Writer Wander 032 - Nature Abhors a Writer

Yet Writers adore Nature...it's kind of a toxic relationship

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Rider Wander thirty-two in the grips of defeat. What is there to be said today? I tried to write, um it came very just very, very difficultly. Um, you know, I'm just coming off of Holy Week and I basically, you know, I made a conscious decision to not to not write, but it is such a pain in the ass to just you know, just start picking up the on things, um, so that you can it is such a pain in the ass to start trying to restart trends that you already had before. And things just keep getting in the way. People just keep coming up with stuff. Um, you know, at the end of the month, I'm gonna take a trip to Austria, and that's gonna be for two weeks, and I know for sure as hell that I'm not gonna be writing uh during that. And um I don't know, I wish I had less distractions, and I know that there's a way to to navigate through all of this, but when you have all of these distractions on top of you, they sort of like compound on one another. And a day like this, where in the past I've had days like this where I'm trying to write, and I I can't really I can't really write that successfully, what usually ends up happening is that oh yeah, you know, I can shrug it off, I could because I can see the overall trend of what I've been doing, but when you have like this very prolonged period already where you did not write, even though there's a justifiable reason for it, and when you have a prolonged period like that, um it just when you and then you're finally trying to restart the habit, but then you know you're head you're facing such difficulty in just in just getting started, it's it's not it's not doable, it's it's not it's not fun. We're trying. It's um it is a very difficult experiment. And I don't know, I I think I've noticed about myself that there's probably a lot of internal habits that I need to get better on because I have you know I don't like to half-ass things, and when something important is right around the corner, I'm usually a big believer in the idea that you shouldn't try to do multiple things simultaneously, and then most people who claim to be multitaskers are often people that lack commitment. Um, I'm sorry if anyone feels judged by that, but I remember I used to have a friend um, you know, some years back. Uh I'm not gonna specify who who it is because they they may or may not be listening to this. Uh, but uh that friend, you know, he's somebody that I do deeply respect. He's a very productive guy and he gets stuff done, that's for sure. But there was a certain period of time where he would try to do multiple things at once, and where he would layer on a single day one activity right after the other activity, right after another activity, and during the period of time where he did that, I couldn't help but check the feeling that he was, you know, a lot of the things that he was doing, he was kind of to a certain degree, he was he was half-assing them, and he wasn't um he wasn't partaking in them in the most direct way, direct way possible. And that's not an insult to him, because I've had moments in my life that were like that. I think that the one of the worst periods of my life was like a period of time in which quite literally after work every single weekday I had something to do after work. It was horrible. I I do not like I do not like being busy. I do not like it when one thing I have to do follows directly after another thing I have to do. It it literally pisses me off. Because again, that that brings us back to this idea of moving through your life on a timer. I think I talked about that back in episode eight, where I was talking about my my you know, one of my experiences in the workforce where I was in a job that I was so busy and I was so swamped with work that it felt like everything I did starting from my morning was operating on on a timer, on an invisible timer that was just constantly taking in my head. And ever since then, I've made it, you know, I can't say a concerted effort because I I still feel that um the amount of white space in my life is not where it needs to be, but I'm definitely skeptical towards recurring commitments that require me to block off certain periods of time with regularity, right? I have very few of those right now compared to what I did in the previous year, and the reason I I do that is is because you know I I really need that white space, that that flexibility for that for that creative space. Especially because, you know, that that's part of the problem when you lock yourself too deeply into a routine or when you make too many commitments. When you make too many commitments, if you drop the ball on something, then what's gonna happen is that you know you wouldn't you will not be able to recover that ball at a later point in the day because the rest of the day is quite literally taken up with other stuff. You know, that the so again it's sort of a tit for tat, right? You know, it's this tension that exists within me. You know, I do want to be a social person, I do want to be a person who is involved in things, but the key issue is that the more I become that person, the more I rid myself of the necessary flexibility to maintain a consistent artistic life. What do I mean by this? Let's say that you know, if I have a lot of events scheduled throughout the week to do in the afternoon, and let's say that uh, and this is the truth, my my writing time is mostly in the morning. I like to wake up very very early to write. And if I have a day where I sleep in, like today, then and I also have something else in the afternoon, like today, then it's not it's not it's not very easy uh to you know if I didn't have that thing in the afternoon, I could have easily just moved the writing into the afternoon. But I do have that other that other thing, and that's why I'm very skeptical about adding stuff like that, because again, you know, it's not a conspiracy, it's just there there's something about it that there are you know people the different social circles. I mean, they you know I realize that no one really wants me to be a novelist, no one really wants me to be a writer, and when I say this, uh the reason I say this is because not not because there are people who are hostile to the idea of me becoming a novelist or anything, that most people are very supportive of it on paper, but since most people don't understand the the kind of things, the kind of intangible things that you need to comfortably be a writer, they will you know, they will do everything in their power unknowingly, right? And you know, obviously this is also an error on my part for failing to communicate well or failing to stand up for my own dreams on on occasion. But you know, things will maneuver themselves in such a way to you know consistently pull you away from from this artistic endeavor, you know, this thing that you want to do, whatever, whatever it may be. But that's the the cracks I find myself in today that uh, you know, wanting to write, uh, but uh trying to write, I did write a little bit this morning, so I guess I'll give a bit of an update on on Echoes of Heroes. You know, um I don't think I've given much writing updates uh previously, but uh, you know, a couple things have happened, right? The reason I haven't given given writing updates was because like I said, there was a period of time where I wasn't writing in Holy Week to focus on those other things. And uh basically Finnegan is captured by the pirates, and you know, he's basically made a slave for a few days, and he's eventually brought into a pirate base where he will eventually be sold into slavery into a far-off continent. And he manages to escape with uh with Ken, Haraldr, the you know, the Viking kind of guy, and Tosted the the dwarf. They managed to to make an escape. I feel that that sequence, I wrote it down and I rushed through it. I really rushed through it. And that that's another thing that I'm I'm thinking about, right? Because, you know, I've been debating. I've been, you know, the the new approach that I took with this technique, which isn't all too new. Um the new approach I took with this novel, which is not all too new, uh it's inspired by trying to recreate that feeling of those very first books that I wrote where there was a you know there was a sense of excitement in in every chapter, and I was leaving myself little little gifts behind. And one of the things I'm also starting to question is that uh, you know, in the past I used to be very big on and I still lean toward this. I still think that um for your first draft you should write um quickly. You should write it as quickly as you as you can, and then anything else, then you can you can fix it in subsequent drafts. But I feel that in recent works, I started taking things in another direction where it was, you know, I guess it's the most extreme version of that where I would um I would frequently, instead of writing a certain chapter I didn't want to write, I would, you know, in brackets, I would give like a brief description of what is supposed to happen uh in that particular scene, and then I would just press on to the next thing that that interested me. Curiously enough, I always used to do this with endings. I don't know why, like I I think you know, by the time I get to a story's ending, I'm I'm just so I'm so tired and I'm so running like low on fumes that I just want to be over with it already. But what I've also noticed is that when it's not the ending, I usually do it a lot with um I I do I do it a lot with fight scenes, uh curiously enough, right? Because you know, mentally I'm very excited for fight scenes, but once they actually happen, I I don't enjoy writing them that much, all things considered. So I guess I'm very Tolkien-esque in that regard. Uh but uh I obviously by the time I get to the revision, I I do I do revise it. But you know, recently I think part of the problems that I've had with some prior novels is that I do this too much. And because I do this too much, once I get back to the second draft of the story, there might be significant chunks of the story that I just that I just skipped over. And since I don't have anything to work with, I I have a very hard time doing that second drafting phase. So a part of me is like, you know, maybe you know, I should work against my own desires, my own longings to go fast, and at least on those days like today where I don't feel like writing, I'll just do the typical writing advice, which the typical writing advice, the classic advice, is that you just on a day like that, you just write, you write what you can. You write what you can, okay? Because you you guys have to understand that the moment in which I started writer wander from a creative perspective, you know, you're witnessing a period of my life in which in a very real sense I'm trying to I'm trying to heal my creative spirit. Because I feel that my creative spirit, my capacity to be an artistic person over the last few years in particular, has been deeply wounded due to a variety of circumstances. Um you know, a lot of it being the entry into the workforce, for instance, uh, you know, a lot of it being my sudden gain of a social life when I used to be a relatively reclusive person. And I think that, you know, a lot of the effects of these things, they were going on in the background. They were they were impacting me in ways that I simply I simply had not considered before. And by the time I did wake up to it, you know, which was uh I guess a a couple a couple months or so before I actually started this podcast, by the time I did wake up to it, I it, you know, a lot of those wounds had already gotten gotten much worse. So, you know, I I'm trying to rekindle that inner inner childlike spirit, that inner creative, creative spirit, right? But I'm I'm sure that you've been able to glean that to some degree so far from all the episodes we've made that uh you know it was part of the conceit of the first episode that I do feel like I find myself at a certain crossroad where I have to rethink or recover and restore a lot of things that I had before. Because again, uh, you know, the person that I am, the circumstances I am currently, you know, at this moment, you know, just a l less than a year ago, my situation was entirely different. I was, you know, I was forced to be a, you know, a type A personality so hard. You know, I had to mask so hard every single day. And now that I don't have to do that, after having had to do that for almost three years, i it's uh it's difficult. It's difficult. I you know, I feel like to a certain degree, and you know, this will obviously be a very very privileged comment, and you know, I hope you know that I'm not taking it too seriously, but uh it's just an analogy. But I I guess I feel almost like um you know, like uh a guy that was drafted to go to war. Once you come back from from the war and you have you know you suddenly have to return to civilian life, you know, it's it's almost like you have a certain certain PTSD certain PTSD. There's a certain melancholy for for all the time that was spent uh taking on that you know that leadership that leadership role. You know, again, check out the episode on on free trade behavior uh if you want to learn more about you know the things that I'm trying to that I'm trying to get at. Because it's not just about my work environment, right? It's it the work environment was probably the main catalyst that that uh that forced me into having to assume this kind of identity. And to this day, I am deeply scared of the prospect of having to having to get into a situation like that again. You know, which is why to me it's so important to just you know to accumulate wealth so that people, you know it it I I feel that's the price to get people to leave me alone, essentially. But the you know, this podcast, even more so than the document of what uh of what is happening, uh I feel that it is it is also very good for me because uh I do, you know, aside from you're just a source to to vent ideas, I don't have anywhere else to put on paper, I think that it's useful because it is a separate creative outlet other than other than writing. And so I feel that a lot of the pent-up creative energy that I was unable to express during today's writing session because I I just I was I was fighting through it and I and I did not have it in me, and I was like way too stressed about the things I had to do in the rest of of the day. You know, a lot of those things that I was fighting with, um you know, I'm able to I'm able to express them here in another creative outlet, that it's something that I'm creating, it's not just something that I'm that I'm consuming. So it's very refreshing in that regard. But I feel that you know jumping back to something, I think there was a thought I didn't finish earlier, but I I think I have this bad habit of like being too intense about certain periods of my of my time, and like I said, I'm just coming off of one of that, uh, you know, with with Holy Week. And um today and tomorrow I have something similar to that where I don't think I found the answer to being able to balance my life in such a way to where I can fully lock in um and be able to be able to not stall my you know literally everything in my life just to go through with like one important objective, right? And this was the point that I was doing with like my my friend of mine who who I felt that he used to do like way too many things, but um you know he did do them. He did do them, right? I don't think he did them to the level that he that he should have. So it had its cons. But the pros was that you know nothing he didn't let anything stall. Whereas in my strategy, I do I do allow things to to stall. I often multiple things when something important is coming. And you know, for example, uh another thing that I really don't like is that uh, you know, uh just the uh like two weeks before like holy week, I uh I I basically I sort of went a little too loose when it came to my uh to my dieting and my you know my desire to eat healthier uh because I was focused on just you know practicing all the things that I had to that I had to get together, but I sort of lost track of those things, plus the writing because again I I wanted to perform very well and I I don't think I'll ever get to the level where I'll be multitasking like my friend was because that's a whole nother level and that also leaves me deeply unsatisfied. But but I think I'm starting to come to a potential understanding that the reason why I have this desire to just you know to just fully lock into something and just abandon everything else when I'm when I'm focusing on that one thing is because of the fact that you know maybe that's just a leftover survival strategy from the life that I had quite literally less than a year ago from the date that I'm recording uh this podcast. And as you probably know by now from previous episodes, I have there is a huge a huge time lag, a massive, massive time lag, uh, between between when these episodes get recorded, because I need that space to not feel forced like I'm I have to like I have to make something, right? So to put things into perspective, this is episode 32, and as I'm recording episode 32. Episode 10 is the latest Rider Wander episode that has been that has been uploaded. So that gives you a sense of the the scale of time. Whenever you are listening to me, I am in the future. I am in the future, bro. Like I like I whenever or or is it the other way around? Um I I guess it depends on your perspective, but I'll just say I'm in the future. I'm I'm like 20 steps ahead. Okay. I'm 20 steps ahead. So if you guys ever listen to a Rider Wander episode, and then you're like, oh man, uh, he sounds he sounds like he's having it pretty rough, bro. What what the hell is he okay? Uh don't worry, because you know it it would I probably recorded that episode a month ago, so I I'm probably I'm probably fine. I'm probably fine. Just a just a thought. Very important. But I have to find a way to like just not bring my entire life to a halt just to do stuff. Because I used to do that because since I was so preoccupied with my job, I would regularly have to halt everything else in my life just to get the work done. And that that strategy is started to apply, I started to apply that to other things. And so Rider Wander is in a sense also the process of about the process of learning to be human again, in the sense of learning not to be an office drunk, because again, there's you know, there's so much psychological impact that comes about from you know from masking for for so long, right? Uh you know, I I I guess I probably mentioned this at one point indirectly, but uh, you know, I you know I have Asperger syndrome. I'm not a I'm not a social person by predisposition, nor am I an emotional person by predisposition, and nor am I someone who longs to be in a visible position by by my own predisposition. But uh for the last three years, uh I I had to you know I had to train myself to act in that in that way to get ahead. And I I did get ahead, but now that I don't have to do all of those things, you know, because again, you know, don't get don't get never get it twisted, okay? Never get it twisted, you know, even in these more like melancholic or or sad sounding episodes, uh, you know, wander is in a pretty good place right now. Wander and Wander will always uh be very grateful for that. Uh you know, I am in a very great place right now. Uh I've been able to, in a very real sense, it is a good thing that uh I am you know that I am doing the the things that I'm doing I'm doing right now because it's a sign that I escaped those situations that were actively making my life miserable, and I was able to escape and place myself in an environment where I could start pondering about you know more meaningful things and I could start getting a better sense of the person that I should that I should really that I should really be, right? And you know, come to think of it, like maybe my recent reasons for being like this are because you know like the past few days at my at my job um my current job were pretty we're pretty rough but uh we did we did get things done and honestly uh it's not even a fraction of how bad it used to be in my in my prior employer so I will never I will never like have anything bad to say about where I'm currently in. Like it it is perfect. It it is it is perfect, it's a very flexible work environment, it is meaningful work, that means a lot to me. Very good co-workers, so there's nothing bad to say on that on that front. Uh it's just that, you know, I I guess you know, like any job, things spike up, and when things spike up, you know, you you know you get reminded of how things used to be. Um and you know, my my body sort of returns to that that space I I used to inhabit because the the person that was in that position is still the same person that is in is in this one. But yes, that was the Right I Wander podcast, and I keep wondering.