Category: Writing

The months tick down, 1, 2, 10, 11. Suddenly, we’re in to the Holiday Season. Suddenly two years of COVID has passed. So much has changed, and the world keeps moving forward.

Every morning I wake up, get ready for work, make my way to set. I’ve been fortunate to stay so busy this year. The last two years have been full of financial ups and downs, and yet we still manage somehow to carry on.

Keeping up momentum is difficult at times. For me, it can be usually difficult, if not impossible. With the right structure, even I can maintain a practice. Such as work, exercise, or meditation. But I need the structure. Without it, it all falls apart.

I haven’t been writing. Well, posting. Every time I sit down, my thoughts seem half-formed. I wouldn’t necessarily call it writer’s block, as I am writing. However, it doesn’t feel like I have much to say. It’s a few sentences here, a couple more there, then I walk away. But, I will eventually sit down to write more.

There are things I’m considering – money and pay (almost always); safety on set; health and fitness; certain West Coast vs. East Coast differences; October, being always busy, somehow; and a myriad of other topics.

So, for this first post in three weeks, this is something I’ve been enjoying lately. Spooky mini-stories: iHeartRadio’s 13 Days of Halloween. If you listen, enjoy. And keep a light on.

It’s hard to believe that we’re already approaching the final months of 2021. Everything over the past two years has seemed a bit of a fever dream, and still, time marches on.

We don’t really know where we’ll be when tomorrow comes. We expect. We plan for. We’re hopeful. But it all comes with uncertainty. It’s a bit of the unknown that creeps into our consciousness.

I suppose it’s just surprising that so much can happen in two years, and yet it still feels like the blink of an eye. When it comes down to it, all we really have is today, and what we make of it.

There was a show I recall seeing, many years ago now. In one episode, I’m pretty sure the protagonist had somehow brought about perfection in the world. However, everything went to pot by the end, even though it was this supposedly perfect world.

His son tells him, this main character, that maybe a perfect world is actually an imperfect one, because then everyone willing will try to improve it bit by bit. 

And so I wonder, what does a perfect world actually look like? Is it one where we have everything we need? Or everything we want? Or one that we strive to improve upon what already exists? 

In Japanese, wabi sabi means perfection in imperfection – to understand the beauty in something because it is flawed, not in spite of it. 

There’s no answer to this one, just a curiosity as to what is perfection in this world.

Somehow it’s fall already. The leaves are changing, the temperatures dropping, and what is likely my favorite time of year is here. Also, traditionally very busy for me.

This year, all year, has been busy, filled with tv and film production and some travel for work. 

People have been waiting for a return to normalcy, or an adaptation to the ‘new normal’. But, you get to set your own standards. What is normal for you is not necessarily normal for anyone else. And vice versa. 

There’s never any certainty in tomorrow, but what we have is today. And what we do with it is up to us.

Goals are there for you to hone your focus. In the absence of a goal, you may be unsure of which direction to head. 

Having a goal not only gives direction to your pursuits, but also motivation to achieve your goal.

It’s all that’s needed. One, just one. And where it comes from, what brings that insight… that’s the exciting part. Because insight can quite literally come from anywhere or anyone.

A lot of my writing struggles to come to fruition because I inherently know that I’m looking for my own voice. I speak a certain way, and often times it’s the long way around. I write in a similar fashion.

I used to hate reading Faulkner his long-windedness, and yet I’m pretty guilty of it myself.

So, I self-edit. And time and time again, I have to remind myself to quiet the resistance. It’s not aiding you. It’s hindering.

In anything you do, find your voice. Be yourself. And just do the work.

Words are the single greatest tool we have to convey thoughts. If used properly, they allow us to pass on complete ideas, fictions only imagined inside our singular consciousness, and disperse them to one or two, twenty, a hundred, or however many may be receptive. We are limited only by the weight of our thoughts, the size of our vocabularies, and the way in which we communicate our messages.

Those odd purchases, that thing you felt you just had to have, the new car… Chances are, it won’t make you happy. Certainly there will be a moment of immediate enjoyment, but it fades.

So why do we pursue those attainable joys through purchases? And what could you be doing instead to make a difference?