A cataclysmic crisis of infinitesimally microscopic proportions -- wherein I have a meltdown over losing 600 words
I used to produce a lot of videos. And when I say "a lot", what I mean is, well, somewhere in the vicinity of a hell of a lot more than a few. I was a goddamn YouTube creator, cranking out "content" before it was cool and when there was no money to make from it.
(Not that I'm bitter.)
Now ... if I were to plot the rate at which I create videos alongside my ascending age, it would become evident that I consistently produced fewer videos the older I get. I attribute this to that essential life rule: "Life has a way of getting in the way."
The older I get, the more of that raw creative energy (the proverbial fuel to my fire) gets dumped into professional workflows. It's a double-edged sword: on the one hand, I get paid. Occasionally, I get an excellent addition to my (already outstanding) professional portfolio. And when I declare myself a professional video producer or a professional writer or a professional creative wizard ... there's all of zero imposter syndrome. Again, I get paid for these things and payment equals professional.
But the other edge of the sword remains: it's still creative work for other people. It's an expenditure of that precious creative fuel for other people. And since all the fuel comes from the same place, there usually isn't much remaining when I feel compelled to create something for myself.
And let me tell you: there's something precious about finding the time to put your head down and intentionally create something for yourself.
Not for the views. Not for an audience. Not because it's "content" demanded by some soulless algorithm.
But because it's something meaningful. Something of substance. Something that means something to me and needsto be brought into the world otherwise it withers and dies in my head.
It's something that needs to be intentionally created because, simply, there is no other choice.
I have a hundred of these projects, slowly withering to dust in my brain, soon to be blown away and scattered to infinity by one strong gust of bureaucratic bullshit or COVID-drenched reality. One of those projects was started in the summer of '17 (ish, I think, maybe).
It's a story -- when I started it, I thought it would be a novella, best-case scenario, and then it turned into a proper novel -- about a man who feels things a little too strongly. So he drinks a lot to numb away the emotions and avoids other people whenever he can.
But between rent and booze money, he still has to work -- and his latest job takes him into the heart of an alt-right rally.
The book is called "Abraham Owens is Punched, Drunk, & All Out of F*cks!" and this is how I had a total fucking meltdown when I lost some 600 words of the manuscript.
Abraham Owens's introductory story is essentially a pressure cooker inside another pressure cooker. After writing the first third or so of the story between 2017 and 2020, I sat down and got serious about finishing it at the start of 2022. On January 9th, just under 18k words were committed to this manuscript. By the end of March, and after I finished the story, there were 57k words.
When it comes to word count, well, if you know, you know ... as internet meme culture is fond of saying.
Somewhere in the third act -- after Abe slides into the pressure cooker inside the other pressure cooker -- I had to start researching what an alt-right rally looks like and what takes place at these events. It's primarily color -- or a background tapestry, if you will -- that I drape my main story around. It's background, but it's still essential.
So I researched the alt-right. I dove into Nazis, beliefs, rhetoric, and all the horrible justifications used for white nationalism, Holocaust denial, racism ... you get the picture.
It was hard research for two reasons. The first was that most news outlets don't cover the meat and potatoes of the alt-right and their rallies -- instead, you get a polished 2-minute package about what everyone will do if a rally results in violence (or what they did when it did). So it's a tactical issue, research-wise, digging through a shit-ton of examples of the ugliest fucking humans in existence to generate enough of the necessary color for my story.
The second reason this was difficult research is alluded to above: it's a strange immersion into the worst of humanity. Punched Drunk is a story about empathy and, having to subject myself to these abject, horrifying justifications, behaviors, and xenophobic logic ... well, it's more than a little empathetically ironic. My point is that if you have a soul and aren't a total piece of shit, this kind of research can take a toll.
So, then we get to those 600 words.
I'm a huge tech nerd, and I had been trying out a new writing setup with a mechanical keyboard attached to an e-ink tablet. I actually wrote the majority of Punched Drunk using this method and it was as enjoyable as it was rewarding ... as long as I ignore those 600 words.
Again, it happened in the third act. Abraham and his client are working their way through the heart of the rally, and the chapter starts with an alt-right fuckhead stomping around a stage, spouting off all the white supremacist hall-of-fame talking points.
It's some ugly shit. And because of the writing process, every one of those 600 words was a struggle to put onto the page. And let me clarify -- when I'm writing story, the words happily flow right out, most of the time. In this case, since it was the research-based color (and it was genuinely sickening ideology), every word was fucking. Hard. TO WRITE.
But I got it down. And rule number one in writing is to just worry about getting something on the page. You can worry about making it good some other time.
I closed the app on the e-ink tablet and walked away, relieved to have completed what had turned into one of the most challenging parts of the book.
600 fucking words. Not a lot, but again -- if you know, you know.
When I came back to the file for a once-over and polish and to, hopefully, finish the chapter and print it out, I discovered the unthinkable had happened.
The application on the tablet did not save my writing.
Those 600 words -- those 600 horrible fucking words -- were lost.
Immediately, the logical side of my brain starts telling me IT'S ONLY 600 WORDS. I'll rewrite it. This is what I do -- write and then rewrite and the rewrite some more. And I'll hammer out a quick outline while the scene is still fresh and then chip away at those awful, horrible, soul-sucking alt-right details later -- but wait, hold on!
The other side of my brain has something to say about this, too. It's slipped quickly into a familiar, compulsive abyss, checking Google Drive and digging through the file structure of the tablet -- where are those documents saved and could there be a record of keystrokes on this thing??
I lost 600 of some of the most challenging words I ever wrote BECAUSE IT DIDN'T FUCKING SAVE. Because I was using an unproven writing setup. Because I didn't select-all, copy, and double-check that it was saved before walking away.
I DID THIS TO MYSELF. The sheer stupidity of losing 600 words -- words that the logical side of my brain were attempting to rationally, calmly, rewrite -- plunged me into a compulsive depression that I've been long familiar with.
It was a devastating and debilitating kind of trauma, compounded by the logical side of my brain insisting I was an idiot for feeling traumatized by this loss. You wanna know trauma?! You wanna know debilitating?!
Fuck you. You're gonna rewrite the 600 words and move on. This is nothing compared to REAL trauma.
... maybe. Maybe it isn't. Then again, maybe it is.
Yes, I rewrote the 600 words. I don't know if they were better or worse than the original pass, but they're on the page, and the page is finished.
The trauma isn't gone because, I guess, it wasn't so much about the 600 words as it was the 600 words prying open an exhausting, painful scar carved across my brain by rampant and illogical compulsion.
Most of the time, I keep the compulsion in check and under control. Most of the time, I forget it's even there.
And then ... when I'm at my most vulnerable ... something black and invisible and abyss-ful taps me on the shoulder, grinning manically and whispering ...
"... didja miss me?"
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