I wrote something tonight that I really liked. Then I deleted it.
It was some artsy bit about gaining perspective, brought about by re-reading yesterday’s entry. It had a caveman and something about DNA and guilt over prayers for clean water. Man it was bad. Written well, but bad.
Lately I just can’t write anything I like. I write it and abandon it or delete it. I thought tonight about writing about how I’ve been using a couple new pieces of software I really like, but then that seemed boring. I thought of doing the standard “Cohen is getting older” or “Keaton did something cute” retell. Nothing seemed right and it all seemed boring. And then here I am writing about how I can’t write again; probably the most trotted-out rehash I have and here I go pulling it down again.
Maybe it’s just adjusting to the new schedule. The new baby, work in constant overload, the old baby. It’s not like I’m lacking sleep, I still get most of it. I’ve weathered storms in writing before. In 1997 I took a three month break. I opened that return to writing with these words, “It’s really been a while… A lot has happened since I’ve last cared to write.” Well it’s really been a while since I’ve not written for a period of more than a week… so ultimately I feel OK. It’ll come back.
And anyway, while looking back to judge breaks-in-writing of the past I found this:
4/10/98
So many things have been going on, it’s hard to choose which to write about. I truly am so busy lately, I have no time for the things that I wish I could be doing right now. I guess that’s how it happens though, by the time you get old enough to realize that you could be doing something else – you’re too busy to be doing it. Does that make sense? I mean that, every day I can think of one-thousand things that I could be doing rather than what I am doing at that time, but – now that I am finally realizing what I could be doing, I am too busy to even keep that thought in my head long enough to imagine it. It’s life setting in I suppose, the more things I can do, the less time I have to do them.
I laughed. Goodnight.