Writing existentially.
4:34pm It's the afternoon and brighter than I'd like for writing. I'll be playing GTA Online this evening and if I don't write now, I won't get my words done in time before midnight. The evening playlists will roll over through the night and if I leave this until the later, I likely won't have time. I thought maybe I could write this morning, in the late hour (or early) hours after the overnight hotring playlist, but that didn't happen. I'm okay with the convo I had instead. It was a twist, a turn of events, an unexpected development. Followed me into my dreams and the nightmares were particularly disturbing though. The blur of the past week or so.
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| This morning's sunrise, balcony view. |
Writing right now with daylight is not the mood for me. It's not the vibe. But I can still write. I know my writing goes to different places in the dark so I'll hopefully write somewhere around sunset time. Sunset is just before 9 o'clock tonight. I'm thinking that I should set a timer for sunset and when the sun has gone down, that could be a good time to write. The lists for the main crew I'm in are usually run around 11:30 or so at night. I could definitely get my writing done earlier in the evening. Other nights, I could write after the list if I'm skipping out on the racing that goes on until sunrise.
I'm just saying that I can find a way to make this a daily practice but I realize I'm going to need to be flexible on the time depending on what I have going on that day. But I must prioritize my writing. This is key to me letting my entire being know that I'm going to write. That I want to be a writer again. That I will be a writer. That I am.
4:53pm roomi (the Roomba vacuum) is starting to clean. That robot was life-changing when we got it. You get used to things quickly tho and take it for granted once you've had it for a bit but I still am amazed at what it does, at the difference it makes. We also have a wet mop (her name is BraVa) but she's a bit more finicky, saying her water levels are low when they're not. But again, quite a wonder.
5:06pm Thunderstorm warning was issued about a half hour ago for this evening. Signs of summer approaching.
I'm only a couple days back into the strict OMAD schedule of eating within a 1 hour window in the evening. Two days in a row is not long but it's a start. I've kept my food diary notebook consistently since last year in June. Soon, I'll be picking out a fresh notebook from my blank journal collection to continue this habit. It's been helpful. I've kept off about 30 pounds so far. It's interesting to see the patterns of fluctuations that happen and how certain things have an impact on me. I'm thinking that journaling will help out a lot in reducing stress. Not writing stresses me out in a way that I can't explain and it seems that writing calms my mind, even if slightly, and I imagine this will have an impact on how I let go of weight as well.
5:40pm I'm being asked some questions about my writing and also why I turned to gaming and I've replied but I think those sorts of things would be better answered in journal entries. Things I could delve into with more thought. For instance, like the question asked of me the other day about why I deleted the online journal I had for 20 years - how I took all the entries down. To be fair, I had made private or friends only the majority of the posts I had there for many years prior to finally taking it all down and archiving it into personal documents. A lot had happened and a lot had changed in those twenty years - both online, the internet itself - and of course, through the events of my life. By the time I had reached the final days of keeping that online journal, I knew it wasn't somewhere I could post to anymore when I didn't use it during the worst times, the times where I needed to write most. Not being able to articulate much of what I felt as the deaths happened was devastating. How could I not write about that? I withdrew into myself.
5:50pm I took a quick search into the document that covers 2016 to 2022 of posts from LiveJournal and I did, in fact, write about the deaths (the first ones I knew of) and so I did write, at times, about it, even though it feels so long ago. I feel like I didn't write enough though. Or whenever I did, it was too sporadic to feel like enough. Or maybe the impact of the deaths caught up to me to the point where I was overwhelmed? I don't know. Months of not writing feels like lifetimes. Maybe I shouldn't even be focusing on this because what does it matter now? I'm writing in this moment, here and now - can't that be enough?
6:28pm This isn't the type of writing I wanted to do. I really do prefer to write in the dark. I'll attempt this again after the sun goes down and see if I can get somewhere, go somewhere deeper with my words. 1000 words typed and it felt like a whole lot of nothing. But this is the fourth day in a row of writing which is at least the start of some consistency. I need to craft a writing routine for myself.
Someone is messaging me feeling sorry for me that I couldn't have children and while that is a subject matter I could write about another day (of course I have thought about that - especially since my Dad died and I had done ancestryDNA and to see all the people that happened before us for me to exist right now and to know that I'm where all those previous pairings end, the finality of it all) but what I really would rather focus on is the aspect of writing, art and other such things that people can create, give birth to and leave behind for future generations as legacy. Not that I expect any of my writing to achieve that but writing & books & poetry and such has been seen as a way of communication and a conversation, of engaging in dialogue with people gone before you and those who may be reading your words in the future. There are other ways of permeance - if such a thing actually exists.
Writing is my way of saying I was here.
In the act of writing, I say, I am here.
In you reading this, I exist.
First off, Amber, I'd like to say a big and heartfelt thank you for leaving that kind anniversary message on my blog. You're one of the few bloggers from the (g)olden age of the medium that has stayed online and true to their roots, so congratulations right back at ya!
ReplyDeleteSecondly, in regards to writing after daylight I can empathize. Maybe it's the fact that the darkness blocks out much of the outside the world that makes nights so amenable to the focus that writing demands. Possibly it's the knowledge that you can more-or-less depend on that focus being uninterrupted. It could also be that our minds slip into "night" mode and just a little closer to the creativity of the dream state.
Of course I'm just a big ole hypocrite now because these days I do most of my substantive work in the mornings. It's not a lack of desire, mind you, it's just that I can barely keep my eyes open most nights. Evening coffee has lost its magic.
Given these inconvenient facts I've given over to schedule-less living, at least when it comes to creative work. Paradoxically, this seems to have improved my productivity. I mean, if someone else sets a target and I agree to it then fine, I guess I'm working under the gun. But if I'm setting the schedule then I opt for no schedule.
Again I'm being a bit disingenuous here because when I work I do have a point A going to a point B (C and D as backups), but the length of time or route of travel are things that I'm better off not planning. Rarely do I end up at a point E but when in Rome!
That all being said, I dig your writing style. There's a polish and consistency to it that speaks to seasons of practice, so if being bound to daily routines is how you got here then kindly forget every ignorant word above.