Igniting Sparks in Stagnation

There are many homely comforts that have supported and kept me company throughout the writing process. Coffee, chocolate, heated blanket over the lap, friends, dreams, and mostly music. Music, for me, can swing two ways. Complete distraction, or complete oomph in the right direction. Usually, it's the latter. Usually, I can get a gauge if the distraction barometer is high. If it’s distraction central, I become less prudent and misjudge the music.

If you’ve mellowed in the Podcast episodes, you can hear individually chosen tracks for each guest, and generally, I have different music running through my head as I jot down the words for the page. Today, my chest loosens and shoulders dance because it’s one of my favourites. Reina Del Cid, A Second Hand News cover by Fleetwood Mac that creeps to the top of the list. The lyrics fit snugly in my psyche: “When times go bad, when times go rough, won't you lay me down in tall grass and let me do my stuff!”. And while, gasp, this song was released years before I was born, I do not shy away from a mild state of euphoria when it comes to these companionable classics.

But how does the stuff I REALLY want to do today make a difference? It feels all the sandpapery bits of rough, and even sometimes bad, too. Afterall, while writing a book, it can be far from comforting, and I feel quite alone sometimes without human interaction. Today is one of those hard days. Days where permission to write feels awkward, distracting, and not overly forthcoming.

Without over analysing and distracting myself completely, it's a recognisable pattern. I know I have based a lot of my own success on measurable metrics, and that needs to be reined in, pronto. I've cut corners, had an urge to surrender far too early, and got infuriated along the way. Now, it’s not as simple as just a ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and once I caught a fish alive’. It’s all the complexities of 1.95738s meshed in between. For me, it has been a search for quantifiable control over others’ perceptions, and my own lack of desire to proceed due to stupid stuckness and freeze state.

An easy excuse, and also not. What irks me is how much this seems to be edging into our society now. Scoring, screening, lists and likes, credit scores, followers on social media, video views on YouTube, I’m sure you could name a few more. The inequalities and constant quantifications are surprisingly like kindling for my brain. Don’t even get me started on a volcanic eruption of societal benchmarks and political pressures. Ahhhh there we go, a spark ignited. Writer’s hump is overcome with a full rev of the engine.