Friday, May 01, 2009

Two Posts Every Week—Honest.


For the past few years, this blog has been little more than a repository for certain creative writings of mine—a place where my work comes to hang out and languish for months on end, occasionally read and possibly enjoyed by a family member, a friend or an online passerby.

And for the most part, I’ve been just fine with that. I’ve thought of the site as more of an electronic portfolio than a blog in any true sense, with posts being made every few months (one friend jokingly dubbed it “The Quarterly”) rather than weekly or daily, and the content a random smattering of satire, movie commentary, columns, poetry and fiction, completely unbound by genre or any sort of topical umbrella. It wasn't my original intention to be contrary, but I suppose this has become an anti-blog of sorts.

But despite what my negligence might suggest, I really like having a blog. It’s a home for all those short, motley pieces that are most likely too casually written, personally specific or strange to find vacancy elsewhere. It’s also an incentive to take on those projects in the first place, and to finish them once I’ve started. And of course the idea of having readers is nice, even if they do number in the single digits and in most cases occupy some branch of my family tree.

So, with all of this in mind, my wish for the near future is to turn this site from a wooden puppet blog into a real one (or something closer to a real one). In my very liberal estimation, this will mean posting at least two items a week, with maybe a short weekly feature thrown in for good measure. Now, I realize this isn’t the first time I’ve made a dubious promise on this blog about forthcoming content. But I stand by this goal even though I know that, like most amazing transformations, it’s going to require a bit of magic and the breaking of some bad habits.

While my writing on the whole is not bad, I am a bad writer. For every hour I spend actively writing, I spend at least five hours feeling guilty about not writing or worrying about the conditions which I’ve convinced myself are necessary for my writing to happen. Practically speaking, this is not a good ratio. I almost always have some project or other on my mind, but on most days have little to show for it. And since leaving grad school, the discipline and drive to write have been even harder to sustain. Inevitably, promising ideas lose their relevance or fall by the wayside.

Writers are often perfectionists, I think, and perfectionists are often procrastinators—they tend to put off their attempts to create something worthy of their own impossibly high standards. It’s easier and, in a way, more satisfying to simply ruminate on a project, to turn it around in one's head and imagine the finished piece in all of its shimmering, hypothetical glory. While we love the idea of writing and are heartened and fulfilled by what we produce, the writing itself is generally a slog. So people like me end up lying to themselves and putting things—tasks, distractions, emotions—in the way of their writing. Emails are sent, bathrooms are scrubbed, breaks and naps are taken, invaluable Google research is conducted, Word docs are closed or minimized, and our noses grow.

Admittedly, it’s sometimes hard to understand why I so expertly avoid doing what I most want to do. But I’m hopeful that this site, in the coming months, will serve as a real motivator to churn out more writing more often. I suppose it's possible, in the interest of meeting the new weekly quota, that the quality of what I post here may not measure up to what it’s been in the past. There will be less time to tweak and polish. So, to the small handful of readers who visit this blog now and again, if that happens to be the case, I apologize.

But then, this is cyberspace, where anyone can come and go, read or not read as they please. No strings attached.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Thank God, Dor. I've literally checked this thing daily for months, hoping for a post. I know I'm one of the aforementioned branches of the familial tree, but I really enjoy your writing for what it is. I'd read it anyway; you just happen to be my cousin. I hope the twice-weekly endeavour forces you to post things, even when they're not perfect or complete. Good writing never is, anyway.

Also, finish Black Lab. Or, at the very least, tell me the rest when we visit. And if there is no ending yet, you have two months to make something up and I will be none the wiser.

Lots of love. And anxious waiting.

3:04 PM  
Blogger Isolato said...

Thanks Bren -- I really appreciate that, and sorry to leave you hanging for an eternity between posts. Hopefully this new format will put the requisite fire under my butt and keep my "internal editor" bound and gagged for a while (what a jerk he is!).

And I'll see what I can do about Black Lab -- I've had the plot worked out for a long time, just need to get it down on paper (or a pixelated screen, as it were).

7:47 PM  
Blogger Tasha said...

Even your promises to write and your apologies for writer's failure is incredibly well-written, entertaining, and poetic. I always feel like a preschooler with a speech impediment after I read your posts, even your Facebook updates or comments!

I especially like this part: "Emails are sent, bathrooms are scrubbed, breaks and naps are taken, invaluable Google research is conducted, Word docs are closed or minimized, and our noses grow."

Admittedly, I'm commenting right now to avoid writing my Star Trek review.

In business, I've learned the lesson that procrastination is the death of all dreams in a new way. All the people you ever see whom you admire and whose lives you wish, in some way, to live, act more than think about acting. Sometimes they fail. As Michael Jordan said, he's so successful because he failed so many times. But the point is, to fail he had to act. And to succeed, he had to fail.

Anyway...I know you know all of these things, and that Procrastination and Perfectionism are wicked beasts. I too hope your new promise kicks their butts and finally sees you on the path of action.

Lots of love too, and anxious awaiting.

11:38 AM  
Blogger katrinka said...

Demon, you're a good writer. I bet you're going to be like the Michael Douglas character in Wonder Boys: write a magical novel then nothing else while leading a life full of wanton dissipation and gay sex.
And I mean that with love :)

12:01 PM  
Blogger Isolato said...

What sweet friends I have -- even if they have consigned me to a life of debauchery (Katie). I think it's actually the characters Terry Crabtree and James Lear (Robert Downey Jr. & Tobey Maguire in the film) who swing both ways in Wonder Boys, but I get your drift.

Anyway, thanks so much for the thoughtful comments and support of the doubtful enterprise that is my writing. Unfortunately, I'm already falling behind in my promise, but then, I never said which week would be the first. ;)

As Woody Allen might say, I lurve you guys too.

10:47 AM  

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