The Snow Drift is Deep (…or something like that)

They say when you choose to write every day, even if only for a finite amount of time, that you will eventually hit a wall.

Well, it’s happening.

Looking back on the ten or so days that I’ve written so far, I see a number of things, not all of which I’m proud of, but I am mostly proud so far of the fact that I haven’t missed a day yet, and I am sitting down writing again tonight, despite the fact that a) I planned to do my writing in the morning, and b) I am staring at a mental wall of whiteness right now.

I see a decent bit of mimicry in my writing, and even as I was writing it, I knew somewhere in my deepest parts that I wasn’t writing my true voice.

I write “You Don’t Want Success” and “stop now to never succeed.”

Really? Everybody knows this stuff, really. Come on.

But I had to write it. I had to throw some virtual ink on that type of writing, at least for a few articles.

I had to write it in order to see it and realize what it was.

Glad that’s over.

They also say (if someone actually knows who “they” are, please help me out and send me a memo) that you don’t really find your voice until you’ve written at least 100 articles.

Definitely not even close to that yet.

Like any attempt to do something repeatedly, I am entering in a type of practice. Practice has the tendency to reveal flaws and invoke deep mental periods of self-examination and self-hatred, which may or may not be healthy for my mental state, but it definitely is healthy for getting better at things.

Right?

I hope so.

Tonight, I am speaking my mind.

And it does feel good. Rather than attempting to write something that will be “good” or “beneficial” I am simply writing for the cathartic pleasure of it.

Rather than writing something I hope will be noticed (even if I say I’m not writing to be noticed) I am writing to write.

When I was learning a new technique on the violin, my violin teacher would often tell me to “just play it out.” In other words, aim for the feeling you imagine when you are a master of it, and attempt to make the technique work while you do that.

It’s not a technique that he advised I try often, but it did help break some barriers down sometimes, in how I was thinking in my approach to a certain technique.

And that’s what this is. Me, just playing it out.

Scribbling a bit on paper.

Thank-you, and good night.