-{ redgeek.net }-

Recently I went back and re-read Shinsei Blossom, a novella I wrote post-breakup with A——. Conclusion: I suck as a writer. At least in extended forms (despite the fact it’s a series of vignettes similar to a blog.) I don’t have the experience, nor do I think I have the desire, to really improve on that particular skillset. Too low on the priority list. Granted, there’s some gems in there, at least for me, but overall, I’m resigned to the fact that writing the next “Great American Novel[la]” isn’t important enough to me, at this point, to sacrifice the time required from my martial arts, photography, and language studies.

I do realize exactly why I wrote it in the first place, and what it did for me. I scribbled all that junk down to expunge it from my system, to recover. Had I not done so, my recovery time would have been much longer as my emotions slowly dissolved instead of being released in a furious torrent. That’s is pretty standard stuff, everyone has their cathartic activities. That time, mine was writing, in a form and for a duration longer than I’d ever performed before.

The most important realization here, however, is not why I did it, but how I did it. I didn’t just bash about words for a few months before calling it quits; I completely engrossed myself. I taught myself about typesetting and improved my LaTeX skillset. I talked to print-on-demand presses and learned what things like like bound galleys refer too. I taught myself different editing strategies and diagrammed thematic elements. I read books like “The Elements of Style.” I met other authors, discussed strategies for brainstorming, plot development, and wetting a dry well. I attended literary readings and open night poetry nights.

The implication, which meshes with the Way That I Am (and like to be), is that even when absolutely destroyed, I cannot let myself wallow. When I fall in a hole, I don’t even know how to curl up and die, I only know how to scratch and claw my way back out and to an even greater height than before, at least after the shock wears off. I can’t let myself aid in the destruction; I’ve always got to be building and evolving and generating and learning. I’ve got to experience the new world that’s opening up, whether I like it or not, and I’ve got to do so richly. Even though I may not recognize it at the time, such an attitude is serving not just to help me recover, but to improve myself.

It’s just the way I operate.