1000 words

I was driving home in the rain today. It felt... strange. I'm a person who loves rain, who craves it, the torrents of water tearing out of the sky and bathing all things with its colorless indifference. It was a chilling rain, reminding me that another Fall is fast approaching with its chill winds, damp mornings, and rapidly darkening afternoons. This will be my first Fall without her, truly without her, and I'm ok with that. I am. It was her favorite time of year, when she would put on her rain-boots and stomp in puddles and collect leaves. In a way, she made it seem like an exciting time.

Fall is a time, traditionally, of death, of preparation, a time when people gathered and stocked and squirreled away every bit of food and comfort for the oncoming harsh winter. I feel prepared. I feel as if I have gathered myself for the cold. I feel as if I've been through the cold long enough, I'm not ready for it to come again, not quite yet. But come it will, and soon. I'm ready, but I just wish it wasn't happening so soon.

So I'm cleaning, moving shop, setting up a new space. Here actually. Do you like it? I know it's a little bare, but I'm hoping to change that. The furniture guys are coming in a little later this week to drop off the couches. It'll grow, don't worry. Maybe you can help it grow with me. If you like what I put here, feel free to share it. For the most part, this is a jumping off point, a dumping ground for my head. An exercise room, if you'll allow me the metaphor.

I've never actually identified myself as a Writer, only Someone Who Writes Occasionally. I've been told I have talent, and sure, I can see it myself sometimes. Writing, like anything else, is a muscle. Some people are born with really big muscles, it's true, but without exercise, without training, they atrophy and become useless. As you can see, I've titled this inaugural post “1000 words.” This will not be the last of these. I'm tasking myself with putting 1000 words down, writing just to write, flexing the writing muscle.

A big part of my inspiration for this was a quote I heard recently from Ira Glass, stressing the need to produce content. That, at the beginning, quantity is as important as quality. “It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.” (you can read the whole quote here)

So I'm starting off small. A thousand words does seem like a fairly steep hill at first, but when the climb is over, you realize how quickly it has passed. I hope that I am able to sharpen the knife. My fiction needs the most work. I have two stories in progress right now, one about a man who undergoes an experimental procedure to “cure” his blindness, by reassigning the synaptic responses from his other senses to feed data into his optic nerves; the other one is a bit more personal. It's about Azarius, and jugglers, and car crashes and matricide and patricide and dissociative behavior. It's been an endeavor that has spanned nearly 7 years with very little to show for it. I guess my main difficulty has been endings. Although when it comes to Azarius... his story is all too familiar to me, but I can only write it as I live it. I don't have much farther to go with the thought process, only the actual labor of getting it onto paper. So it goes, though.

As a matter of course, I announced my intentions to quit smoking a few weeks ago. I regret to inform that I've been failing miserably at this. I don't understand why I have an amazing ability of willpower on so many things, but I am so weak when it comes to these little cancerous carcinogenic death wands. I'm working on it, I promise. I'm getting better, but I'm not there yet. Something has to give, though, and soon. It's something that has been so terribly intertwined with my own habits and behaviors for so many years that it's almost a relationship. Something that brings comfort in dark times. It's horrible how deep it has carved itself into my life. It needs to go, and the sooner the better.

On the other side of the page, there is the Girl. It is such a different thing than I'm used to. Incredibly different. Different could be great though. I just have to break down my own barriers, an act of goodwill on my own part that will open the bridge we seem so incapable of crossing. Not that I'm romanticizing... it's far too soon for that sort of behavior. More on that another time though. Not that I'm afraid to kiss and tell, only that I haven't even gotten that far yet in this case.

The rain. The chilling, all-encompassing, rain. We've needed it, god knows it's been dry. It flirts with the wind, dancing its mortality away in a brief but passionate life. Moisture impregnating particulates in the sky, growing, changing, some destined to burn away at the sun's touch. Growing,, moving, waiting, forming, until it grows too heavy for its cloudy womb, and it is set free, to wend and wind and dance. They leap and bound for miles, crashing onto dirt, and pavement, upturned faces and down-turned umbrellas. Flowing back to streams, to rivers, lakes, oceans, to start its journey again, generating it's own cycle of reincarnation until it reaches nirvana.

The rain is inspiring, and cleansing, and it blankets the open spaces of the world and makes them more manageable. I need it, and I've gotten it.

I'm not really sure what to do with all this space, but there's plenty of it. I'm sorry for the mess, I'll try and keep things a little tidier from here on out-no promises though. I think the best part about a new space is defining it, filling it. I don't feel like it's mine yet. It's too clean. Don't worry, We'll throw some paint on the walls, get things livened up. Thanks for stopping by the new place though. I'm glad you could help me move in. I'll try to have things spruced up a bit by the time you come back.

Oh, and make sure you pull the door up a little when you shut it, it doesn't quite latch right.