Day 113: Dailies

Eeugh. Daily blogging is stressing me out. I'm trying to write full articles and there's never enough time, I keep staying up struggling to get the post to some kind of a finished state, and then it's 3am, and all I've got is a jangled mess, and I have to put that up and it never feels good enough, it's always disappointing, and I go to bed feeling down, and then I'm exhausted the next day, and it all begins again.

But I guess this is the point. I should stop worrying about creating perfect little gems to reflect me in the best light - silly ego stuff - and focus instead on simply doing the work. Every rambling, unsuccessful draft is another day's practice. Every paragraph that fails to make a comprehensive point, every pat or cliched phrase, every crutch word that I fall back on a little too often ("ostensibly"  - I'm always saying things are "ostensibly" this and "ostensibly" that. And "trope" - everything is a trope at the moment) - this is all part of the training. It's all part of seriously forcing myself to become a writer, someone who writes regularly. Being aware that something isn't working is the first step to getting it working, after all.

And if I run out of time each night and have to repeatedly show the world (well, all fifteen of you) my workings, the cramped and messy space behind my curtain -  well, that's probably very good for me.

I can only write as well as I can actually write. I could keep the truth hidden and polish up my work until it makes me look better than I am, put up blog posts once a week, but what's the point? I'm learning more like this, and the ego stuff would be a lie. Might as well accept that I am who I am. Might as well just put up what is imperfect and move on.

As long as I do move on. As long as I keep writing. That's integral. Maybe if I can't write the way I want to write in a year, if I've not made any progress and it's getting me down, then I'll give myself the option to give it all up as a pipe dream. Or let's say five years. Or, no, ten.

Despite the daily stress and frustration, I'm having far too much fun at the moment to even consider stopping.