Happy Friday Y’All

Well here it is May 2021 and I’m still not following my plan.
I probably have more excuses than there are stars in the sky (except I probably use the same ones over and over).

I have actually dropped a lot of them and have settled on “I’m just not in the mood.”

The reality is mood doesn’t matter. Writing matters.

So here I am standing on the edge of another cliff that I created. I dreamed up a new book.

The title is “100 Lousy Short Stories and Poems”. I based it on a number of books I’ve read lately that were published and available in my local library. I am not a “noted” literary critic but I am a reader; the stories sucked, some of them I couldn’t even finish. What that meant to me is that I can either write or write to achieve perfection.

I ain’t perfect so I will write; some of of it will be okay, some of it will suck, some of it will be good, some of it will connect to you (hopefully) and most of it you won’t read anyway.

Here’s the first lousy short story…

Bent and Gnarled Fingers

Early mornings and late days. At the end of the day someone would say “Let’s grab a drink.” I would usually go along. It was easier than going alone.

After a couple of hours we would head out. Some went home. Some went home to a family and supper. Some went out. Me, I went a bunch of different ways depending on my head space. Sometimes it was easy to go home and do the wife, kids, supper thing. Sometimes I had to go for a drink. Sometimes I had to go be alone.

It was hard on my wife and children. My wife and I fought about it but I couldn’t explain it. I needed some of those times to catch my breath and mend my soul.

Today as I look at my bent and gnarled fingers, I feel guilty. I took the easy way out and other people paid the price. I can’t blame them. Today my children hate me.

Being an electrician is hard work but emotionally rewarding when you see what you built or repaired. (As you age the work gets harder.) I liked it because it made me think. I hated it because at the end of the day I couldn’t think or write.

Today I encourage people to enter the trade… but don’t do it because it’s available, like I did, (I couldn’t afford to go to university or college and my marks sucked because I was too lazy to work in high school… boredom is killer for me).

Enter the trade because it is challenging, educational, deals with science, math and physics… electricity is fascinating. Look at buildings, cars, appliances, lighting, solar power and so much more. Man, I love the trade.

As I age I miss it.

I miss taking a set of plans and creating something from blue lines and notes.

I miss getting called out to fix a breakdown and solving the mystery of what happened and how to fix it.

But… I should have found a way to write.

I am older now and looking at my hands, my swollen and tight knuckles, my bent and gnarled finger, I cringe. My swollen, tight knuckles ache when I type too long. My bent and gnarled fingers make it hard to hit the keyboard at times.

Sitting alone, me and a glass of wine but when I write… feeling so satisfied even though no one will read it and it is crap. BUT I AM WRITING!

Category: self-discovery, writing | LEAVE A COMMENT

Lost and found…

It’s been a while since I posted anything.

Like the song says…”I was lost but now am found.”

I’ve done more writing than shows up here. I’ve written website content, an email marketing piece, built a bunch of websites, half written over a dozen poems, drilled away at a bunch of short stories and punched keys on the book I am writing.

The biggest thing I have been struggling with is the loss of motivation because I haven’t been out networking and building relationships.

A short while ago I discovered that as I became less and less busy I became less and less productive.

I realized I was lost…

but now I am found.

What does that mean?

It means I am writing again. I have written more in the last sixty days than I have in the four months before that.

In March after neck surgery I lost the use of my right arm. I have some use back but am still limited.

I have found different ways to do things that I was able to do without thinking.

I have learned to accept help when it was offered.

I have been humbled and then I turned that into self-humiliation felt worth less (yes two words because I didn’t feel worthless I felt that I was not as valuable or an asset).

I developed some very bad time wasting habits because I was so unlimited by time and had such a loss of self worth. Those bad habits took control and I would spend a great deal of time being non-productive.

But my creativity has never stopped. My mind still functions and when I use it it functions better. It takes a lot of stimulus and effort to break bad habits. I had to create the habit of creativity. I had to work a few minutes at a time to push away the time wasting habits and transform creative thoughts to production.

I was lost but now am found.

In other words I am back! I have a new attitude and a wonderful appreciation of writing.

I am going to keep develop the writing habit I had and make it a strong again.

Over the last few years I spent a great deal of time networking, building relationships, meeting people, trying to grow a business but during the last few months of isolation I realized (actually it should be admitted not realized) a few things. Here are some of them…

  1. Not many people like me. They don’t dislike me but I am not on their “Let’s go for a coffee,lunch, drink etc. list” I am a fount of useless knowledge that most people don’t care about.
  2. I am not a warm and cuddly personality. I am a bit reserved (some people say aloof) and not a good let alone a great conversationalist.
  3. I am an introvert. I enjoy being alone. I find it hard to be out and be social because I am terrible at keeping up with conversations and knowing the various things happening in the world that people talk about.
  4. I would rather spend three hours writing a paragraph until it conveyed the right message for a client than risk saying the wrong thing (thankfully the clients who hire me want the right message). I am better at project billing than hourly billing because if I went hourly my clients would think I was ripping them off by billing like a lawyer.
  5. Even though I like the knowledge of building a website I would rather just supply the content. (Sadly people value the look of a website more than the content. People see looks but serious buyers and search engines search content.)
  6. I am a “techie”. I love knowing about technical things and am fascinated by equipment, software, technology, anything electrical, energy saving, energy generation, and recycling just to name a few things. I bore people when I start to talk about these things.
  7. I enjoy writing about things and for clients where I have to learn about them and there products or services.

I was lost but now am found…

I am writing again. Stay tuned.

Category: habits, self-discovery, writing | LEAVE A COMMENT