Jul
31
in this beautiful state, whatever it is
Filed Under musings, the author | 4 Comments
i started writing something entirely different, but i scrapped it.
i tend to do a lot of live revisioning when i’m working on something - if i perceive that something isn’t good enough, or that i sound like a jackass, or that it’s just not working, out it goes. i had major problems with that during school - papers would be scrapped 15 pages in, pulled for lack of interest. design projects were hard as hell - i could never do the preliminary sketches that everyone always asked me for. i understood their place as part of the project structure, i understood that they were good for planning things out - but it didn’t make them any easier. when something clicked, and i saw it in my head, i just went and did it, and that was usually my preliminary, any interim, and the final all in one.
writing is especially hard for me now. i started my first online journal back in 1997, when you had to hand code everything by yourself, and your content management system was copy, paste, and change the links. everything else i did, though, was a stream of consciousness that came out and was left as it was - no one i knew (save one person, who taught me how to code, hi jen) had the internet, and i was on a rampage. nothing was out of my crosshairs, not my family, my friends, or my job. but back then, it didn’t really matter - google was a very far off thing, things just didn’t work that way.
now, everyone knows everything. google is ubiquitous, and the best of us can’t admit that they’ve never searched for themselves in the nebulous streams of the web. it’s changed the way i write - i try not to associate myself with this site too much. i don’t want my job to find it. i guess i also have more at risk now - i have a career, such as it is, bills to pay, my student loans are finally in a 4 digit range. the cats have to eat. i actually care about people getting hurt because of me and the things i write, which, in the hubris of my youth, i didn’t.
will i continue this after tonight, now that the challenge is over and the other has, in all fairness, won? i haven’t really decided yet. i would like to do some kind of designing, if i do. how much navelgazing does one really need without the help of a qualified professional?
eh, maybe i’ll just cook something. ha.
we’ll see. you will, however, i’m decidedly sure, be glad to know that i did finally get my donut.