J says my writing has more of "an edge" to it these days. He doesn't say whether or not this is a good thing. I tend to think he's telling me that he doesn't know what the fuck to make of it. I tend to think that a lot of the time I don't either. And that's just the stuff that makes its way here. Never mind the stuff rotting on my hard drive.

It's a long, painful process. And it never feels entirely worth while. There are so many words. And most of them need to be whittled away. Because they're affected or whatever. You come back and you read them and they just sound bad. Or they make no sense. Like now, you see? Like this.

Every writer has his bugaboos, the things he/she finds necessary to write about. And I've got mine and it's pretty obvious what they are: conflicted love, sex, betrayal, loneliness, loss, estranged parents. Every story is some variation on these. Every story has a character you don't want to like. And a narrator who is trying to get you to like him, anyway. These are what propel me (when they do)—these themes. These ideas. Until I realize I'm on version 120 of basically the same story. And then it all seems rather pointless and self-indulgent. And I set to work finding something more practical to do with my time.

Other times I just lose the story altogether. It'll be going along and I'll be thinking this is possibly the best thing I've ever been in, and holy crap, I can ride this thing to the end of everything. It's its own reason to be. And just like that, it breaks down on some stretch of road littered with armadillo carcasses and bat guano. And I find out my precious little ride, well, it needs a new clutch or some shit. Procurement of parts is next to impossible out here. And it's not like I'd know what to do with them anyway, or have the tools to put them to use. And so I just sit beside this broken down thing remembering the way it rode and waiting for it to fix itself, which it never does.

Sometimes I think blogging is the answer. Because at least it keeps my head in the game. Recently, I went back and looked at some nicolasix posts. The reason was I was trying to remember something that had happened a few years ago, and I thought I remembered writing about it. So I browsed through the Family category, which is where I thought this particular thing might be. And as I did I wondered how the hell I had ever written so openly and honestly and unselfconsciously about the things I'd written about. And I thought: Who is this guy? And I thought: Man, I'd like to hang out with him. And I thought: I wonder where he is now?

The truth is that guy has retired and is now living someplace in the Great White North, drinking beers and eating back bacon and fishing through holes in the ice. And he just sits there not worrying and writing it all down in a leather-bound journal that smells like farts and cigarettes. And he's waiting to die.

And god, I'm jealous of how happy he is out there, and how little he worries. And I wish he'd come find me. Because I'm lost back here without him. Clearly. I'm sure you can sense it.

Sometimes I miss not having that written record of the things I've done. And that thing I did seems more worth doing than what I'm doing now. But the truth is, when the idea of "audience" seems far off and implausible—like it always does—none of it seems worth doing. Period. The whole endeavor seems pointless and sad.

Category: Nada