Deviant Rambling

There it is, rearing up in me again, the screaming voice inside my head, banging senseless messages against all four corners of my mind.

You must create. Make the world better with something you have made, or make something better until you do. Write. Paint. Draw. Burn something. Take a picture. Throw all of it away to the world. Or keep it to yourself. That’s a good idea, make something of it and post it.

But this son of a bitch inside never stays on topic long enough for greatness. It’s the man I live with every day but keep him safely caged behind a stoic expression. It is the man I stifle at times because of his lack of focus and perseverance. It is a way to protect myself from an inordinate amount of failures, but some part of me is concerned that in doing so I cut off a mad genius.

There are glimpses of unbridled creativity in the madness, but it’s all so fleeting and like the voice, deafening. I can’t pursue everything that I want to because there is no way I’ll live that long. I also can’t stop and pursue nothing because idle hands drive me to a different form of insanity.

I guess I’ll be damned in any case, so best to get used to the straight jacket. Madness is too much fun to deny.

When I’m reading a job posting for creative writers, I can sense almost immediately if the company or individual will list what the position pays.

More often than not, they don’t list it. Or they dodge with the word competitive, hoping to get a free sample from you that they will own. A sample that cost you time you will never get back, but this is a known cost.

I just read one that used this tactic on one hand and required full time commitment including doing your own research on the material before writing it. If a person doesn’t have some idea what the compensation will be for the end result, you will have lost a number of candidates from the jump. 

Just be honest and transparent from the beginning. Treat the talent like the asset they can and should be for your organization. Tell them what you can pay and prove there is room for growth or if that is an unknown, stability. 

We really don’t want a lot, but this deliberate obfuscation is always a deal breaker for me.

Don’t be afraid to admit if you are a new organization and the budget for the position is low. You will still be able to find an ideal candidate who is willing to work with you through the growing pains.

If you are an established organization, telling candidates what you can offer them should be a badge of honor for how far you’ve come. It’s a signal to potential talent that they can be part of something special, and not in the corporate jargon “We’re a family” bullshit way.

Nobody is buying the office family line any more, so please stop trying to sell it. Most of us just want to do the work assigned and truly leave work every day and not feel obligated to give it more than it deserves from us.

It’s about to be October and I can feel the light leaving both ends of the day as we creep towards fall. It is apparent in my work space that I will need to make some accommodations for this dying light because it is starting to feel less like a workshop and more like the building in a hill that it is.

If I could have a glass roof I honestly think I would, but this building would be an oven. All well and good when it gets below freezing but it would be uninhabitable several months out of the year because you’d be able to boil eggs on the floor.

There are cheaper ways to get light in and around the building and I’m looking into those kind of options as opposed to anything structural. I want it to be a space I can utilize year round without having to change too much.

The brighter the space, the better I am at my work.

Over the last week I have completed four paid writing assignments in very good time, with a total word count north of 10,000. It is the first time since I’ve been doing this that I felt as though I accomplished something meaningful and wasn’t just grinding for the sake of it.

I’m sure that I can accomplish that much in a week, so it gives me a boost of confidence to try and get more to do. The dream is to do work that is less active but I do enjoy writing pieces from scratch when I have almost complete creative control. I also believe I can be getting paid more for the work but I want to put in my paces and get a good process going.

As always, there is a persistent voice saying “There’s no way you can get paid what you think you can for this kind of work.” and I have to kindly push that voice out of focus so I can keep trying. There are people out here getting disgustingly wealthy for way shadier things in the same space, so why shouldn’t I be able to get independently wealthy doing honest, well-thought-out work?

Self-promotion feels dirty to me for some reason, and I need to get to the bottom of why I stifle myself in such a way. If I were to become a better promoter of my own ability, I would have more work than I could possibly hope to get done. Just another instance of “Put up or shut up.” I guess.

There are words that will only become available to you given a certain set of circumstances. I find myself pondering this now as I recall the times I have been swept up by inspiration and things poured forth from me effortlessly but with very little control.

The only way to find out where the words you’re looking for are is to experience as much as possible while you are here. See all the shores, turn over all the rocks, and scale as many mountains as your body will permit. Take the best notes you can mentally, or if possible, with a writing utensil or an app. The words may not come to you in the thick of whatever the experience is, and there are many times this is the case.

The experience itself will feel extraordinary because it will alert all of your senses to something profound, but you may struggle to find the words necessary at the time because of this dumbfounding. Once you have moved back into a more usual headspace, you may find the words come crashing in to be noticed. It is at this time that you must stop anything and everything that you are doing and heed the call.

Don’t edit yourself in the process, just let it out completely free form until it feels as though it has naturally concluded. Don’t stop until you feel this in your bones, as though you have given everything you possibly can, because only then are you actually done.

Spend more of your time joyfully searching for these moments but be prepared that you may never experience them. You’ll find that happiness exists to some degree in all moments, and too much searching will lead to the inability to see the ones in the commonplace.

Mastery over this skill gives you a quasi sixth sense, and a superpower among mere mortals.

The auto workers union and their corporate masters are engaged in a conflict that could sink the American economy and both sides have their heels dug in, unwilling to concede anything at all.

Everyone at the table is being unreasonable and it’s fascinating to see this dick measuring contest play out.

The manufacturers are doing what they always do and started shooting hostages, but the union has decided two can play at that game.

If I’m a betting man, I’d say the union will be offered a modest increase in salary and benefits and eventually succumb to the growing pressure to accept. Corporate America has infinitely deeper pockets and they own the politicians too, so they can afford to hold out longer.

Labor doesn’t get bailouts the same way that corporations do, or with nearly as many zeroes. When the manufacturers tighten the screws, the people with blue collars will bleed most. Red, white, and blue are battling a civil war, the modern kind fought on balance sheets.

They’re all wrong, though.

Labor is looking to secure their future by tying themselves to a sinking ship. The manufacturers are trying to keep their ship upright by using the bodies of their labor to plug the leaks. No one has the intelligence to look up and see they are already drowning.

They’re all slaves to the fossil fuel industry that will do everything in its power to snuff out alternatives until they have drained the planet of every resource that can be commodified.

All of the out loud struggle, us against them posturing will mean nothing when the planet sloughs us off like the dead weight we are. And neither side is interested in having a rational conversation about how we might stop all of this nonsense for a minute and talk about our future as a species.

There are too many top level concerns like money to be bothered considering we might be hastening an apocalypse.

It’s not uncommon for me to hurry other people along with details and tasks that I deem trivial or that seem unnecessary to waste time and effort on. This must make me seem like a real piece of shit sometimes, but I just place a very high value on my time and when anyone tries to take it away from me, I try to limit how much they can take.

It also means I feel inconvenienced when it happens and that part I could do without. That impulse is in my control for the most part and I choose to feel that way. It’s something I am spending some time examining to try and get the better of. If the time is spent in service of people that matter to me, it’s quality time, and I need to check myself.

I find myself stopping from time to time and saying to myself “You’re being an asshole for no reason.” If I’m noticing it, then whoever I am helping definitely notices. I just need to improve my speed at recognizing it when it occurs.

You’d have been 67 today.

It’d be two years into your retirement on paper and I am entirely sure nothing would have changed. You’d be working every day because you didn’t know anything else, and I’d continue to fail to grasp why. It must be one of those things that we aren’t supposed to understand about one another.

That doesn’t stop me from wondering if the time would ever have come where you hung it up on purpose instead of having your hands and finally the rest of you give out from overuse. The idealized version I have of you in a neat compartment would have rode off into the sunset in grace but the reality was not a cheesy movie ending. Reality is harsh and unforgiving.

I am sure I’ll revisit this notion of who you might have been at least a couple times a year and today just happens to be a fitting day to do so. You’d have been 67 today but you couldn’t be here to avoid celebration.

I think of you often and spend quality time wondering what might have been.

My work space has undergone some changes in the past week as I seek to open it up and let as much light in as I can while there is still natural light to be had. The fading daylight is apparent and the cooling temperatures tell the story of the not-to-distant future.

Fall is almost here for real. The air, the trees, and the birds are changing, and once again I’m not too busy to miss it. It is one of the finest displays nature will put on this or any other year.

With all of these changes outside I sought to replicate the sparse nature of the coming season and I feel I have started to, but it is a never-ending process. Just as soon as I feel some sense of satisfaction with the state of things, something will feel out of place and need reworking.

What a terribly interesting life I lead. <3

A drought of weeks gave way to thousands of words over the past couple of days. They are the kind that get me paid so they are welcome.

Some of the subject matter makes my eyes glaze over and I feel my mind wandering while I am writing, but I will fumble my way through this less interesting work for the more interesting assignment. Close to 4,000 words of something I don’t mind writing about, yes please.

In any matter, I’m just happy to feel some momentum to my work and progress on the paying gigs.

I’m mixing in practical tasks to keep myself engaged with the work, I’m still working on finding exactly how to balance the two. Practical tasks have a way of taking over the entire day if you give them much space. Since I enjoy doing those things too, it’s truly a coin toss. But if I don’t do the writing, I don’t have any coins to flip, so it should be a no-brainer.

A little of column A, a little of column B, and always forward.