Thursday 2-28: Get That Juice!
Volume 2, Issue 28
Right now, as I write this, it is 8:20 P.M. I’ve been on the go with errands and whatnot for more than twelve hours. Twice in the past hour I’ve nodded off while writing the first paragraph of this newsletter, which I’ve also deleted twice*. If you’re a proponent of the Spoon Theory, you’d probably say I’m well out of spoons (and anything that might pass for a spoon, like measuring spoons, grapefruit spoons, decorative wooden spoons, those ceramic stovetop spoon rests, spoonbill cranes, and The Tick’s battle cry).
Still, here I am, writing Thursday! again. Because on Wednesday morning, this newsletter goes out, thick or thin, good or bad, spoons or no spoons. I was going to say that I determined from the beginning that I’d send out a newsletter every week no matter what, but I just remembered that’s not true. My first plan — a plan so good I even used it in my header graphic and sign-up page — was to publish Thursday! three weeks out of four. I’d take the fourth week off to prevent early burn-out and because I really didn’t think anyone would want to hear from me every week. You proved me wrong pretty quickly on the second point.
I’m not all that worried about the first point either, as it turns out. See, I discovered something interesting about Thursday! about two months in: I was having fun. I’m still having fun. I don’t dread my time at the keyboard like I did toward the end of my blogging career. I don’t write every week out of grim obligation or from fear that if I stop pedaling the publishing penny farthing, everyone will forget me. The truth is, my website (which contains years of original fiction and poetry) gets fewer hits than Robinson Cano and there’s not much I can do about it. My fear about being forgotten as a writer has come true many times over and I’m still here and still writing.
Nope, my friends. I write Thursday! every week because I like writing it. It is the juice, a thing that fills me up with energy and satisfaction, the intangible benefit of creation. Every week, I get a note or two from someone who found something useful in it and wanted to share what they found with me. That is the juice. Overcoming my own doubts about my worth as a writer and my ability to be interesting and reliable? More juice. Getting an excited text from a friend that reads only “THURSDAY!”. Juice, baby, juice.
What’s your juice? How do you fill up when you feel tired and slow and not very much at all? When you make art, whatever you art is, you have a chance to tap into the juice. You get to decide what that is and how you get it. Maybe you like bringing an abstract vision in your mind into reality. Maybe you like enthralling an audience with words you crafted into near-perfection. Maybe you like ringing the rafters with that perfect chorus. Maybe you’ve just written a perfectly-formed and weasel-clever sestina. Whatever your source is for the juice, I want you to get back to it regularly.
Here’s the thing: Life is full of crap. I’ve written on that subject often enough here and you’ve lived enough life to know it. Life is stuffed to the gills with disappointment and misery and casual cruelties and heedless buffoons stomping on the innocent and helpless to satisfy their own greed and ego. If that’s what you see every day, you’re going to hurt. Hard. Every day. You can’t fight that without something that fills you up regularly. You need the juice you get from your creativity. You need that joy and wonder and satisfaction. You need to explore and play in the toy box of ideas or images or words. You need time to let your mind come in from the battle of the outside world and rest.
I want that for you. What say you?
How about one last point. Maybe it’ll help. The time right now is 9:00 P.M. and I feel better and happier right now than 41 minutes ago*. That’s what the juice does for me. I well and truly think it’ll do the same kind of thing for you. Make your art. Charge up.
*One of those deletions included the “aficionados and community” subject I teased last week. I’ll write about that soon.
**But I’m still going to sleep. Don’t forget to peek at my new Patreon tiers. They are the most direct way you can support me and my art. Good night!
What I Wrote Last Week
One Last Thing
If you like my art and want to support me, here’s how:
First, share Thursday! with all your most clever and discerning friends.
Second, buy my first book of poetry. It has werewolves and a giant atomic monster!
Third, become a Patreon subscriber! The best thing about the arts these days is that you can be a patron just like the wealthiest Borgia or Rockefeller. I think that’s cool. Click the link, pick a level of support, and help me do what I do even more and better.