Dissed and Dismissed

After I got the clothes going at the laundromat and took care of our library needs, I spent about an hour going through my Bullet Journal and entering stuff for the next six-ish months. I have a completely open schedule and a pretty light working schedule, so the direction that everything takes will be up to me. I think that the last time I even approached this was when I moved back to Toronto in September 2015 and the only thing I had to do was finish my thesis.

While I was entering dates in my bullet journal and drawing lines and organizing the way the dates would look, I found myself a little light on actual content. I can add "10 push ups and 20 sit-ups" or "750 words" to every day, but I had to think hard about what I am going to focus my energy on right now. That particular part of my brain needs to be working overtime. I need to come up with a new writing project each week. I need to make moves on completing those projects right away. I have the opportunity to make significant strides as a writer, and I believe that accomplishing that goal lies in working hard on my craft and doing as much as I can.

Once I get going, other gears will turn and I can hopefully start to come up with better story ideas. I think that I've gotten to the bottom of the well in terms of turning some of my more interesting memories into story and I think that most people don't care about reading thinly-veiled anecdotes from my mind anymore. This will be an important leap for me to take. You have already been able to turn your ideas into things that are readable, but next you need to start crafting actual stories.

I think that it was helpful to do all this planning today while listening to the return of Sportsfeld. The podcast came back after a huge hiatus and I was a little hesitant about how it would be. It wound up being great, emphasizing my favourite parts of the show, while diminishing the parts that weren't as great in hindsight. Hearing the guests discuss aging and figuring themselves out while I was doing just that was pretty serendipitous.

So far, I have three major projects to work on for February, which is okay for now. As much as I think it's important to work on my fiction writing, so that I can one day work towards a book, I think it will be refreshing to get some things about music and baseball up on the site and keep those skills sharp. Fiction is the big skill I need to develop, but it's also important to remember that what I'm currently best at is sports and culture stuff. Even though I might think fiction is this beast I need to tame, people are more interested in reading my other stuff and that's important. It's not that I should cave to what the audience wants, versus what I want, but that it's a way to keep readers engaged with the work that I am producing.

I feel a little lost. I know that I'm doing okay in the grand scheme of things, but the anxiety that comes with the feeling of "not doing enough" is gradually gaining strength in my stomach. Whenever I describe that feeling to Rebecca, she asks if it ever goes away and if me doing things actually helps. In short they do. The feeling never really does go away, but accomplishing things, putting them out and being halfway happy with them does more to make them subside than anything else. That's what I've found in my life so far.

I recently finished a bunch of stuff. Now it's time to get back on the horse and start the cycle again.