Write Now

Back when I worked normal human daytime hours, I published a brief-but-promising series here called “Morning Coffee.” The premise is that I would blog about personal day-to-day affairs, vis-a-vis my usual efforts of metaphorical storytelling, while consuming my daily brew.

The deal was, I had to do it every day.

Obviously, that’s not how it shook out.

Life is, at its core, a non-stop series of questions asking whether or not you will cede your time to answer it. Somewhere along the way, I lost focus and stopped writing on a daily basis. You know, the thing I went to college for. The thing that made a name for myself in my hometown. The thing that kept me alive as a teenager.

I’m serious about that last part — during the MySpace Era, I maintained a blog not unlike this one that was meant for general consumption and contemplation. I’d rush home after high school, some times, to etch out my thoughts and share them to all my angst-ridden peers in rural New Palestine. Each post averaged a few hundred to several thousand views, which meant everything for a picked-on teenager in 2007. It meant the world to hear a classmate (or a stranger) tell me they liked what I read, or even just that they saw that it was getting some traction online.

More than 15 years later, the online landscape of places to barf out one’s thoughts has clearly evolved, but writing (I hate to say “blogging”) is still the game I know best.

I just have to do it for myself.

And such as with previous writing projects I stand behind, I would like to announce a return to form, of sorts. I am committing to writing more regularly for my sake as a living, feeling, thinking human. You, of course, are welcome to read anything and everything here. I’m a proud soldier in the army of emotional vulnerability.

A few simple promises will guide our path:

1. I will write much more often than I have been doing — daily, if possible
2. Some personal information will be off-limits (work matters, names)
3. Each entry will draw upon something worth sharing. No “what I had for breakfast” posts.

What’s most likely here is that I use this writing series to spend the aftermath of my nighttime bar shifts proactively thinking about my life. You know, what normal people do with their evening.

What bugs me the most is that there was a period of time where I took my writing so seriously, my parents would ask to watch me write in real-time. At the time, it just made me feel self-conscious that I was being made into a spectacle or a talent show. But now, as an adult who has buried them both, I think they’d be very surprised to hear that I just don’t write anymore. Disappointed, perhaps.

I’ve got a gift and I’m not afraid to admit it. I need to be better to myself, and use it more often.

And such, more writing will be coming soon.

That’s it and that’s all for now. I’m just excited. Wanted you to know.

Stay tuned.

-moose

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PS: Please offer writing prompts you’d like to see here! I take those suggestions and other reader-added thoughts in Moose’s Mailbag.