Ramble Before You Write | An Update · 12:29am Oct 4th, 2019
Howdy gang. It's your second letter of the alphabet striking your cord with yet another blog. This one will be a quick one since I don't have much for a long one. Figured a quick update—followed by a decent point—will express and explain the lack of updates. Hope all is well. The milk will come out of the carpet soon enough.
I've been... writing. Different sites and different fandoms. Nowhere else feels like home though. Been doing a hella lot of private commissions. Ought to stop those. Writing has come easily and hardly at all. Keeping still to my 5K daily; damn shame it ain't more. The muse is sporadic, but the writing must be consistent, ya know?
I've taken to editing my works for the first time. Roughly over 100K sit in my unpublished stories folder, waiting for a second-draft since I want to polish them. Editing has been a strange sort of fun. There's struggling in the acceptance that the highs of composition produce results that aren't nearly as feel good. But I've learned since not to judge my writing; I have no talent for it.
Making your work better is all a writer can do.
Isaac Asimov had a good quote. He said too heavy a revision meant a piece was a failure. With the efforts to fix such a draft—like chewing used gum—he would rather write something new, take what he learned, and make a better successor.
Ever wonder something? Maybe the reason the old bestow wisdom to the young, for in the utility of that wisdom, they get to live on, even if it matters naught to them now. Anyway.
Why does B ramble to us?
Because I have wisdom to pass to you. Writing's a tough gig. Anything tough invites apprehension. Like an artist with a new sketchbook, one doesn't seek to ruin something pristine. The only way to attain perfection is to do nothing at all. But seeking to only be good enough, the artist learns to doodle in those first few pages. With the stakes lowered, and the flow state entered, everything seems to even out in the end.
The same is true of writing. Before you begin, have a [ hr ] below the currently written text. In this new space, ramble however you please—preferably about yourself or the current project. Offloading stuff from your chest may help clear your mind. If not, after messing about in prose, you'll find the words coming easily—or at least decently—once again.
Below is an example of what I wrote before a session. It's not pretty, but it helps, even for a moment. I hope it helps, folks.
~ Yr. Pal, B ~
Intern Memo
Don't know why the words are suddenly harder to write, for no matter what I do, it feels like the words never come out right. Either on the page or in real life. I get so close to people only for them to become distant. For the longest time, I wanted to be some kind of loner—and now, I crave the company of others.
Art is a useful thing. It expresses what the soul is feeling, those bubbling feelings and distant thoughts. Things that affected you deeply once before, now gone, but made useful now. There always seems to be a click when one enters the work properly. A proper kind of expression now striking, if you will.
I'm not sure how much longer I have left in any of this. Punching my own ticked to the ground six feet under doesn't feel like the best advice for the moment. It's since occurred to me I have none to count on. Everything draws back to my own skill and my own wit, my own care and my own development.
Got nothing else to fill myself with, I suppose.
Will something come of drawing? Will I meet someone who fulfills me? A part of me answers 'yes' and a part of me answers 'no'. Maybe there's truth to both sides. Life isn't about keeping to one or withholding the other.
It's been a while since I've been sad, has it not? It's not something terrible. Or a thing to have dread about. Losing a bit of life for a set amount of time is fine, healthy, one needing to be sick to appreciate health and happiness once more.
Though I would much rather have a cough than something like this.
But I'll push through it.
I wish I had more words to type here. Every breakdown, if endured, leads to a breakthrough soon enough. I'll keep pushing. Nothing ever seems to change sitting in place. But how long can energy be wasted on fruitless efforts?
Don't ask me. I have some writing to do. F'naaaa.
nice.
oh hey, I have a tattoo that matches your Spike image
i.ibb.co/ftrjk9B/67769552-2239108339520210-5088361207132323840-o.jpg
5132131
I fuck with that.
You been doing well?
5k words are pretty impressive, considering I only manage to do 1 - 2k most days. I think you're doing well.
5132200
Not as such... The past six or seven months have been pretty rough for me, but things are starting to normalize a bit finally. How's life on your end?
5132308
Why's that if you don't mind my asking?
And I'm alright. Had most of my development this past year. Got jack shit in terms of a future, but possesing vauge notions of a dream. Strangely enough, I think I'll turn out well. And in the other case... oh well.
5132310
I'll try to catch you on discord later. Not really the sort of thing I'm ready to broadcast to the general populous.
5132447
I get that.
Be well my dude.