1: Once Again
I’ve been here before, but I’ve never been exactly here before. I’ve started this concept of writing daily a few times in the past. It’s never stuck for too long. Part of that is because I already write professionally on a daily basis, so it’s sometimes difficult to put down one metaphorical pen and pick up another. The rest tends to be a perceived lack of “efficiency”: it’s hard to get my mind to see the practice as useful when no one is technically reading it.
I think my day-to-day writing is workmanlike at best; I tend to excel at explaining something to an audience in exhaustive detail. I’ve always envied the layered prose of my colleagues and friends. I look at say, Cassandra Khaw’s books Hammers on Bone and A Song for Quiet, and I’m blown away at how she composes sentences. Or there’s Nadia Oxford’s work over at USgamer, which is heavy with humor and a wry look at the world.
I feel like I have no voice in contrast, and it’s something that’s always bothered me. I tend to dive into these daily writing projects every couple of years in an attempt to find that voice. Yes, I write things every day already and that should help, but alas, here we are.
But we’ve never been here before. This weird, frightening moment in American history. Where news organizations are throwing around September 11th’s death toll as a benchmark for the potential deaths the United States could see daily. Where businesses are shuttered, and many won’t return due to financial ruin. We haven’t had anything like this since the 1918 flu pandemic, and most of the folks who lived through that time are dead. For many of us, this is all new.
While many are grappling with general anxiety or more specific worries about themselves and their loved ones, I’m… doing okay. I remain gainfully employed for the moment, and I already worked from home, so there’s been no shift on that end. I didn’t go anywhere on a daily basis before now, so not being able to do so now isn’t a negative.
Instead, the pandemic has caused me to look at all those who are losing their jobs or lives… and wonder, “what the hell I’m doing with my life?” (Is that selfish? I have no clue.) And that’s started me on at least a general drive to improve upon myself a bit.
So, that’s led me to mess around with video editing a lot more than I have in the past. (Again, I’m lucky. My job offers up the entire Adobe Creative Suite.) But that’s also led me back here, to another daily writing project. Will this stick? I honestly have no clue.
As the name suggests, the benchmark is 500 words a day. Given my professional life, 500 words is actually pretty easy to hit. I cruised past 400 words without even stopping to check. But the impetus here is giving me a chance to be a bit more freeform and less professional. The benchmark should also prevent me from going on too long on a topic as well.
500 Words of Nonsense is where I should be making time each and every day. And if I write something longer and more meaningful about media over at my other publication, Into the Discourse, then I’ll put a placeholder up here in 500 Words linking to that article. The hope is I get into a rhythm and perhaps find out something useful about my own personal writing style.
Here’s hoping it works.
