The Writer's Notebook

So it's going on nearly three weeks since I last posted here, and all I have to offer is naval gazing.

From inception this space has been prone to inconstant atrophy, which has almost always been contingent on my having a job. When I had just graduated and was unemployed, I spent a month writing limericks about headline news. When my theatre world was crashing down around me (or at least I thought it was) last August, I decided to spend more time here. Over several months, again abetted by unemploymnet, I put out what I would say is some good work, and also got something of an audience. Then I got a job--two, really--and so my output went down. It had been making a comeback of late, and I even managed to be tweeted by Josh Green.

But real life is intruding once more, in the best possible way. I've been for the past couple months volunteering for a major theater's lit department, reading script submissions and writing supplementary materials for their website. And for three weeks--basically since my last post here--I've been at work producing material for a political news parody website that will be launching next week, The Washington Fancy. (My pseudonym will be Doug Limey). Writing scenarios for often absurd public figures is a great deal of fun, but doing so at least three times a week on top of two jobs and a volunteer gig requires a great deal of time and energy (right now I ought to be figuring out how to salvage a Jon Huntsman piece that isn't working that's due tomorrow).

"A writer’s notebooks grow thicker in inverse proportion to his other work.” This blog has been a notebook of sorts, albeit one much more coherent and articulate than the one I scribble in before I go to bed. And so it is that my other work is taking me from it once more. I may have the time and inclination to say something here, I may not. This isn't the first time I've made excuses for falling through. But something has to give, and unfortunately this blog, haphazardly maintained as it has been already, is it.

'til next time.

"In the Future, Everyone Will be Famous for 15 People"

Via Andrew Sullivan, we have a post from Arianna Huffington about the deepening of the financial crisis, and using blogging as a means of coping.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to unpack my reasons for starting this blog, and for (so far) doing little to promote it. I've always had strong opinions about politics, and think that at least once in awhile I can dress my opinions down in some fine caustic wit. I'd wanted to blog for awhile and even did so at ProgressiveU in a scholarship competition, but there were guidelines on content and length, and so it felt like a lot of essay writing with little of the conversational tone that my favorite blogs contain. Eventually I stopped because it was just too much work. I did have an occasional audience, though.

I myself am not sure why I haven't told all my friends to come visit my blog. A large part of it is probably insecurity (note the qualifer 'probably,' itself denoting my uncertainty). Blogging is rather geeky and narcissistic, and on some level I don't want them to know. On a more deeper level, I would like to enjoy some level of anonymity, which is hard when the only people who know your page exists are the people you interact with in the real world every day. Finally, perhaps a part of me doesn't want this to be read. Oh, it's in the public and so I'm not going to say anything too shaming, but it is putting myself out on a limb, and I would prefer the people who visit this site do so out of an interest in what I'm saying, and not as a voyeuristic means of peering into my mind. But it is nice interacting with people. At the beginning of last (school) year I was tapped to moderate at ProgressiveU, but I turned the offer down because I was too busy. I may inquire about offer after I graduate. What else am I going to do?

Yes, another reason for starting this is the vain hope that I get noticed and someone will eventually want to pay me to bloviate. And with the future so uncertain, I figure I might as well start sending out some feelers and making the most of my skills (opinion writing, cartooning, playwrighting/acting(/directing?) to see if something sticks. Unfortunately my skills lie in the arts, which are always the first to suffer financially, if not creatively, during an economic downturn. It's a hell of a time to join the job market, but at the end of this year I'll be financially and academically tapped out, and need some time to recharge. Joe Strummer once said the future is unwritten, but in this case it is more so, in part because our leadership of the last eight years has been illiterate. Writing is my greatest strength, however, so I guess I am most qualified do something about it.