(Reposted from DeviantArt)
I don’t even know why DA includes a “Featured” option for journal posts. Clicking that off just drives the post into obscurity, and it’s not like anyone, anywhere, at all, has ever drilled into someone’s profile to uncover any hidden journal entries. Journals are basically tolerated noise for the most part. And I don’t even know if my entries are that tolerated.
It’s a rainy fucking Saturday. I’ve spent the entire morning cleaning the apartment: washing all the dishes, scrubbing out the stove, wiping down the bathroom (I gave it a deep clean last week), replacing the catch-carpet beneath the catbox, taking out all the trash and recycling and compost. I listened to several podcasts all the while, learning about the division between Greenpeace’s original founders, what to do if you’re a young worker promoted to a management position over older, resentful coworkers, how American Heritage and Merriam-Webster dictionaries aren’t all that different, and whether or not Killmonger is “good for the Blacks.” Now it’s almost 3pm, my wife has taken off for an all-day concert series, and I have Time To Myself.
I should write. I should work on the aggravating Gentle/Domination short story that I wanted to post for sale on Smashwords, but now I think would make a great offering to have printed and bound and up for sale at SizeCon. The thing is, I’ve been fighting this obtuse goddamned story for at least five years. I commissioned the cover from a local artist based on a rough story idea, and then it turned out the story was shit and needed revision, and it’s been GOTO 20 ever since. Except now my wife, the English teacher, has sat down with me and critically analyzed the components of the story, come up with pertinent revisions and alterations, and now it’s an actual story with interesting characters and a meaningful plot.
All I have to do is sit down and write it. “Okay, we’ve got all the words: all that’s left is to put them in order.”
That’s what I should be doing now, instead of meta-angsting in a journal most of my *ahem* “followers” will delete sight-unseen, listening to a sequence of obscure trance/downtempo from several years ago, savoring a cool breeze from the window onto my right arm. And I will. I’m going to get another beer or maybe pull out a cocktail manual and cobble together and almost-close recipe, then triple it, and force myself to choke out the 17th revision to this argumentative-ass story.
There are other projects I could do. Two of my patrons have dropped out, so I’m off the hook for that, but I could write up the next few weeks of my two Patreon series to reduce the pressure on that front. Or I could look up some of my old, neglected size-fantasy series, pore over my notes on these, and hammer out a passable installment in one or two of these. Or I could fuck off and go with any of my latest unexplored ideas in any of my GTS/SM notebooks, some standalone to scratch an itch but which contributes to nothing in a world-building sense. Last year I pasted together a book of five short stories to sell at SizeCon, and that was fun, but I don’t think I should coast on that twice.
And if I don’t write, there’s plenty of artwork I should be practicing. I got two Body-kun models on sale and they’ve been collecting dust (as I’m sure my wife has noticed). I could reinstall Audacity and record some audiobooks, using the new pop-screen that’s been resting in pristine condition in its box all these months. I’ve had such ambitious ideas about the things I want to create, the worlds I want to expand upon, the perimeters of my own creative output I wanted to shove back, widen, or breach. I’m not even hung up on the shit state of the world, with our asshole idiot president and the absolutely shameless religious hypocrites and belligerent bigots who praise him despite facts and evidence and reality, hastening the end of a stable nation and a sustainable global environment. No, the point of no return happened several years ago, and today any action is as valid as any other: recycling your soda cans has exactly as much impact as writing pervy giantess erotica upon the end of the world, so why not follow your bliss when everything’s already over?
I just don’t have any energy. I have no motivation. I certainly have no happiness from anything I’m doing. I’m mechanically fulfilling the obligations I have constructed around me, but I could easily lie on the bed in silence and stare at the ceiling for a whole day, and I know that because I’ve done it a few times in recent past. It changed nothing, just as doing something else would have changed nothing. Going for a bike ride would change nothing, hand-writing a letter to a friend would change nothing, calling my representatives to complain about their spinelessness and lack of purpose would change nothing. I mean, they’re not out-and-out evil like Republicans or conservatives, but the Democrats are fucking directionless and don’t know what they stand for, outside of corporate interests. If they had power, they’d blow it just as I’m throwing away this Saturday afternoon to myself when I should be writing. Probably tomorrow, too.
Aborigen 
5 responses to “The Endless Press of Days”
Go for a walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
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Just so you know (and I think you do), my “liking” this blog entry only means I’ve read it, I hear you, and I understand. I thought I was going to enter this great new Undersquid Era now that I’ve started organizing my notes and working on my drawing. Instead I’m “rewarded” with the strongest writer’s block I’ve experienced in… since I stopped blogging all those years ago.
You’re not alone. I have zero advice. Except what Olo’s saying doesn’t sound half bad. Maybe a walk, maybe those drinks, maybe forcing your mind to focus on something new. I don’t know. I’ll just send you a hug and say a godless prayer for us.
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I can’t be a petulant little shit in my low moments. I’m grateful that there are people in my constellation that reach out when I get to mewling like this. You, Olo, Grildrig, AlsoKnownAsV, checking in, sharing experiences, offering support. I’m very, very lucky: there were long stretches when I angsted in silence with no one particularly interested. This is a form of progression.
What are we going to do, my friend, my partner? What are we going to do? Where did this block come from? Is there something we can do about it? Is it like waiting out an illness or like throwing a child into the deep end of a pool to teach them to swim? Is this merely a debridement to be scored away to usher in the next Era? Every time I want to lie down and let it wash over me, I think of you and your own struggle and how we met, and I want to try one more time.
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Yes, progression. It’s comforting on a few different levels to know we’re not alone in our writing misery, and that it will pass. I draw that comfort from the support I see directed at you, and from the support you give me.
In my case (and maybe yours too) this massive hurdle doesn’t come from just one thing, but from the flustercuck that is my life right now. Those home repairs that arrive in a lump, family disagreements, a dear relative’s poor health, insomnia, online bullshit, the loss of my cat, all those things that aren’t unbearably tragic, but their compound interest just caught up with me. My guess is that some other compound interest caught up with you, and here we are.
We will walk it off, of course.
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Sat out in the backyard to get some writing done (my neighborhood is preternaturally quiet). It was too damn nice not to have some chilled rosé, so it was my first time doing creative writing while less than sober (academic writing goes better with booze). Got three whole pages written, the tricky character-establishing dialogue bits, which is three more pages than in the previous two months. Feeling insufferably pleased with myself.
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