Notes on Writing: In a Rush

I'm whipping this up at faster than normal speed this Friday because I'm under a bit of a crunch. Well, it's a self-imposed crunch, but it's 'a crunching nonetheless. 

And yes, it is a Friday. Not sure why I had to throw that out there, but it made sense at the time. 

This is completely aimless. I'm trying to work up an idea, any idea, on the fly, but not one has yet to travel past the neurons and out the fingertips. There are the standards about current events and politics and culture and social media, but I feel like nothing is really inspiring my brain to turn. Well, it's spinning, but in no particular direction. Kind of woozy, actually. 

I'm thinking it's time to put this Exercise into action, adapt it to something more focused and consequential. Should that be a book, a sincere attempt at a topical blog, a stab at short story/creative writing/publication/contest? 

Whatever it is, it needs to be something more fulfilling than this. I'm just not feeling it today. It seems like this really is just a forced attempt to push out the junk and get the damned thing over with. I know I had better ideas earlier in the day, but they're lost. And now I'm writing this with the fading hope that a good notion or track spills onto the page. 

And it's not happening. Ugh. 

Should I sit back for 2 minutes and let it come to me? If I do, will that spin out of control and end up wasting 5, 10, or even 20 minutes of time I needed to do... this? Whatever this is? 

SSShhhhheeeuuuuttt. I am so lost right now. I need a spark, an idea, SOMETHING to open the door or zap the imagination or turn the lights on. 

But after what I felt was a relatively focused screed on quiet quitting, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is spilling out here. Yesterday, I selected an idea and stuck with it, and it didn't end up too bad, at least by the end. 

Now? I feel like I'm sweating on the inside, like my inner psyche is a nervous wreck and panicking at the thought of wasting this small writing window on, well, this, to be frank. This is nothing. 

There's pressure, but it's largely self-imposed. And it's not helping. I don't do well under pressure. I flail around and get frustrated and the ghosts take over and it's "night-night" project until it subsides. 

If I had a drink or two I could perhaps calm down a bit, forget that I'm currently a ball of nerves and find my stride. But, I don't have any drinks and, most importantly, I don't have any time. This has to be done now. Work hell is over and weekend hell is about to start, and the interim that lies between is the only shot I have at making this work today. 

Why? Because not too long from now, I'll be immersed in a social situation that will involve food and drink and energy-sapping conversation that will ultimately leave my out-of-shape 43-year-old ass fully gassed and unmotivated to do anything for the rest of the night. I know myself. That will happen. 

So, now I've written, what, 300 words or so, and I still don't have a clear direction on where this is going. I guess complaining could be a focus, but I'm frankly tired of complaining about everything, and then slamming it onto paper and calling it a project. 

Which leads me back to the consequential thing. Do I need to channel this effort somewhere else? I ridiculously asked Google if I could include ads on this blog in a futile effort to monetize it, and after 3 weeks of review the machine came back and said it didn't have enough value to make it happen. HA! If that's not a sign that something needs to change, I don't know what is. 

Also, I haven't made much of an attempt to promote this anywhere, which is likely not only not helping with the value-add problem but continually rendering this thing valueless. No promotion = no readers = no traffic = no ranking = no visibility = no readers. If I could overcome my fear of what other people thought for once and made some type of effort to get the word out, maybe I could move the needle. But that's not happening, at least today.

Which really does make this whole Exercise little more than a exercise in self pity/narcissism. 

Unfulfilling, really. But, exercise and habit forming, or something. 

Til Tomorrow