Same damn thing.

I am, perhaps, having a small writerly crisis. One piece of evidence: no blog for days and days and days. Second piece of evidence: putting together my writing sample for a grant application--who knows what's good and what's not? WHO KNOWS. Third piece of evidence: a 'draft' of a 'thing' I'm supposed to be writing for 'work' that has not arisen to the status of 'draft' whatsoever. Not in the least.

I am, however, pasting text into a fillable form to finish curriculum projects overdue for a long time.

[READING NOTE: please add a counter melody of wretched screaming and a bass line of the F word, punctuating everything. Like, forever.]

POINT ONE: blog. If I write again about (a) my dinner, (b) the weather, (c) dog, (d) complaints of a variety of sorts, (e) the occasional melancholy blah blah blah, does that mean I don't have anything to say?

POINT ONE (A): I don't want to be a robot, not even a blog-post generating robot. If my post ideas feel A-U-T-O-matic (as Prince would say), should I resist them?

POINT TWO: writing sample. On the one hand, who knows? On the other hand, who cares? This way lies nihilism. I don't want to be a nihilistic writer. Also, I want to get that grant. Which I won't. But still.

POINT TWO (B): you have to write what you write. You also should press yourself beyond what you already know how to write.

POINT TWO (C): Exhausting.

POINT THREE: 'draft' of a 'thing'. Why won't it just write itself? Come up with its own scenarios and metaphors? Why do we write anyway? Anything at all?

POINT THREE (D): nihilism. It's what's for dinner. Also breakfast and lunch, and snacks, and dreams.

POINT THREE (E): why are there no snacks in my vicinity?

I had an idea while I was walking across the quad today: the 500 word project. I think I will resurrect it. I think I will try to write 500 words, five days a week. This sounds like

• a project that will
• give shape to my desire, still, to write, and will also
• forestall my anxieties about writing the same thing over and over again, because
• even if I want to write about my dinner, I'm not actually writing about dinner, because
• I'll be writing in the 500 Words project. 
• Totally different thing.

Finally: 'draft' of a 'thing': I hate you and you can just go die for all I care.

But I will be 'drafting' you tomorrow, and that's a fact.

Love,

htms