{"id":11533,"date":"2022-10-06T08:19:25","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T08:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/?p=11533"},"modified":"2024-04-30T14:41:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T14:41:10","slug":"0815-untangling-writerly-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/0815-untangling-writerly-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"0815 \u2013 untangling writerly goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(started in July 1st 2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found an old note somewhere that said something like “WHEN I WRITE I HAPPY, WHEN I DONT WRITE I NO HAPPY”, and it got me laughing because it’s so simple and so true. I miss writing for myself. Lately I’ve been feeling some inner turmoil, like I don’t really know what’s going on with me, and it’s especially funny considering that the last major thing I did in my life was spend 2-3 years writing a book titled INTROSPECT<\/a>. There’s a section in there about exhaustion funnels, and there I wrote something like “tbh I still struggle with this, and I haven’t figured out a solution that works for me, though I’ve done a lot of reading and research about it over the years. I think it’ll have to do with how I conceptualize my relationship with rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I left this wordvomit unfinished from a day or two ago and I’m coming back to it. I barely slept last night, I can’t really explain why. Then I got exhausted and I slept 3 hours on the sofa, and I’m going to shower and go to bed in a bit, it’s almost 2am. I’ve quit smoking cigarettes over the past few months, which is great. I have a doc about that called Uninstalling Copes<\/a> and I’m pretty excited about using it. I’ve also been doin some light lifting with dumbbells, and I can see and feel the difference already in a matter of weeks \u2013 my wife’s noticed it too. The next big thing in my life I think is fixing my sleep. I’ve written so much about it over the years, it’s all quite fragmented. Well, there are multiple big things \u2013 I also want to upgrade my marketing consulting<\/a>. I feel like before I can make a big ask for more clients, I want to update my marketing blog. I have some notes on what I want to do about that, but I don’t want to do that right now because I’m tired. A good night’s sleep and some coffee and I think I might be ready. Though of course there’s always a part of me that’s like, “well when it’s time, it’ll be time.” I think there’s some truth to that but I gotta try anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What else? It’s been almost half a year since my last substack post. I want to write these gorgeous posts… how many words was that? Looks to be about 2,500 words. That’s a nice length. I’d like to write a couple of dozen 2,500 word essays. I have all these fragments \u2013 desire paths, do 100 things, solve for distribution, etc \u2013 all of these are good ideas but I don’t feel like they want to be substack essays. They’re very utilitarian ideas. Procedural. I don’t think they’re supposed to be sprawling beauties, they’re more like… fleshed out notes, vignettes, they could be screenshot essays…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I paused to think out loud about this on twitter for a bit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m quite happy with “artifacts” as a concept for how to think about my writing \u2013 and I think the next step there for me is to define the different types of written artifacts that I want to make. Tweets and threads are pretty clear, and my ~7m talking head youtube videos, but\u2026 when I return to blogposts and essays \u2013 which were my bread-and-butter 10+ years ago \u2013 I find myself feeling confused and disoriented, frustrated, dissatisfied, I think because I’m trying to do many different things at many different scales, and I’m not clear about what I want. There are a bunch of “bingo card talking point essays” that I feel I “ought” to write, but I’m not really interested in doing them. I’ll probably make videos for starters \u2013 bunch of videos already exist \u2013 but it’s not what I feel like writing right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think what I want to do is a kind of worldbuilding. a lot of these riffs are directives, instructions, ‘katas’\u2026 and i’m tired of talking about them. I want to demonstrate something beautiful instead, something exploratory and lush at the edge of my understanding.<\/strong> loosely feels like i’m torn between a training dojo aesthetic\/mindset (1) and an adventurer-on-the-road aesthetic\/mindset (2). theoretically it might be possible to synthesize the two \u2013 and, actually, maybe I cant even help but synthesize as I go. (1) is always with me anyway\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I find myself in some familiar territory. I keep thinking that I will figure out my next steps by… going over my existing stuff. And, there are often clues embedded in my existing stuff. But I think I need to be more aggressive in my approach. And here I guess I’m faced with the realization that I’m afraid to be aggressive because of…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(continued on October 6th 2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…because of what? I left it hanging there. Oh I know. Because there was a time in my past where I was very aggressive about deleting stuff and I regret it because there’s so much lost material. I should have archived it instead. And so now I have a flinch response to deleting or generally just doing anything substantial to my stuff. And I’d like to address that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to assemble something beautiful, something compelling, something I find joyful, delightful, curious, fascinating. I’ve gone back and forth about the degree to which I should care about what other people think. I mean, I always advise people not to care too much, but for a creator who cares about having an audience, you can also be too indifferent \u2013 I addressed this in my most recent substack I Don’t Wanna<\/a>! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to be done with these wordvomits too sometime, but I don’t want to cheat it, rush it, half-fuck it… I want it to be good. My wife always asks me, “what does done mean?” and I never know how to answer, because I don’t know in advance. But I think I’m continually learning to be more graceful with my process, to put more stuff down, to pay attention to my feelings, to do more trial and error…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sure it’ll all make at least a little more sense eventually, but in the meantime I think the main thing I want to do right now is touch lots of my notes and see what comes out of it. I can’t rely on fossilised inspiration, I have to find it again each time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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