Yo! I wrote exactly a month ago. So long ago in fact that the WordPress format has since changed. If you were looking at my life compared to the duration of existence so far, you’d probably pat me on the back and say “Hey pal, well done on writing so frequently, even though it’s a load of crock shit.” If, like me, you think I could probably write a hell of a lot more, you’re bound to be more like: “Some web-savvy, digital-is-the-future content creator you are! Get a handle on yourself T!”
I haven’t been able to write anything for a few weeks on here. I have written more in my journal in the past four weeks than the past four years, though. You’re a tougher audience. I don’t know, I open up a blank Google docs page. Type something like:
I was wondering earlier abou
Stop, close tab, open new tab, watch four seasons of Mad Men. It’s surprisingly easy for the entire month of November to pass you by while watching a TV show this good. I guess you guys already know that binge-watching is a thing; I’m late to it, like I wasn’t to most other things (not cool things but – for example – having a bob before anyone else and pioneering the layered short hair flick of ’08).
God damn, Mad Men is so good. I’m devastated I’m not watching it right now to be honest. Television is pure escapism, meaning fictional problems have begun to dwarf my own, which has been a welcome distraction. I mean, Dick Whitman has been living a lie for YEARS posing as his dead soldier friend Don Draper and then his wife LEAVES him when she finds out. And then loads of other stuff, and so on. I mean, hey, at least I’m not that guy, right? Dude!
So there. I’m almost proud of passively watching over 30 hours of television since the end of October, and await the next 40 with anticipation. Best show ever. Mine’s on the rocks. Really – I’ve only drunk whiskey on nights out recently and have had the most fantastic time on it, I’m thinking about pitching spin-off show ‘Mad Women’ to AMC. Chin motherfucking chin.
I have however enjoyed making my evenings into maximum mooching time as part of the slow initial phases of hibernation.
I read a quote the other day that said: ‘Remind yourself that you are a human being and not a human doing.’ I found this corny gem in a copy of Psychologies magazine. That sounds like the start of a different story altogether, it’s not. I didn’t find any gems, corny, jewelled or otherwise, in Psychologies magazine last week.
My train was delayed, so I headed to the place in the station where you get your fags and reluctantly sidled up to what can only be described as the self help section for people who really don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing anymore, where Psychologies was stocked in between Kitsch Home Living and Mindfulness Colouring In for Adults, RRP £9.99.
Anyway, that’s not what this is going to be about, cause I started writing this a week ago and forgot where I was going with it. And because of this, you know. ‘Remind yourself that you are a human being and not a human doing’ isn’t a bad as “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty”, and is instead rather comforting if you’re feeling a bit burnt out, but humans beings do have to do stuff, so we are both human beings and human doings. If we were to just ‘be’, and not do a single thing, we’d have nothing to write about. And Mad Men wouldn’t exist.
I haven’t been able to write anything on here recently because words haven’t been flowing quite as freely and cohesively as this goddam mind-of-its-own blog demands of me (I have concluded that as soon as someone spots you in a kebab shop and says, “hey, I love your blog!”, the blog develops its own ego and expects more from you).
If you google ‘writer’s block’, the first Wikipedia page that comes up tells you that poet Phyllis Koestenbaum wrote in her article The Secret Climate the Year I Stopped Writing that: in order to feel, she had to write, but she couldn’t write without feeling.
I think that sums it up, which is helpful for my writer’s block as I haven’t had to do any of the work. But in all honestly, she wrote a whole book about writer’s block, which implies that it’s not a permanent state of mind. It also means that – like every goddam else thing on the planet – even writer’s block can be turned into something to write about after you’ve eventually heaved yourself out of it. Which for writers, is both immensely hopeful, exhausting and rewarding.
So maybe I’ll start writing again soon. Something proper. I want to start writing another play, as I enjoyed writing the first one so much. I’m going to have to have a real think about how I did it, and how I’d do it differently again first. I don’t usually take such a strategic approach to writing, as you can probably tell from everything else I’ve ever written ever, but it was a huge effort in comparison – it took a lot of time. And there were blindingly obvious things within it that could have worked so much better, and I want to reflect on how I can make the second one even better. And the third even better after that.
But first, I have to watch Season 4 Episode 8 of Mad Men. They get around creative block by having a drinks cabinet in every office. Now that’s strategy.
Tara Lepore 