Staying Busy
Yeah, find your community they said. Here’s another run-on rant about my journey towards becoming a writer.
Pizza and a beer and a moment to catch my breath. There’s not much better.
Yeah. I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks. Not by choice. By circumstance. Honestly? Okay, mostly by choice. I mean, nobody’s holding a gun to my head and forcing me to do anything.
Everything I complain about is self-inflicted.
So, all good, I suppose. Not exactly what I signed up for, but again, all good.
After attending my Saturday morning writing meetup group, The Cleverly Named Writers Group, at the Redondo Beach Main Library, I then attended a lecture by writer Nicholas Tana at the monthly Southwestern Manuscripters meeting.
I was actually thankful I’d gotten the date wrong for the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles lecture (next week, thank goodness).
In the past week I managed to make it to the WICK’D (Writers in Culver Kickin’ it with Drinks) meeting and I was lucky to have had my Monday off from the drive to the Robertson Library Writers Group (closed for the holiday—wait, what holiday?).
I don’t even know. Probably don’t care.
I’ve already talked about the drive down to the San Diego Writers Festival and I’m patting myself on the back for hitting my modest word count every day this week and hitting my deadlines for my two Substack publications, this one and Everything Happens to Lou!, every week since the beginning of the year.
Yeah, I’m going to celebrate every success, no matter how large or small.
I think the point I’m trying to make is that I’ve been busy and busy means that it’s easy to lose focus and gosh, if I lose focus, I might start to wonder, why am I doing this again?
That question has come up a lot lately. I have multiple answers and most (emphasis on MOST) of those answers make sense. Right now, I don’t have an answer. Right now, I’m reflecting on the question and trying to visualize what becoming a successful writer is going to look like for me.
For me. Just me.
I’ve heard a lot in recent weeks about success killing creativity and how creativity shouldn’t be motivated by success, and it seems kind of contradictory, but if I squint and concentrate really hard, it does make some sort of sense to me.
I’ve wanted to be a good writer, and I want (not necessarily need) some sort of small token of validation of that.
Even with the busy weeks I’ve had recently, I managed to give that some thought and I’m thinking, I don’t want to think about any of that just yet.
I want to just keep putting the words together and making them feel right and if they make me smile or laugh, even better.
I want to be good at this and even though it has become a little worn from being the same advice I keep hearing from every writer up and down the ladder of success…
If you want to be a good writer, keep writing. That’s the only way to get better.
Everything else might seem important, but those things are only important until they become a distraction.
I know what I have to do.
Happy Easter Bryan the Writer Man Frank!