MediocreMan

Persevere · 17 June 2017

Picture yourself as a baby learning to walk.
Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Get up………………… Fall down………………… Rest a while.
Then do it all over again.
Until you just get up and finally walk.

Persevere

Keep doing it until you get it right.
Remember this as you go through life.
You learned to walk. You learned to run.
You just kept going. Until you got the job done.

And all that time, you had people cheering you on.
“You can do it,”
“Never give up.”
Friends, family, people you did not know.
But you never did it for them.
You just kept getting up.
For you.

Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Rest a while.
Then get up again.

We will still cheer you on.
Like when you were a baby.
And now you can cheer others on too.
You can help them to…
Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Get up. Fall down.
Rest a while.
Then get up again.

Persevere.
Then help others to………………… persevere.

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#Self-Promotion · 10 June 2017

#Twitter is such a strange platform. It is all about promotion, especially self-promotion, which means it is all about me. And promoting myself is something I am definitely not comfortable doing. (It was my friends who tried to frame me for doing so.)

I suppose I could get better at bragging if I want to embrace Twitter. After all, I can do it in front of my family. It is usually in jest, but believe it or not, there are a few things I am pretty good at. Like falling off a log. But regardless of the things I can or cannot do, I suppose I ought to embrace the whole social media self-promotion thing. After all, I do want people to read what I write. I want them to buy my books. And I even want them to watch the things I have put on YouTube.

As long as they do not do those things around me.

It is a bit strange. As much as I would like people to like me and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. As much as I would like them to buy my books and other writings. As much as I would like them to watch me on YouTube, I have a hard time when people do those things around me. I feel self-conscious when I hear myself sing on the computer. Or when people read my writing when I am around.

Part of my problem is that I feel like I can always do better. I feel like my writing and teaching and singing can be more polished. Regardless of how good or bad it is. I guess I always feel like my work is never quite done. Or quite good enough for public consumption.

Which does not make any sense at all. I have been putting out weekly writing unfit for human consumption since 2006. It is never quite good enough, but I like to have a weekly output. Polished or unpolished. Blemished or unblemished. Edited or unedited. Out it goes onto the interweb.

Maybe that is why I have a hard time with the whole social media thing. I want to be polished. I want to be ready for prime time. Even though I rarely am. And since I rarely have something to brag about, I keep my tweets to myself. (Except when I am writing a #SixWordStory or commenting on a trending hashtag or promoting my blog.)

I guess if I am going to keep writing, I need to embrace social media promotion. I need to add to the flotsam and jetsam that is the internet and hope people think my 140 characters are good enough to follow me or at least click through to my websites.

When it comes right down to it, I will probably always have a problem with bragging about myself and pointing to me. Which is why I will always think that social media, especially Twitter, is such a strange platform.

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The Lull · 3 June 2017

Kanagawa oki nami ura; The Great Wave off Kanagawa
by Katsushika Hokusai
This work is in the public domain.

There is a thing in writing called the Lull. Or at least that is what I am calling it today. The Lull is the time between finishing one project and starting another. It is an annoying time.

I recently wrote about the effects of the Lull (see Confused), but I never really understood that there was a lull at all until I finished another project. Rather, got a project ready for editing and more editing. But the Lull is exactly what there is when one project is finished and another has not yet begun.

If you have been reading my stuff for very long, you know that I am still striving to be a mediocre writer. And even more so MediocreMan. Part of that striving is just writing. And writing. And writing. I write six days a week. Rain or shine (not that the sun is usually shining when I write). Ideas or not. And I publish something every week of the year. So I never realized that there was anything like the Lull until I started writing more books.

For any writers out there, I must reiterate that edit really is a four-letter word. Literally and figuratively. Which is one reason I like to blog. I can write a piece, read it a time or two, then put it out on the internet. My readers (both real and imaginary) will see it and might even comment on it, but it is out of my mind and I am ready for the next one. Editing is a thing of the past with blogging. Anything can go out on the interweb. Polished or not. Again, one of the great things about blogging.

But when it comes to writing books or screenplays or pretty much any other writing, there is the dreaded editing process. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. (Oops, reading the wrong directions.) Write, edit, repeat. Write, edit, repeat. Write, edit, repeat. The cycle can go on forever. An infinite loop. At least if we let it.

There is a time to stop the insanity called editing. Some people might say a piece is ready for prime time. Others say their writing is polished and ready for the world to see. I just call stuff “good enough.” Something is good enough for others to read and comment on. Something is good enough for me to put my name on. Something is good enough. Period. That is when I am finished with a book or other project. Or even a blog post.

That editing process is probably where I should be. This thing I called the Lull is really just a time when instead of looking for the next project, I should be looking at my old stuff. I should be getting books ready for print (all but one are only digital so far). I should be editing the stuff that needs to go out digitally. I should be ripping my hair out trying to figure out why the story is not what I thought it was. But such is the life of a writer who is also a blogger. I can put off all that angst with a silly blog post. Like this one.

When it comes right down to it, I can get through the Lull. All I need to do is write, post, and forget. No editing required.

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