Not that I feel the U.S. is out of the woods, not a damn sight. But the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States makes me feel a little bit better.
WRITING PROGRESS
Longest Writing Chain This Week: 3 days, for 5 days this week and 16 days in January.
Yeah, okay, less days than last week but hear me out…
Thinking of all the times I've taken a night or ten off of writing over the past 4 years because something shitty happened in this country.
Tonight, I'm taking the night off because something GOOD happened. #amnotwriting
— Don Pizarro (@DonP) January 21, 2021
There were things to feel positive about last week, but I still find myself in one of my cyclical fallow periods — periods I used to call being “exhausted,” “burned out,” “blocked,” or “depressed.” It’s not that I haven’t been any or all of those things, but each time it’s a little different. I just never took the time to pause and look at what was happening each time before now. And when I unpack what’s going on internally this time, I encountered things I know I’ve encountered before, and reckoned with them with a lot less personal judgment and self-criticism. than usual.
One of the many things I’ve noticed is that it’s typical during these times for my notebook to fill up. Pages and pages at a time of ideas, plans, and other things I’d hastily dismiss in the past as “wasted time” because they weren’t in service of whatever project I was “supposed” to be working on at the moment. And when I play around with those things, when they become the potential beginnings of something I can use later, then guess what? That’s writing, and that’s how I got my 5 days this week, along with one or two peeks into the current WIP.
READING
I got a few pages into these three books that seem to be the “in things” in the writing world this week…
- Matthew Salesses, CRAFT IN THE REAL WORLD
- George Saunders, A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN
- POCKET WORKSHOP: ESSAYS ON LIVING AS A WRITER, ed. by Tod McCoy and M. Huw Evans, essays by instructors for the CLARION WEST WRITERS WORKSHOP.
I haven’t had the brainspace to go more than a few pages at a time, so I don’t have a coherent impression of each yet. I’m intrigued, and that’s good enough.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
I mean, I hope Walis Man gets rounded up too but let's not pretend his brown ass isn't going to sit in jail without organic food until his day in court… https://t.co/sZBQFGkmml
— Don Pizarro (@DonP) January 23, 2021
I just saw the other day about the woman who stole the laptop of the Speaker of the fucking House, planning to sell it to the Russians is out on bail, too. Not to mention the QAnon Shaman.
You know what, I can’t even…
IN THE WILD
…and neither can Mazikeen.
