To the wine industry.
Whenever you have something blocking your writing, or thoughts, keep writing and thinking anyway.
Write about the block, think more about it. Write about thinking about it. Don’t think there’s so much to it. In writing, you sit, you react, to what’s around you, to what’s in the text. And why not blend the two. Reality in the room, then on the page. That’s all you need to have keys pushed, or ink lined.
Blocks have to be acknowledged in order to exist. You decide what’s true and part of your thoughtful truth and what need be dismissed and to the side pushed.
Posted article. Set an appointment. Time to find another.
Shoot for three, today. All sales, all fiber territory. Write only Sonic. Not wine. Think I may be sick of wine—no don’t say that, you just want to wake earlier. Make wine part of this, approach fiber and Sonic as you do wine but write only Sonic… the positions, the Agency aspect, my P-O-Z Agency (Don’t forget about that, I tell self.). Breathe…. Disrupt.
Hours later. 4:18. Sipping coffee. Feeling the 8-mile run, tired and with sore legs. Will have to stand in class. What am I lecturing on, no idea. Actually…. Yes. Sonic. The principles of Sonic. Not “principles”, but speak from a literary tongue and disposition. Thinking about getting a glass of wine before class, at Whole Foods, but I’m going to MAKE self remain here, write for class and finally kill remaining grading for the 1A semester. Only submission left to grade is the one they’ll submit on the 19th.
Director just messaged me, “Told ya… Momentum is a beautiful thing!” This after me not being the most celebratory of senses this morning when he praised me for November’s numbers, and that I wanted to keep the momentum going. All this, to be said in tonight’s class. Get away from the academic ax, curriculum coffin. Up early tomorrow morning, keep this momentum not just GOING but alive and hungry, TIRELESS like the post-it stuck to the left side of my monitor in big letters laments.
Going to send a couple more emails, then call the day, start to plan for tomorrow. Have the speakers group at 12:30, then a lunch meeting with an IT guy at 2. When can I run…. 11? Or, take the day off. OR…. Not going to worry about it.
One of the trainers leaves, the other leaving about 15 minutes ago, maybe more. Can hear some people laughing two cubicle villages over. Listening to everything, someone in the NOC telling a story about when he was in Tech Support. The way to approach AE life is to know you’re already in it, and you don’t have to do that much and certainly not change that much.
A and E. More sternly producing in my immediacy, using what’s in front of me. From the coffee cup to the business cards, pieces of scratch paper and random notes… this is the start to the P-O-Z Agency. I know it is. We can all start our own agency. The field and specialty, or “trade”, doesn’t matter. Agency is about identity, some vocalization, some song that only YOU can sing, as I see it.
Even writing about this, all this, the Agency and prospecting, the desk and the shit on it, is too much. Don’t do your job so much, I always punctuate and stress to most people I talk. Why? Cuz when you push, you’re pushing yourself away from what you’re after. That’s what I’ve found. Yes, I say to myself… wine. WINE. A glass at, wherever. Grade there. Plan there. Post from there.
Too cranky and lazy
to open the laptop, so I’m typing on my phone. Thumbing. This isn’t fucking writing. I don’t even know if it’s thumbing. No TV. Tuesday through Thursday, the trench as I call it this semester, I’m not a fan of human voices. Don’t even think my own. Or anyone I admire… what if I had the power to make talking around me not possible Tuesday through Thursday. Or, I just couldn’t hear them. Or, I vanish to some Stranger Things dimension but without those ugly fucking monsters. And sun, there has to be sun. And a lake, a writer’s cabin by the shore, it’s always a warm agreeable spring, and wine. Like this SB I’m sipping on the floor, legs out and crossed. No voices. Not even my own. I can’t talk. Just write. I’m selfish I know, but it’s because I’m a writer, and a teacher. “Teacher”. I think I teach. Too moody and sluggish, heavy and not-poised to think further of it. Yes, I would have so much of this Aperture Sauvignon Blanc that I would speak its language and only hear her. What is she telling me to do now, right now, with tonight, this floor… Nothing. Enjoy your lazy, laugh from your mood, and don’t mind other voices or anything. You’re allowed time to YOU.
Not at Sonic today..
Driving back from Sacramento area. Ready to connect with projects and have the most prolific and powerful week, EVER.
Not to
Write about waking at just after 3 from wind.
Driving in mostly dark to El Dorado Hills.
Sipping latte, will need nap later.
May not go into work tomorrow.
New diet starts today–
No dairy, no carbs, no alcohol, no sweets. The latte I’m sipping, the only clemency. Any latte, forgiven. Moderate meat consumption.
2017 all over again. Couldn’t believe that wind. I feel bad joking about it, that it wouldn’t come, that the news was embellishing. Can’t beat myself up. Heard Soda Rock Winery is gone…. Want to move.
PIIE
Poetry. In. Is. Everything. Wrote a piece while standing in line at the Starbucks down the street. What I bring here with me. Last night in class talking about destiny and future, what we will be, how we get there… and blocks to getting that. We are the blocks, often. Or rather, we allow the stalls and falls, the walls that we see and have ourselves sold are there.
No run today. Want to make sure right foot is okay. Hurt a little on run yesterday, but not obtusely or loudly to the point where I had to stop. The heat stopped me, obviously. Can’t think of what to put to page, or what to do with this day. Feel self getting a bit sluggish and deflated from the day-to-day. Not complacent or numb, anesthetized in action, but wondering how to change pattern and habit, here. What…. POETRY. In every bloody thing I see. Thinking of that Plath interview I played for the 1A section, and myself I don’t know how many times, where she said that someone can write about anything with an informed and I think she said free mind. I know what she meant, or I think I do. And my former student Amber, now posting so much about Plath, I’ brought back to origins, initial intentions with my writing life.
Look left, she’s on my shelf, with other literary beacons, instructors. I’m looking to them as to what to do, next. How do I approach today differently than others. HST would say, Just get out there and take a ride, you already got the ticket kid…” Something like that. I can believably hear his voice saying those words, same voice as in one of his interviews.
Wrote quick piece. Haiku. Student messaging me if she has to type her reaction or write extensively in journal. Have to grade that stack as well, the 1B section. Power may go out again today, I’m honestly hoping class is NOT cancelled. Want to write a lecture for today, speak it…. POETRY. In everything.
Goddamnit, get up earlier. If could have two hours of writing before the day even starts….. Do. Not more thinking. Poetry is about thought, NOT. Poetry is about reacting to your immediate scene and sight. Where you are, what you’re perpetuating, actuating. Don’t see myself getting knackered by such a practice, with all I want to do and how I move and how I assume all projects and beats.
Deke myself out of pattern, usual steps and jigs. First no more caviling. Step, celebrate, speak, make a verse of each sitting and step. Think of the reciting at North Light Books, or in Berkeley when in graduate school… quitting prose, and if I do play the paragraph parade it’ll only be free entry, nothing of stoic structure or stance.
Mood gripping me but I’m parrying its kicks. Like Dad said, “At my age, I can’t afford mistakes.” I, yes younger, put self in same mind. The same thinking and philosophy. A kamikaze is ME.
Behind in my NaNo
project. Have to write tonight…. Begging the story, my story, to make me write tonight.
Soon leaving for Corte Madera. Opportunity for new business and speaking Sonic, and have people be aware of me and my words.
Latte at home, fans still going drying out the ceiling from upstairs leak. Surprised how that happened, a bother, but teaching me more into homes and real estate, how homes are built and properties and their value… someone’s home, the beaming gravity of such.
I’m not too old for new interests and pursuits, no?
4:40.
Possible power outages. Everyone talking about it. If it happens, it happens. Just my mind about it. Getting a beer after this, then class.
Going to send my EOD, and possibly leave early. Just thinking about it, at this point. Wonder how life will be affected if the power is out for several days as some say might happen. Not worrying about it.
Checking schedule, when I can write…. Daily word quote still enough under 2000 words that I’m in an eased writer spree and breeze.
Alone in bullpen. Trainers gone, my AAE partner gone. And nothing really to write.
How ‘bout a walk. Use restroom. Walk slow.
Now back. Nothing to write and feeling anxious. But what would I tell my students. Of course, relax and don’t force it. IT, whatever IT is, will find you.