We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

[Yes, I am back from the dead. Directing a play (see earlier post) will send you there (to the dead), but it is well worth the trip. Thanks to all who were able to make it to the show, as well as to Gabe, Carrie, and Eric for being extremely talented and hard working. Further thanks to the witches from a certain Scottish play for sending us a fire alarm and power outage on the same performance night, even though nobody ever said the “M” word.]

Although Allen Iverson would be loath to admit it, practice is important. This is another of those reliable, father-delivered truths of life, and I am living it right now. I have not attempted to write anything worthwhile for about five weeks now, due to high levels of stress and time commitment in other arenas of my life. This means that I am waaaay out of the habit of writing. This means that writing is suddenly hard again. This means that I will write crappy things like “‘Batman Begins’ is a great movie” and repeatedly use chronically mushy words like “really” and “very.” It’s really very unfortunate.

Also involved in this de-rusting phase are other fun pitfalls, including...

1. Staring at blank screen. Writing one word. Deleting it. Writing it again, this time followed by a second word. Deleting both words. Staring.

2. Rereading what you thought was good work, only to find that it is really very bad. Or that it makes sense only to you. Or that it is stating the obvious. Or something else.

3. Number Three

4. Titling your posts semi-clichéd things such as “We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties.”

5. Excessive use of self-referential humor.

6. Lists.

And it’s not as though I’ve been away for that long. Five weeks is nothing, really. Inconsequential. But I think that I hadn’t been writing regularly for long enough for the practice to be ingrained in my bones yet. You need to build up the habit for a while before you can leave it and be sure it will be waiting, solidly, when you get back.

My point is this: It’s very easy to get out of the habit, and very hard to get back into it. Any habit. Well, except for drugs, I suppose. And watching too much TV. And overeating. Okay, so make that “good habits.” But like everything else, the only way to get back in the mix is just to get back in the mix. Turn off the critic and just do something. Get back in it. In this case, one small, mediocre, semi-focused post at a time.

I promise that in the next few days worthwhile thoughts on some movies will be forced out of my head and end up on here. Really. Until then....

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee