I am a writer. It's what I was born to do and what I do better than anything else -- better than my mad Iron Chef skillz, my jumpshot or my electric guitar tone. And the more I vent about not being a full-time writer, the more I realize that duh, there's nothing stopping you from writing on your own, friend.
Then a former colleague of mine started a blog despite the fact she finds time to be a Ph.D candidate despite a full-time job and a family.
Hey, I thought, I should do that.
And then it dawned on me: Hey, dummy, you already have a blog. In fact, you have three. One for the girl, one for writing about music and one catch-all "observations and musings from the Nutmeg State" scratchpad, all three of which have been collecting cobwebs for years while you frittered and wasted the hours in an offhand way.
So what will I try to do? After all, this has been tried before. And it didn't get far. No, it didn't get far.
Because for a writer, I've grown pretty adept at either NOT writing or starting writing and not finishing. I've got one 50,000-word start of a manuscript about the inner lives of Seussian characters done and waiting for copious edits and needed improvements, 25,000 words of career-inspired early 90s rant collecting dust, a third idea waiting for NaNoWriMo in November and a fourth and a fifth kicking about in my brain.
The answer? Just write, really.
In his brilliant work on getting to work, "The War Of Art," Steven Pressfield gives the inability to do things you've always wanted to do a name: Resistance. And how do we overcome resistance? By sitting down and getting to work, he says. Stop procrastinating and waiting for tomorrow; do it today.
I've oversimplified a great deal. But here's a quick excerpt that gets to the heart of it:
Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic? Ever resolved on a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice? Have you ever felt a call to embark upon a spiritual practice, dedicate yourself to a humanitarian calling, commit your life to the service of others? Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless; to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace or to preserve the environment? Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
So I'm going to just write.
Here, I think I'll write about pretty much anything Nutmeggy, and some things that are not limited to this state -- even "third rail" topics like politics and faith. Whatever crosses my path or my mind. Connecticut is a strange and confusing state and if you asked me 10 years ago, I would have told you I never expected to live here. But here I am. As the first entry in this blog years ago noted, the state motto is Qui transtulit sustinet, translated from Latin as "he who is transplanted still sustains," and Connecticut has sustained us for the past five years. It's an interesting place. And it's home.
As for the art on top of this page: No, it's not real. North Stepford Falls is not on any map, not any more than its more wealthy and troubled neighbor; it's everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously. Maybe I can show you where to find it...
Excerpt: Pressfield, Steven. The War Of Art. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2003.
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