Day 2475, pipe dreams.

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My resolution last year was to write more constructively. I want to write a book, but I have difficulty focusing on one goal. Instead, I get distracted fast and follow many small ideas while never following one to the end or stringing them together.

I also struggle with doubt. I doubt my ability to learn how to write, and I doubt my message.

I know I have to be patient. I sometimes write longer pieces on my blog and re-read them once or twice before posting it, but I always notice many more mistakes when I re-read it a couple of days later. I also know that it is important to plan ahead and not, as I do, just write what comes up and see where it ends. Anyone that writes knows that it is not easy to delete an hour’s worth of work when you know it’s going in the wrong direction or nowhere.

But writing is one thing. In a couple of years, you can just tell your writing program what you want the text to be about, and it does it for you as GPT-3 does now already in a certain way. My biggest problem is that I want to write about life, and not just in a cold way how I see it but in a way that you can get some meaning out of it. I struggle with the thought that for thousands of years, people have written about life and what it all means, and though we have come a long way in understanding it in the sense that life for more people is now much better than it was 3000 years ago, we still have not come closer to a possible answer. Thousand of really smart people have written and preached about it, but with little effect besides some more tolerance for each other’s differences. After all, we don’t burn our witches anymore with fire but on social media, and we also no longer advertise the slave markets as they did before. Now you can at least say that you are free no matter where you come from.

I feel like a musician who hears a cool tune in his head but is unsure if he has heard it before or if he has the time to learn a musical instrument to let others hear this song so the listener can decide the value of it.    

 

11 thoughts on “Day 2475, pipe dreams.”

  1. Het is ingewikkeld om zo te schrijven dat mensen er iets van leren. Misschien kun je jou weg door het leven beschrijven, maak er een soort roman van😬
    Marion

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  3. Start with just write what you feel
    Which you already do
    You will have to pick what story it is you want to tell
    Not sure if your sure?
    Don’t judge your own stuff. Even if it is just a draft, let someone else read it and don’t be offended. It’s critique not condemnation.
    Patience and perseverance seem to be qualities you have in abundance. No one re planks a vintage boat in a day.
    Go for it!
    And thanks for the lasagna!

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    1. Thanks, I will try to nail it. Last week we had a home made lasagna again but I did not see no cool boat in the harbor, guess the lure didn’t work this time. Let me know when you are closer…

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  4. I believe inspired writing does not come by thinking so much, it comes to us. Of course we need our head as a receiver– like a transistor radio recieves a signal. Our story comes through us when we are open, but maybe not trying to achieve something for ourselves or the world?

    This is an esoteric view, I suppose. We can see thousands of writers who are like machines churning out novels by way of academic training and clever formulas. If we’re not one of those people, perhaps we need to adjust our antenna to capture what is ours. Maybe we’re living our greatest book of all, here and now? If we’re grateful and happy, maybe that story is enough?

    Then again, a book of short stories is also a book.

    Best wishes ✨️

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    1. Thanks, maybe I can try to open up but I hardly ever read novels or fiction so I have to start from scratch. I was more hoping to write essays that are somehow connected to each other. That connection needs to be thought out, the essays can be inspired.

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      1. “Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those who sang the best.” —Henry van Dyke

        While I make a mental connection to this thread, I share this quote for myself, perhaps, more so than in direct response to your thoughts about your book that has not yet found its way to the page. The quote speaks to me as a universal truth, and so it may appeal to others who frequent your WP site — your blog, your living book of poems.

        I am 65 years into this world. Life challenges swallowed much of my time here. Having attained inner peace (my greatest purpose), there is now a freedom to explore pleasure reading, and not just the ‘self-help’ variety that served as rudders along the way, through the storms. Last week, for some reason, I’d been drawn to reading Anna Karenina (the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation is remarkable). The book is a tome, but I read it in three days… I expected it would takes weeks. I add this personal note because, if I were interested in writing a book or book of essays, this, Tolstoy work of art, would inspire my attempt.

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      2. I like the quote, it fits within the reasons why I post everyday a little poem. I found also most of my inner peace but sometimes I like to grab the steering wheel and steer myself the wrong way, just for fun and celebrate life I think. Do you know that I have now written more than 1500 little poem like creatures without hardly ever reading poems from others, I can’t stand it for some reasons, I read it happens to others to. The same goes for novels, I start them often but they seldom grab me, but I will try to read the book you suggest because it’s on my one day to do list like all the books from Dostojevskij. I’m interested in your story but don’t share it here if you want to tell me, you can pm me at christiaanvangaal at nochrisis.com

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