I've let this blog go way dormant and for the same reason as before - I'm way too hard on myself when it comes to my writing skill and the topics I want to tackle. So, I'm trying this again. And I'll try to go easy on myself.
What motivated me to start writing was something not writing related. I started to teach myself guitar for the first time in 14 years and so far it's going well. When I first tried to learn guitar, I had approached it like I had done with other instruments back at my high school band class. I picked up books and tried to learn the technical stuff, like scales and reading sheet music. I'd play the scales over and over while I tried to memorize their note positions in the sheet music. I made sure that I got the first note patterns down before I moved on to the next. I needed to make sure that I was getting those scales down correctly.
People who are self-taught can already see the problem here: I wasn't really playing anything. The end goal was technical mastery, but I wouldn't have learned a single song by the end of this approach. I had set up a regimen that wasn't any fun and wouldn't even result in something tangible that I could enjoy. This was ok in a class setting, where you had other people to talk to and work with, but it was a boring routine to try when you're by yourself.
Thinking about this now, it's a small wonder why I hung on to that system for about a year. Why did it took me so long to quit?
My approach this time is different. When I started again a few months ago, I insisted to myself that I learn a song - any song. Hell, I made it real easy for myself by typing out "easy acoustic guitar songs for beginners" on Google (yes, even Bing) and I came across a whole lot of tutorial videos and tablatures for music that is not only attainable to play at my level, but fun too. I was even pleasantly surprised to have found a couple of songs that I knew and loved growing up (post-grunge era alt-rock & new wave 80's... yeah!). Then I tried to play, knowing full well that I'm going to sound like crap. However, I made sure to note any improvements in my playing, no matter how small. It was important for me to see that my hours of practice were not in vain.
So far, I can sort of sing and play a passable version of "Mad World" (a rendition of Gary Joules' cover of the Tears for Fears song, aka "the Donny Darko song") and play and butcher the lyrics to "Wonderwall," by Oasis. I'm also working on "Blackbird," by the Beatles because, why not?
Working on "Blackbird" has been the most fun so far. I can kind of play all the riffs to the song now, and even sing it... kind of. I remember how hard I struggled with just the first three chord changes. Seeing how far I've come since then applies a level of significance that can fuel my motivation. Sure, playing the song is still like driving in stop and go traffic at the moment, with a lot of pauses between riffs to re-position my wayward fingers, but I hope to smooth it out with a lot of practice. I'm just happy that the practice has been a lot of fun.
As I started to improve my skills at guitar, my mind turned toward writing. I know I stop short of typing out a single word because I feel like my ideas aren't any good. If I do come across a good idea, I stop short of writing it down because I'm afraid that I'll muck it up in the execution. What's worse is that I feel like I'll never get any better than where I am right now. I liken it to being stuck in a fog, with no road or sign post to show the general direction of where I should be going.
This is in contrast to how E.L. Doctorow had put it. At least he had a road. And headlights.
I think the reason why I feel stuck is because I'm still not used to the idea of writing as being a process. I've grown up writing as a student in a binary way, my essay is either finished or not finished. So, I have learned to ignore the little adjustments I've made to any given work. It doesn't help that I have not written with any regularity, so that neural pathway (or whatever) in my brain that recognizes progress has atrophied, either due my perfectionism or low self esteem. This has lead to writing attempts which the only motivation was to get it finished, which, upon failure, didn't do my sense of worth any good. All I had to show for when I failed this task was that I screwed up. I had forgotten how to sift through the mess to find the good bits that tell me "hey, writing is totes worth trying again."
At any rate, my other hobby has kind of pried that pathway open a bit, enough for me to want to give this writing thing one more go.
I'm going to try to be kind to myself and I'll try to note progress. Learning to write isn't too much different than learning guitar in that there is a final picture in my mind's eye that I'm going for. But I feel that image is far more complex than any pop song that I can play, full of tiny details that I can easily obsess over and lose my way by. I have to remember that that image is just a temporary thing and, much like playing a cover of a song, I'm allowed to deviate and re-deviate from it as many times as I like. Bonus points if that effort looks and sounds good in the end.
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