his ideas, and I wouldn't presume to tell you that you could make money off of them -- regardless, he has an amazing aptitude for putting diverse areas of inquiry to task while making his arguments AND tends to explain different specialist knowledge simply and understandably.
--PolarisDiB