So, I did it. I wrote something almost every day for a month. Go me. To do a proper post-mortem, I’d need to re-read everything and see if there’s anything I really like. In thinking back about it, I’m not sure I’ll find anything I think is great or even good. I’m not going to lie, it was a quantity and consistency over quality exercise.
In my early days of writing online, I really did turn out more of a diary/journal sort of thing; I wrote about what I did and thought over the day. When I re-read it those words now, I actually enjoy parts of it and find it worthwhile, but I don’t think I could write that way again. That was six, seven, eight years ago. A good writer should be able to take any topic and make it worth reading and I don’t think I can do that with my life now. Sadly, I barely have the will to trudge through the day, let alone having to re-live it, punch it up, and regurgitate it in an engaging fashion at night. That sounds horrible and soul-sucking. I imagine it’s true for most people, too.
Losing interest in the everyday is what drove me to the essay format I stick with now. I’m proud of myself that I was able to stick with it for a whole month. While there’s some truth in what I write, some real feeling, I suppose a lot of this comes across as forced and overwrought. Maybe that’s the truest part of it.
The pictures were so much harder. I was okay with writing whatever, proofing it a little, and publishing it, but I have a hell of a time picking out what photo to resize and post. Herself often had to tell me, “yes, that picture’s fine, just put it up, geesh.” I look at so many of the pictures I find on Flickr and it breaks my heart that I can’t figure out how to take them myself.
I desperately want to be a better photographer and I’m not sure why I hold my images to so much of a higher standard than my words, especially when there’s luck involved with photography: right place, right time, right light. A writer is in complete control. Maybe photography appeals to a different part of my brain than writing does. Words have to be mapped into images and action but nothing gets lost in translation with a good photograph.
I think it’s important to keep going, although I won’t continue writing on a daily basis. While the deadline is the only thing that got me writing again, the pressure makes me into a mass-producer rather than a craftsman. Far more robots than humans ever see these words anyway.