by Chris McGinty
I’ve not posted on the first three days of the year showing I have no intention of starting a streak habit to post every day this year or anything streaky like that, but it’s time to start writing again. It’s probably also time to bring sexy back, but I’ll leave that to the experts.
Right Said Fred – I’m Too Sexy
I very likely have COVID-19 as does everyone in Texas. Now when I say everyone, I don’t know that for sure, but it’s a non-zero chance I’m right.
I have two lines of evidence. The first is anecdotal: I know so many people who are sick it’s possible the ones who aren’t sick are just asymptomatic. The second is less anecdotal, but also less compelling: I read it someplace. The third is also anecdotal and proves I can’t count: I went at 2:30 am one night to get tested and the line of cars was a mile and a half up the road. The fourth bit of evidence doesn’t support my claim: I didn’t stay to get tested, so I can’t even prove I have COVID-19.
Rivethead – Sexy Back (cover)
Clearly, I don’t have a good argument for my thesis, so I’ll talk about writing. I haven’t been writing… that’s a fucking lie. I haven’t been writing with the same intensity that I normally do. This doesn’t mean I lack ideas. I was blogging daily at one point last year and there were two things I realized, but I don’t know how to count. Prepare yourself.
I Worry My Material is Suffering When I Post Daily – Maybe I hit a threshold on any given day where whatever I write afterward feels suspect. Perhaps the high volume of writing starts feeling like fifth tier material. Either way, I start to feel my writing is next level bad the more I write. I should probably get over that.
Two Posts a Day Seems Like My Limit – I need to clarify this. I can write more than two posts in a day. I can’t seem to format and post more than two. I don’t want to obligate myself to a daily post, but given how much I write, I should be able to schedule a few weeks out, so that if I’m ever unable to post, like being sick with something that may or may not be what I think it was… *breathe* The point is that it’s easy enough to write. It doesn’t feel as easy to post for some reason.
When You Miss Days Your Scheduled Material Gets Eaten Up Fast – This may be a truth in many aspects of life. It feels way harder to get ahead than to get behind. I was scheduled a week in advance once and then got busy for a couple of days. At least, it only felt like a couple of days, but next thing I knew I had nothing scheduled. This makes scheduling in advance feel futile.
I Will Never Run Out of Material… Ever – When I don’t write, it is never because I lack ideas, not even back in 2011 when Nathan and I did a daily blog. I don’t feel like the fifth tier material is scraping the bottom of the barrel. It’s more like scraping the side of the barrel to delay getting to the bottom, but then it refills so I shouldn’t have been scraping. When I did a month of blogs last year, I may have dipped my toes into the backlog, but I never really got into the backlog.
Living vs. Writing – Martha! Why did I write that name!? It has nothing to do with this point, or even this post. I’ve struggled with the balance of this question for a while. Do you go live for experiences to write about, or do you write while lacking experiences? I think I research too much, and I don’t coagulate (I can’t think of the actual word I need) the research into the written form enough.
The Takeaway – I want to write a lot this year. I want to catch up some of the backlog. I want to get some content out there so I can be part of the side hustle hamster wheel. I don’t know if hamsters get COVID-19, but you know what? Even if they do, I should be on that hamster wheel throwing away large swaths of my life to release work for free to people who don’t care about reading it anyway. Sounds fun.
“3 hamsters in the hamster wheel.. hilarious!” by pengrin™ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
It’s three content hamsters running around a content hamster wheel. How much more on the hamster nose can I get with that metaphor?
Chris McGinty is a blogger and presumed COVID-19 survivorship bias. You can see his work every day on this blog, unless he doesn’t post every day, which is legit possible.