Repeating myself, fixity, process, recovery
I'm glad I read the last post before I wrote this one, as it's almost entirely the same as this was going to be, but with some crucial differences. On the upside, it means I can skip the recap of my recent history, if you do wish to find out why this blog is so infrequent, feel free to scroll down. On the downside, I lose the pleasurable guilt of trotting out the mea culpas yet again. Ah that public scourging of the self, there's nothing quite like it to put a spring in the step of the senescent poet, so bracing. So, to the differences:
What with existence seemingly being an almost permanent state of review and revision, I'm less inclined to cast a kindly eye on my lack of output over the last few years. Plus I have become painfully aware of how much time I waste looking at Twitter, this being the case, the old "no time" canard deserves to be mounted on the wall along with the other ossified excuses. Going further, I'm less inclined to cut myself any slack for the business years, yes, it was all-consuming, but if I'd wanted to, really wanted to, I could have made more time. Plus it's something of a misnomer, I was more active in those years than I am now. Maybe you get better at being your own critic as you get older, maybe you just become more intolerant. Either way, I'm less inclined to indulge my shortcomings than I was before.
So, what with excuses not really cutting it any more there's not a lot of space to hide, I've not been anywhere near as productive as I'd like the last few years. A slow worker at the best of times, I've become a nullity, an absence of work (but not an absence of desire, it just seemed impossible to connect the desire with action, as if I simply couldn't see how).
This has been particularly frustrating as this blog's parent and sibling Coastalblog and Ormskirk Short Stories have had varying degrees of renaissance. As such excuses about lack of time ring even less true.
To cut a short story even shorter, what all this essentially means is that it's long past time that I started thinking more about poetry, and that I am painfully aware that this is a place I've been before a few times, or at least a thing I've said a few times. But, like the penitent drunk, I swear I've changed. And if I do it loudly enough I may start to believe it myself. So, as of now, this space is open for business again.
The theory, which is one I've honed to a razor's edge over years of elite-level procrastination, is that unless I actually build a structure, or schedule, I never actually get anything done. To commit myself to reviving this neglected outpost of the internet is to reconnect to the writing which got me into the whole thing in the first place. I know it's a truism, but truism are truisms for a reason, it won't happen if you don't do it, and this is a way of doing it. So here we jolly well are.
What with existence seemingly being an almost permanent state of review and revision, I'm less inclined to cast a kindly eye on my lack of output over the last few years. Plus I have become painfully aware of how much time I waste looking at Twitter, this being the case, the old "no time" canard deserves to be mounted on the wall along with the other ossified excuses. Going further, I'm less inclined to cut myself any slack for the business years, yes, it was all-consuming, but if I'd wanted to, really wanted to, I could have made more time. Plus it's something of a misnomer, I was more active in those years than I am now. Maybe you get better at being your own critic as you get older, maybe you just become more intolerant. Either way, I'm less inclined to indulge my shortcomings than I was before.
So, what with excuses not really cutting it any more there's not a lot of space to hide, I've not been anywhere near as productive as I'd like the last few years. A slow worker at the best of times, I've become a nullity, an absence of work (but not an absence of desire, it just seemed impossible to connect the desire with action, as if I simply couldn't see how).
This has been particularly frustrating as this blog's parent and sibling Coastalblog and Ormskirk Short Stories have had varying degrees of renaissance. As such excuses about lack of time ring even less true.
To cut a short story even shorter, what all this essentially means is that it's long past time that I started thinking more about poetry, and that I am painfully aware that this is a place I've been before a few times, or at least a thing I've said a few times. But, like the penitent drunk, I swear I've changed. And if I do it loudly enough I may start to believe it myself. So, as of now, this space is open for business again.
The theory, which is one I've honed to a razor's edge over years of elite-level procrastination, is that unless I actually build a structure, or schedule, I never actually get anything done. To commit myself to reviving this neglected outpost of the internet is to reconnect to the writing which got me into the whole thing in the first place. I know it's a truism, but truism are truisms for a reason, it won't happen if you don't do it, and this is a way of doing it. So here we jolly well are.
posted by Matt | 4:35 AM
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