Being Good at the Wrong Thing

How’s tricks? I wanted to just check in, let you know how things have been going, and try getting back up on this horse. Plus, there’s lots.

It feels faux confessional, as if I’m soliciting a pat on the head that tells me I’m good enough, and gosh darn it people like me, but I do need to whine a little bit for context.

I’ve been derailed for some time, but I’m going to punch my way out of it. I used to hedge against what I felt was an overdeveloped sense of self-confidence, but I think I’ve overcorrected. It’s made me hesitant and I’ve gone from “What is this story about?” to “What can I write that people will like?” which, take it from me, is not what you want to write. That’s like humming along to a song that you don’t really know.

Listening to the rhythm of the story and helping it find its way is where I think I do my best work, letting it flow as opposed to hammering it out. The rhythms aren’t musical, they’re more like a commuter train, a local where you sway in a small circle as the train speeds up. The swaying has a lulling effect until you make it to the next station where there’s a hard stop, a long pause, and then the aching lurch back into action.

When I’m getting it right it’s got a circuitous feel, reaching back to move forward, reigniting the momentum, and building on it to attain escape velocity which I can ride to the next stop. Then I start again.

Lately, though, I’ve had trouble finding that rhythm, like I’m caught in that lurch forward, double-thinking everything, undermining myself as I go, like I’m trying to preserve the inertia by holding on to the seat in front of me.

The Mist

I can’t stop thinking about the Stephen King story, “The Mist.” If you haven’t read it, it doesn’t matter. The “Stephen King-ness” is secondary to a minor description that stuck with me.

The protagonist (David Drayton) is a commercial artist. Early on in the story, he talks about his attempts at fine art, noting that his father was an artist of some renown. Drayton’s best work ended up being purchased by a restaurant owner because it featured a dancing ketchup bottle (or something).

The takeaway was that Drayton was a commercial artist at heart and by nature. It was doomed to bleed through into anything “serious” he attempted.

As I slog toward the end of this War Book I’ve been talking about for the last five years, I’m discovering something similar about myself. My real talent (if I have one at all) is ignoring what people say in favor of what they mean, or what they wish they would have said, or (finally) what makes sense with the rest of their story.

This always benefitted me when I was writing a lot of local business profiles, because no one has less of an idea about what makes them good at their job than a business owner.

The problem is you (I) have to endure a lot of writing advice, which always made me want to scream. When you’re talking to someone who sells ice cream on the boardwalk, and they believe their success is personal rather than because of their relative distance to the Atlantic Ocean.

AI Assisted Blogging

I’ve been playing with AI, and if you’d like to see the possibilities, let me point you to “Destination Delmarva” which is a new project Todd (DeHart of GCFL Productions) and I have been kicking around for a while. We’ll be populating it with “real” stuff soon (as we mention in this week’s Day Drinking on Delmarva episode) but for now, I’m taking the “PinesCast” stories, running them through AI and shaping them into blog posts.

I can’t remember if I told you, but I’ve been doing the PinesCast for Ocean Pines for, like, coming up on a year.

The AI stories are perfectly acceptable, but nothing I would put my own name on, which makes me feel a little better about myself. I’ve edited the stories with a light hand, but made some serious changes where they were too copywrite-y.

Like a lot of novice writers, AI thrives when the transcripts are chronological and non-controversial. It gets cringy when it tries to elicit emotion.

In the short term, we’re spinning up another podcast (Todd and I) that will be more tourism-friendly than I tend to feel in my heart.

The final installment of my first Object History should be out this weekend and the accompanying audio should follow close behind. If I hit those deadlines, I’ll feel like I’m on my way back.

If this week goes the way I hope, you got this in your Thursday morning mail and will start hearing from me on Sunday mornings again (with something less scattershot).

I just wanted to let you know I was still alive and that I’ve been struggling. With any luck, this latest attempt will stick. If not, I’ll try again before too long. What else can I do?

There’s a great line from Warren Zevon, “I’m too old to die young and too young to die now.”

Keep the Faith,

Tony

PostScript

Don’t let my moaning give you the impression that I haven’t been writing. I’ve made some real headway in the war book and recently took on another (much shorter) memoir. Ghostwriting absolutely satisfies my story junkie.

I can’t talk too much about the story because it’s not mine to tell (contractually), but it’s the account of a person who grew up in Europe during WWII and immigrated in the 1950s. I’ve spoken with so many people who have seen, done, or endured so much violence.

If there’s a takeaway it’s that you can endure or you can give up, but the story of giving up is boring.

I’m returning to my notebook dump Sunday (for Tuesday release). It will be bad until it’s good, but it’s something I love doing. A big part of my (most recent) reset is separating my “hobby” writing and podcasting from my “professional” writing and podcasting.

I’ve been a little intimidated by the need to make something “worth” what paid subscribers are paying and as a result have stopped writing the kinds of things that they (ostensibly) subscribed for.

I hope to fix that.

I’ve been having fun doing my weekly funeral business news podcast and video, if you’d like to check out the latest, it’s below. I’ll have another one out tomorrow.

That will do it for this time, but I’ll close out with some of my favorite notes from this week and my regular appeal to join me on Substack.