I’ve been staring at screens for hours now. Staring long enough that my eyes are blurry while I type this blog. I was working on a short which I tried to pare down to 1/8th its size for reasons of micro-editing practice. To make matters worse, I don’t have the full 3k on the story, so I was paring down an unfinished work and realizing that at the core of the story I don’t even know what it is I am trying to do or say. Fluff. That’s all it ends up being. Possibly well-worded fluff. I’m feeling quite self-disparaging at the moment and this runs the risk of turning into a rant about where I’ve gone wrong.
Okay… Now it’s a rant about where I’ve gone wrong. Obviously it starts with the youngest kid, who I speak of often in these ten minute sessions, and his complete and total loss of self. He’s fallen in with a group called Young Life. From what I know of them they specialize in helping the lost find themselves. I suspect that what has him unmoored is a mix of his mom raging about what a terrible person I am, and feeling disconnected from an identity outside of sports. None of that really leaves room for him and I to connect on a father-son level. It is at the point where I have zero expectation of hearing from him (via text or otherwise) on father’s day.
But enough about that situation haunting the backrooms of my mind. The lack of ability to tell a story is crippling the forefront. It isn’t just that I shortened the thing, it is that I never knew what the thing was to begin with. I am constantly finding myself in situations where I don’t know what story I am telling or why anyone might want to read it. I’m losing faith in my ability, focus, and overall purpose as a writer–which only serves to reinforce the narrative that I’m bad at everything I try for including parenting.
I need a better tomorrow.
Some Thoughts:
- Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Christian Eriksen ‘conscious’ after another on-field collapse in Denmark match, national team says” Twice?! The last time was a heart attack. Five years later he’s out cold on the pitch again. Scary stuff.