Why not write without explaining why I haven't been?
I spoke to the manager within and she told me to write a Substack
Why not write without explaining why I haven’t been?
Why not write without explaining why I didn’t? Without explaining how I feel that everything I put online must be perfect, ideal, flawless, publish-able?
That the online version of myself must never write in a draft form because it could one day be used against me or people might think I am weird and unpolished?
Why not write without worrying about what anyone else thinks?
Why not write without fretting over tone or trail of logic?
Why not just write? “Just sit down at the page and bleed,” our old friend, bro-of-literature Hemingway once wrote
Well, actually… Ok. To be honest, I have been writing. I mean bleeding. 7 journals in 7 months. I haven’t read back through them because it’s probably going to be quite painful and also quite boring when I do
when I actually do, that is — the day I am ready to write my novel…………
Why not write my novel without reading back? Why not write my novel on a whim. Just like, sit down and uh, let the words, like, fall out onto the page. Just let the words flow, dude, flow
Why not write because I want to? Because at a random moment in my day I think, that would make a great short-form essay haha
Why not write like who I am
not who I am supposed to be or the voice I want to have why not write with the voice I already have and believe it believe in the voice I already have
Why not write the world I long to live in?
Write up write down write around write through, that’s what I already do but I keep it all to myself I keep it to the paper pages and don’t publish it online because I’m too scared —
Oh, sorry? What you did say? You’ve missed me? You… you… you… noticed…? I hadn’t written here? In over a year? Wow *emoji with welling up teary eyes*
Oh, just kidding you didn’t. That’s ok actually. I’m past it actually. I’m transforming my life bro, born again bro. I’m over the external validation. Hell yeah bro, you heard that right. Done. No need for it. Ever again. Needing for my entire existence to be validated online by acquaintances I haven’t seen since 2014 is so 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 me last week. It’s 2024 now I’m going to write in a non-draft online and publish it on a whim. I’m not going to filter myself through beautiful prose unless I want to (it’s a choice, I promise I am a great writer really I am please right I am a good writer tell me I am a good writer oh wait haha oops)
Did you see what I did there? Expect the unexpected, baby
*tilts sunglasses*
*winks*
*blows a kiss*
Maybe I’m a different person now, maybe everything has changed but the buttons are still buttons and splendor is still splendor, and I still have a 30 essays in a draft folder (in a little file cabinet inside of my brain) that are whining at me mommmmy mommmmy MOMMMMYYYYY please just write us already *sad face emoji* and I reply there there my sweethearts mommy is writing now and pat them each one on the head and they gulp down their tears and smile up at me hopefully while I look into the sky and pray for an ounce of will to bring myself to open Substack out of shame for not writing here for 13 months (a certain somebody’s lucky number) and oh no my life is ruined because I didn’t do what I said what I told myself I would do which is write on this newsletter every single week
It’s like our old friend St. Paul says “why do I do what I don’t want to do and I don’t do what I want to do”. Paul, my Brother in Christ — relatable
*makes the sign of the holy cross*
*thinks to self how I’ve done so much performance improvisation over the last 13 months that everything I do even writing static words on a page have to have some sort of movement choreography to it lol*
*presses publish*
