Daily Update

God knows I try...

There was a comedian (Paula Poundstone?) several years ago who was saying she wished she had some horrible disease. That way, she reasoned, she could still get up around noon and instead of receiving disdain everyone would be impressed by the effort she made. I sometimes think of that, and also wonder a lot if my own efforts are as challenging as I make them out to be.

The thing is, I've never (of course) been in anyone else's head. I don't know how anyone else sees the world, what conflicts they see, or if they view the things they overcome as personal triumphs or just shrug them off as being routine. I guess, in short, I'm not sure how much of a drama queen I am.

It's occurred to me many times in my life how different I see my case. When talking with friends, when sharing troubles, it's always for me to see how to solve their dilemnas. "Just do X" I think, or say if asked. When looking at my own problems I refuse to accept those simple answers, the ones having to do with actions, and instead focus on the underlying mental reasons why I can't or shouldn't do the obvious, normal steps to solve the problem.

Since all I see is eveyone else's exteriors, they can succeed and be happy by doing observable steps. Since I know oh so much more about my problems, I refuse to try to solve them by doing the things anyone could see, and I know that's exactly what I should be doing.

Take writing, for instance. Nobody cares what I'm thinking or planning or wrestling with. None of those fights produce anything, make any difference to the world. What's wanted, or expected, by others is "how many pages or words did you do today?" The world little cares how the pages or actions are taken, the results are what matters.

It's like the saying I never heard until late in life, and was amazed by its simplicity: You don't have to like it, you just have to do it. I halt on the liking it, the internal part, but no one cares about that. I'm the only one impressed by my efforts, the only one who feels they're somehow noble or special.

Speaking of "writing," there's more in the More section...


The Reader's Emporium is at the same time as interesting as I remember and not as well written as I'd thought. Going over it now, a couple years after its last re-write, has been quite the learning experience. For some reason I'm not doing what I should be doing, just starting from scratch and doing the whole damn thing all over again, but I am doing a complete re-typing.

I think that's a neither fish nor fowl solution.

The condensing and tightening isn't as drastic now as it was in parts of the second chapter, but I'm finding the descriptive passages I once felt so necessary to be boring and not worthy of keeping. They were, in many cases, my darlings, my snide commentaries on the world, but now they bore me. I wonder if anyone would miss them, would feel the work was better with them.

As I've said, I'm now more concerned with the whole "showing and telling" thing. I'm still not comfortable with my understanding of the subject. I can sometimes see telling in the works of others, and less frequently in mine, so it's a vague target. As mentioned, I don't have many tools with which to fix it, even when I do see it, and I'm frequently stuck trying to find a new way to demonstrate nervousness, for instance.

Dammit. I want to write well. I don't have much time to get good at it. I'm never satisfied with anything I've done, and I only want to be able to put on paper the things in my head.