I spent the last 2-3 days watching videos of Charlotte Nicdao's work, and I wrote a lot of stuff that was mostly shit.
Last night I impulsively deleted the whole thing and decided I was done with blogging. And I also decided I didn't want to work on screenwriting either.
I didn't feel relieved about the situation. Instead I felt aimless and kind of worthless.
I was feeling pretty awful last night.
This morning I felt much less awful and much less married to the idea of going on a long writing hiatus.
I want to keep blogging, and I want to keep on with the screenwriting. But for now, I think I need to do it as a way to keep busy and a way to express myself and not as a way to make myself feel more...worthy. Because in order to feel worthy in terms of writing, I need to get lots of blog visits, win contests, make money, etc. And that stuff is out of my control.
I've been making screenwriting plans with things like, If I do well in a contest, I'll keep up with the screenwriting. If I do bad, I'll give it up.
But I'm going to try to change that attitude. I want instead to say, If I have a great idea, I will write a screenplay. If I have no ideas, I'll keep busy in other ways until maybe one day an idea will come to me.
Either way....to keep me screenwriting-busy in the meantime, I have two screenplays to revise.
As for blogging....
I don't know what I'll be writing and how often I'll be writing it. I just know it won't be biography posts.
What worries me is that not only was my recent endeavor a failure but that all my past biography posts were shit.
Well...everyone is going to have their own opinion about that.
Through my own eyes...depending on my mood....I range from being charmed and amused by my past self's quirkiness to being mortified about my past self's indulgent tangents.
Although my Charlotte Nicdao writing adventure was a mental health nightmare, it wasn't all bad. I watched some great stuff. I'm going to recommend my two favorites. Well...THREE if I'm including Mythic Quest.
I LOVE Mythic Quest!!! It's what made me adore Nicdao in the first place.
But also....
I loved this short film featuring Nicdao. It's called Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and deals with the subject of abusive directors.
And I watched the first episode of this brilliant series, Content, that takes place completely on an iPhone. Nicdao plays Lucy, a girl having a bad day, who decides to try doing a Facebook Live for the first time. She sings to her small audience while driving; gets distracted; crashes her car; then goes viral.
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| A picture I took this morning on my walk. (because I feel I need to have a photo for each blog post) |
I'm starting to realize that sometimes, the biggest obstacle to writing what I want to, is writing what I feel compelled I need to for some reason or another. Follow your passion, its more fun that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious. What do you most want to/like to write? Which type of blog posts are your favorite to write? If these questions are too personal, ignore.
DeleteI forgot. Are you writing anything else besides your blog? I guess I'm wondering with what you just said...if you are wanting to write something else, but your blog is taking too much time, and you're not finding time to write the something else you're wishing to write.
Or am I reading too much into things?
Nope, just write the blog. Being a full time engineer really cuts into my writing time, but its easier to pay the bills with the job/ hobby layout in this direction.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started blogging I had been writing and emailing stuff to friends and family for a long time already so I had enough old stories songs and reviews to easily keep up the two posts a week. It took a while to figure out to break up long ones over several posts, so I ran out of old stuff (thought I still stumble upon one here and there) sooner that I expected.
I try to keep Mondays as series (vacation stories, Up the Lake, old college tales, the Godzilla litany, etc stuff I can run with and build running gags) and Thursday as single ones. Sometimes where there's new superhero shows or movies or something I feel like my friends and family want to know my opinion and I want to write it close to the release, even if I have other things in my head that I want to work on. The reviews are ok, but I'd rather be working on something more inherently funny...if that makes sense.
I'm envious that your friends and family are interested in your writing. But I feel a little bad saying that, since it seems to put some stress/expectation on you.
DeleteMostly, though, I'm glad they are reading. If anything, I'm frustrated that you don't have a bigger audience. Your writing should be much more widely known and appreciated than it is. I was thinking the other day that you'd be great as a guest on the Imagineering Podcast.
As for the Monday and Thursday thing....I did start to notice that one day had the trip reports and then the other day had other types of posts. Well...just noticed that when you were posting trip reports...they would appear every other post.
Thank you, that means a lot.
DeleteIt's definitely a "first world problem" kind of stress, and forcing myself to write no matter what tends to open up my brain and make me more productive in work. The reason for the split is if I put the long series in both posts, then something happens that I feel compelled to write about in a timely fashion (like the Magic Garden thing) I can't. Looking forward to your new posts. If "Retrospective Introspection" is a thing, you excel at it.