I wrote about reading Mary Kate’s art of memoir in June of 2019. Or maybe it was 2018. I’ll go check. The time doesn’t really matter as much as the content. The way her book made my writing feel small and inadequate, not because my writing isn’t good (progress) but more because it I don’t try and make it better. Like many things in my life I fall into a contentment with being slightly above average. I realize that getting things down on paper (this black screen) is hundreds of time’s harder than I give credit to. I take many of my gifts for granted and therefore never harness their true power. This has become another one of them. (Sick brag! I just told you I have many talents!!)

I bring all of this up as I’ve been pushing myself to work on a book of some sort. Like the posts of this blog but a touch more focused. I say “I’ve been pushing myself,” but that, in and of itself is an exaggeration. I’ve been considering it. I wrote a 300 word preface. I wrote another 200 words of the first page. I texted my designer friend to create an in brand logo of the tentative name (cart before the horse much?), and I have stewed. 

In the above Art of Memoir book Mary Karr talks endlessly about honesty in writing. I believe that I write honestly. What I stew about is how much to give. How much to tell. I have a tendency to spill my guts as it is, my family forced to absorb the things I consider along with some guy from Indiana who followed this because I wrote a clever car ad. That seems rather uncool. 

As a self purported “black and white” person, though, this is an ongoing dilemma. If I decide to share, I usually share it all. As I’ve moved along this book idea, this seems unnecessary and damaging. Just because the page can be your therapy, one need not share every perceived grievance, fault and insecurity with the world because somewhere along the line you’ve decided you’re “black and white” and you give it all or nothing. This is a thing the literary douchebag says to be raw and authentic. 

I’d like to have progress by my birthday in June. A magical timestamp of decades that’s supposed to mean something but that is really just the fiftieth fourth Saturday in June I’ve seen. I set three or four other “goals” by then that I’ve yet to get much progress on (skateboarding in particular) so adding another “thing” to the arbitrary milestone list seems ill fated at best. 

When I write like this, I can’t help but be critical of it. It’s like sounding out the syllables of every word of a future, hopefully, other writing. The first step of the doing, a saying I am going to be doing. A public announcement of the soon to be future possibility of something else. I do it from time to time and it’s at once exciting and disappointing. Exciting because it feels like a step towards the things I think I want. Disappointing because a lot of times I don’t follow through. 

This is just how it goes though (more literary douchebaggery, henceforth to be abbreviated as LD).  So I speak it out loud and move forward and wonder if I’ll get it done and over promise and do it all again. 

#hugsandhi5s