The winding road towards Professionalism -- 111117
Yesterday, I fell asleep at five in the afternoon. I woke up at 7 AM today. That’s my excuse for not blogging yesterday. I have the same excuse for the other day I didn’t blog this week. The ostensible reason is that I’m waking up earlier than usual – instead of waking up at 9 or 10, I’m waking up at 4, or 6 – and it’s fucking up my entire schedule. The experience of waking up early has been long desired and has already borne fruit, but it’s also throwing my writing life out of whack – is my pitiful excuse for not writing, which does not hold up under any type of scrutiny. Why not write in the morning, then? Why not write at the crack of dawn, before you go for a run? If you were a true professional, then you would do it! If you were a true professional, then you’d stave off sleep to write! My internal voice is right: if I were a professional, I’d be writing, regardless. Same thing goes for my other lame-as-shit excuse, that I’m not writing the things I’d like to be writing. Well if that’s the case, try harder! Be more experimental! Take more time for each post! Write more shit! Learn from your mistakes! And then there’s the idea that no one’s paying attention, no one cares. Well, yeah: you don’t care enough! And you’re not good enough! You need to work on yourself, before someone would care about you!
All of this reminds me of Bakuman. Bakuman is a manga (Japanese comic) about making manga. While it has its cons – female characters are represented badly, and the manga glorifies ‘manliness’ and karoshi – Bakuman at its best becomes an inspiration guide to living a creative life, for me at least. A lot of my inner voice comes from them. I don’t know if that’s healthy or not. Often what’s healthy isn’t what’s successful.
There’s a scene that reminds me of the contradiction I’m feeling, from volume 11, chapter 90: “Art and Merchandise.” The new assistants for Ashirogi’s new piece argue about whether manga should be made to sell or made as art. They go back and forth, until Ashirogi’s artist, Saiko, says “It’s true that we’re working for our manga to sell… but that’s just because we’re not talented enough.” That’s how I feel. If I were a better artist, I wouldn’t have to worry about deadlines, or making people like me, or accepting the generalities of what it means to be a working writer. But I’m me. I like myself a lot, and I think I have something unique to say, but, in the scheme of things, I’m not particularly special – which means I’ll work harder than anyone to be at the level of the genii, to turn my writing into art.
I’ve been working on a post recently, something with lots of promise: a review of Jon Ronson’s podcast, “The Butterfly Effect,” and its depiction of power. I feel like the argument is there, but I need time to sit with the post before I send it. And instead of figuring the post out now, I’m writing this off quickly to post something before I go to bed. I’m delaying what could be interesting for another day, hoping I write it, eventually – meanwhile, I’m traipsing off to Greenwich Village with another queer friend tomorrow, hoping to explore our queer identities – and that’ll inevitably become ten other posts, and amidst the chaos of so many raw ideas, I’ll end up writing about none of them. That always seems to happen: I think I have ten good blog posts and then I’ll sit down to write them and they all dissolve. The feeling seems to dissipate upon the page. I don’t know if this is because I currently lack the ability to write these posts or because I’m fooling myself into believing I have things to talk about. Which brings me back to that statement above: shouldn’t I be working harder, to be at the level of the genii? But I need sleep, and I need to preserve my rhythm; those are also important for writing. And I think Bakuman gets the concept of working more than a little wrong. I wonder if I’m copping out, whether this is healthy or not. Often what’s healthy isn’t what’s successful. I guess I’m not that hard-working, after all.
Oh -- and happy singles’ day! What a lovely concept, created by marketing, bringing back such lovely high school memories -- perhaps I’ll write about them one day.















