Well, dang!

I shouldn't be surprised, and honestly I'm not. Not really. Writing a consistent-ish blog was always going to be a challenge. Doing anything consistently is near impossible. For me at least, and likely for many.

When I started this blog, my intention was for it to be a platform to keep myself on track. To keep me writing and ensure I was accountable for it. Well, that didn't happen. Mostly. I have kept writing, but it has been so intermittent and passionless that it might as well be considered non-existent. Like how 'running' to the toilet doesn't count as exercise.

Analysing this insanely long time away from the keyboard, and trying to identify the reason for stalling, I have come up with a couple reasons. Maybe you can relate, maybe you can't, maybe it actually was butter all along. I digress. Here's my take on why I feel like I suck.

Like most of you, I have been doing research. Not productive research like analysing the nuances of 15th century etiquette in London at 'break fast' time. No. I listened to, and read, and re-listened to, endless podcasts and titbits of wisdoms from those who come before. The giants who I wish to emulate. And I froze. I stayed in this endless cycle of 'I've heard this, but what if I forget it? I better listen to it, again...for another hour.' I fell right into that hole of learning, the one where the wizened sage bestows upon me the object of which will solve all my writing woes, the Pen of nevermakingasinglemistake, which is so much mightier than the sword. My mistake; research doesn't equal writing.

Learning from others is effective, productive and crucial. If it weren't, I'd be out of a job. But there is a point where one must learn from the aforementioned and dreaded 'mistake.' This is why I fell and refused to get up as the ground was so comfortable. So safe. I didn't want to make that mistake. Still don't and likely never will. But I do know it is crucial. Have known it for a long time. Doesn't help though. I bet no one can relate either... In my line of work, I really should have known better. I am consistently telling those I work with that making mistakes is often the best way to learn. The people that listen to me have grown and learnt so phenomenally, surprising themselves, surpassing their expectations, that I should have seen that as further proof to do the same. Mistake number two; mistakes are bad.

And now, the overlap. The wise ones have said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that a story cannot be made of endless beginnings, at some point it has to end. Or maybe it can, I really don't know. I've never finished one longer than two thousand words. It makes sense though, right? And in going to write my first fifty-thousand-word-or-more gold mine, I told myself 'I'll be the exception and finish this story. And all the others, until the matrix shuts down and we realise it was all a dream.' I think this mentality hurt me. Now, like I said, what these actual, successful and professional writers are teaching is true wisdom. No doubt, it has lead many a writer to their own gilded halls of wealth and fame. But in my ignorance, I don't know how to fulfil that promise I made to myself.

Yet.

My next mistake (huh, that's progress); letting others' journeys define my own.

I need to just write. Then restart with fresh characters and old tired tropes. Keep writing. Then delete it all and start again.. Write it bad. The badder the goodder. Write it fast. And be okay with writing two hundred words in four hours. Write it on the fridge. And learn from my own mistakes.

Thanks for reading.

Matthew D. Masters.