I’ve spent over a year wanting to write more.<\/p>\n
Honest.<\/p>\n
Every day I sit down at my computer and think of all the projects and ideas I have that would require some attention. They scamper about my brain like rats, trying to avoid being caught. And the moment I manage to clamp a glass jar over one of them and start to examine it so that I can maybe drag 500 words out of it, The Great Distraction Beast rears its ugly head.<\/p>\n
Someone knocks at the door, the telephone rings, my computer makes one of a hundred different “beep beep beeps” that mean something wants my attention. I try to tune these things out and focus, but fail miserably, time and again.<\/p>\n
Worse still, there is always more content to consume. It’s very difficult to be a creator, but it’s oh-so-easy to be a consumer. Especially when you can lie to yourself that you’re consuming content to stoke the fires of creativity in your own mind. And so, after watching eight hours of Stargate on Netflix, even though you’ve already seen every episode at least twice, you sit down to write again, but all you can think about is watching more Stargate. Or that new web series that was just released. Or checking the news blogs to see if anything has happened since you last checked them 2 hours ago.<\/p>\n
And there’s the rub. With so much content in the world and so little time to access it all, how does one choose what makes the cut and what doesn’t? And if one is a content creator, how does that same one cut off from it all and focus?<\/p>\n
I’m asking, because I don’t know and I really need to know.<\/p>\n
Writing used to be easy for me. I used to have pent-up anger and depression and all sorts of other feels that made me all angst-y and writer-y. But now, I’ve got a good life. Beautiful, loving wife. Three adorable children. Steady pay from a relatively easy job.<\/p>\n
And so, I sit and I stare at a blank page and I choose to write about writing. Because anything else would probably be too hard, and plus TGDB is waiting for me to get a great idea so it can stomp it into oblivion.<\/p>\n
I’m challenging myself to write every day. Even if I fail and only write once-a-week, it’ll be an improvement over now. But how do I hold TGDB at bay?<\/p>\n
Okay, I’ve got a number of books to go try to read now. I should be done with them in about 30 years. Maybe I can write more then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve spent over a year wanting to write more. Honest. Every day I sit down at my computer and think of all the projects and ideas I have that would require some attention. They scamper about my brain like rats, trying to avoid being caught. And the moment I manage to clamp a glass jar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2902,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/a-sample-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":0},"title":"A sample morning","author":"Jared Cash","date":"April 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The phone rang. It was 8:17 and it was my first phone call of the day. I picked up the phone. \"Tech office.\" \"I need your help troubleshooting a computer problem,\" began the teacher on the line. \"I can't get the projector to work.\" \"Did you restart it?\" \"Yeah, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A Day in the Life"","block_context":{"text":"A Day in the Life","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":828,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/i-bring-these-links-to-thee\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":1},"title":"I bring these links to thee","author":"Jared Cash","date":"January 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Web World Superhero Registry - Ever dreamed of putting on a costume and fighting crime? Actually put on a costume and go out to fight crime? Then this website is for you. While a large number of individuals on the site are actually poseurs, the purpose of the site is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","block_context":{"text":"Apple","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/apple\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":600,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/what-will-you-be-doing-on-may-8th-2008\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":2},"title":"The Most Excellent Frontier","author":"Jared Cash","date":"November 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What will you be doing on May 8th, 2008? I know I'm going to be at the movie theater watching Star Trek. I've been mildly excited for this movie since I first heard word of it. But I've been skeptical, too. Star Trek has always been such a hit and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Movies"","block_context":{"text":"Movies","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/movies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2664,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/there-and-hopefully-back-again-a-trip-to-washington\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":3},"title":"There And (Hopefully) Back Again: A Trip to Washington","author":"Jared Cash","date":"July 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"28 hours on the road, seven people in one van\u00e2\u20ac\u201cone of them a screaming baby: that's how my day began. Yesterday morning at 8:30 AM, my family and I left my parents' home in Kansas and drove halfway across the country to Washington state in order to visit family members\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A Day in the Life"","block_context":{"text":"A Day in the Life","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3409,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/silence-facebook\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":4},"title":"Silence, Facebook!","author":"Jared Cash","date":"August 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, wait\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Is it \"Silence Facebook\"? Are they silencing Facebook or telling Facebook to\u00e2\u20ac\u201cwhat? They're here? Oh! They're here! Hello, reader! Did you recently update to the latest version of Facebook on your fancy, schmancy iPhone only to discover that it plays annoying bleeps and bloops every time you do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random Acts of Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Random Acts of Technology","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/rat\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_7761","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/IMG_7761-1024x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/IMG_7761-1024x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/IMG_7761-1024x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2927,"url":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/escape\/","url_meta":{"origin":2898,"position":5},"title":"Escape","author":"Jared Cash","date":"May 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He awoke in a small, dank cell. Aren't they all? He smirked at the thought of being locked up in the lush penthouse, something he knew all too well as a child, when he had been a prisoner in his own home. That had been ages ago. Just before he'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anemoi"","block_context":{"text":"Anemoi","link":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/category\/writing\/anemoi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3795,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions\/3795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zepfhyr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}