I’m going to be relatively busy this weekend. This poses a challenge for the blog, because I run things on the knife’s edge: day by day, generally in the evenings. I figured “oh I’ll just rattle together a few quick posts to prepare”.
Then I stopped myself. What a stupid idea.
It’s not stupid because it would be a poor outcome, it’s stupid because that’s simply not how it works.
The hard truth to face is that not all tasks can be forced through from start to finish. It’s not like building an Ikea bed. You can’t just follow the steps and put in the effort, going through the motions until it’s done. Especially for me, writing is a process which requires me to be flexible: to let the process run through me, rather than me running through it.
There are likely people for which this is not the case. People who could go from introduction; to body; to conclusion, as if reading a manual and following the instructions prescriptively. I’d like to meet someone like that so I could express my jealousy. Applying words to a page isn’t so easy for me.
Perhaps this is why writing is such an interesting concept to me. It’s a thing to learn, but also a thing to respect. If I read something which was well-written from someone else. I can know that – in all likelihood – the author had to really give it everything they’ve got, and that they’ve probably done this many times before.
I’m curious how my relationship with writing will progress with time and experience. I sometimes think of a quote from art critic Jerry Saltz regarding the artist Jackson Pollock:
When Pollock finished his first drip painting, he asked his wife: “Is this a painting?”
He made something that may not even fit in the very large category we call art.
He didn't know.
The interesting thing about Pollock is he only “dripped” for about forty-eight months.
I would ask any artist, any skeptic, any cynic – if you had invented fire, which Pollock did, are you strong enough to stop making fire and go back to hell? Forty-eight months later, go back to hell and try to make something new again?
How many people have done that?
It feels wrong to compare my blog with the works of Jackson Pollock, but my point is: how will it feel to write something which really is exceptional? Will it invigorate my writing, expanding the known extent of what I’m capable of, or will it demotivate me, as I’ll want to sustain this level of ability.
Who knows. For now, I’m at the start of a path and I want to get nearer to the end: the only thing I can do is keep moving.