Every few months, I pull out an old document on my computer entitled “Project Phoenix” and set to work. Every few years, I sit down and draft a new letter or a new blog post entailing the difficulty I have with writing a blog and lamenting the lack of subject matter for me to write about. Tonight, exhausted from work and seeking something new, something different to write about as I scramble to put together three-thousand words, I merge the two into some form of chimeric bastard child in hopes of finding and bleeding content to throw up onto my blog.
No one reads my blog, and it would easy to say that no one ever will. Easier still would be for me to not care, to ignore it and forget it as a passing fancy. Sometimes, when I am feeling small or inadequate, I tell myself that this simply isn’t a type of writing that I excel at and know deep down that the real problem is how self-conscious I am. After all, even if no one is reading it, that should have little to no bearing on my writing it. In point of fact, I would argue that a lack of an audience frees me from the trappings of success, where I must emulate or replicate my own art ad nauseum for fear of alienating a crowd which, for me at least, simply isn’t manifest.
To this end, then, I will make a
few things clear. I still do not know
what shape I want this blog to take. I
have ideas, but I always have ideas.
Taking those ideas and turning them into actionable plans, however,
seems like the tallest order which anyone could make of me. So, to that point, I had ideas, but those ideas
are still being refined.
I do know that whatever this will
be, whatever shape it will take, it will not find that shape until I fashion
it. In the same way that marble is only
marble until sculpted, this blog is simply a space, an unused canvas, until I splash
it with my words like paint and find what picture they both create. That is what this space is and has always
been. It is a place for me to create,
and a space for me to share my creations with the world.
This is exactly why it is so
important for me to keep the imagery of a phoenix alive. In a world where constant recreation of
yourself is a must, I like the image of me burning and then rising again from
my own ashes, carrying with me the history, the failures, and the successes,
but hauling them into new experiences, no opportunity. I am still me, hatched from the same egg, but
I am a newer, older version of me, wizened by time and learned through
experience.
As the year draws closed and I participate
in NaNoWriMo this year, I find myself
having to yet again reinvent myself. This
time, however, the reinvention might stick.
While I am working again in a job which I have little passion for, my
passions are near and dear to me still.
I am writing now to regain the writing which I had lost, as the last few
months have not been particularly productive or successful by my own metrics.
All of that to say: I haven’t been
writing as much lately.
Over the last five days, however, I
have gotten down nearly 20,000 words. This
remains a long way from my intended goal—100,000 words before the end of the month. Still, it is progress. More importantly, it provides a proof of
concept that, while life sometimes gets in the way, it is entirely feasible to
keep a consistent and practiced writing schedule while still having a family
with children.
I estimate that most days will see
me average somewhere between nine-hundred to a twelve-hundred words a day if I
keep to the schedule I have. Other
revisions put into my schedule are offering more not only more flexibility but
also keeping me focused on the task at hand.
This means that I will complete more and work toward goals while also
allowing myself time to relax and purge myself.
Often, I hear adults lamenting adulthood and find that silly. Adulthood is nearly good nor bad, but the language
which we used to define it by often alters our perception of it. The reality is
that things simply are, whether we like them or not,.
So, there it is, my declaration, my
decree. This post, then is the very
first plumage found as we edged our way out of the flame and the ash and look
up to so see the bright, new world.
(Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 17,612 words)
