Welcome to the Roadblock
It's not tall but it is heavy
Hello. Can confirm.
I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. For October, the organization is the Museum of Chinese in America. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher, you can always find more details of the project on my About page. The About page was recently updated so it is so fresh and so clean clean. Also, if you want to be a matching donor, let me know.
I have also decided to extend the paid subscription discount offer! Paid subscriptions are 10% off for the whole next year as a celebration for NYC Decade-aversary. If you want to upgrade, now is a great time.
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I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock with the newsletter this week.
Last week, I had planned to write about the week before. But, instead, I was pretty sick and feeling exactly that sick and also a level of pathetic so, I took a detour into one of the tools from the toolbox for when I am feeling sick and pathetic: a gratitude list. Luckily, I had pictures to fill up the list so I didn’t have to use my words. Not using my words for a week was a gift to myself.
I figured I would write about the week I skipped for this week’s newsletter. That week has already happened! Seems simple enough.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about in the lead-up to today, the weekly send date. There are two NYC decade-aversary events to recount. Since a big portion of the newsletter is supposed to be dedicated to those sorts of events, it fits. If it fits, I sits! Just like a cat! Well, if it fits, I put it in the idea bank to write about.
When I woke up this morning, I knew it was a day I needed to put on real pants. Hard pants, if you will. I wasn’t feeling it, whatever “it” is, and I thought real pants would help. Shower first and then real pants. So, I showered first and then put on real pants. Neither helped much. Then I decided that doing some sort of activity would deliver me to it. A home reno show went on in the background and I pulled out a pen and the set of letters to voters I had to complete and got to work. Hours later, the home reno show continued on, the letters were completed, and the sun was setting. I laid down as my room got darker, staring blankly forward while thinking to myself, “What am I going to write about this week?”
The week I skipped is staying in the idea bank, I guess. To be written about in the future. Eventually. Which left me, leaves me, still empty and still stumped.
Often when I am writing plays or poems and I can’t figure out what comes next, I will move from the computer to handwriting. I’ll take whatever line or section I’m working on and write it by hand. Then, I will write it again by hand, maybe in the exact same way. I will keep doing that until something new comes to my brain, until the line changes, until the plot reveals itself. Using that basic system, I decided that sitting down to write something, even sans any ideas, was going to be the move.
Welcome. You are now caught up to exactly where I am. The conundrum has not been solved.
Or, it has been solved. But it’s not very interesting.
Sometime while I was laying in the dark (don’t worry, I did, eventually, turn on a light), while I was thinking on a loop, “What am I going to write about this week?” I also thought, “I don’t have anything I want to share.” …this is a problem when I have built this newsletter on the notion of sharing. It’s not built around a particular topic—not fashion, culture, recipes, interviews—it’s built around me. It is built around the idea that I am more open and vulnerable here than I often am out there. It’s built around the “be scared but do it anyway” idea.
However, I am feeling particularly guarded right now.
I’m not surprised I feel guarded. I often become more guarded when I feel like I don’t have anything light or interesting to talk about or when I feel like I’m not any fun to be around. My walls go up quickly when every time I look in the mirror, I can see exactly how worn down I look. Essentially, I feel this way when I’ve hit a mental health wall.
Writing in a non-fiction memoir type genre usually means that you are the narrator and you are reporting real live events and analyzing the real feelings that go along with them. Yet, the act of writing down these real events and real feelings turns them into a sort of fiction, pushes them towards lore. Non-fiction writing still has a specific point-of-view and voice. It is curated by the author, set up to elicit a certain reaction or feeling. That means, sometimes the author leaves things out or changes the order of events, among other literary devices. Particularly for writing that hinges on memory, our brains aren’t the most reliable narrators. They protect us or are simply forgetful and sometimes, that means we have to fill in our own blanks. Even characterized as a fiction, it doesn’t mean that it’s not truthful. It means it is truthful and.
It’s common for comedians to talk about how when they do stand-up, they are actually playing a character of themselves¹. I think authors, poets, playwrights, artists often utilize the same literary device. There has to be a certain amount of distance to create about something effectively. There has to be a certain amount of make-believe in a real story to illustrate the magic, comedy, and/or tragedy of something. There has to be a certain amount of pretend to function in reality. I mean this, this last sentence especially, broadly. For life and for art.
I think I have hit the roadblock for this week because I don’t have the distance to turn my life into a sort of fiction right now. And I don’t feel like doing that.
All week, I have been thinking about the wonderful people who I have around me. The people who take me out to dinner and send me flowers and check in on me and get locked out of a car in sideways rain while wearing corsets with me. In general, I try really hard to not dwell too much on what is not happening or who is not there and think, instead, of what is happening and who is there. These things are real and they are exciting to write about. Barring my ability to access the joy to write about the wonderful people and the last couple of weeks, I thought I would pick something funny and go full-hog on the humor. Barring my ability to access the laughter necessary to do that, we end up here—a rambling, very current state-of-the-union of this newsletter, my writing process and philosophy, and my mental health.
Like I said, welcome. If you made it this far, thank you for standing with me at this roadblock for the week.
And before you go, I do have one joke for you. A friend of mine is sick and today she said it felt like she has knives in her nose. So, I said to her: Well, that’s one way to get a nose job, I guess.
¹ I am specifically talking about this idea as a literary and/or artistic device. This idea has also been used by some as free reign to say and do whatever they want; a convenient excuse for terrible behavior and to not take responsibility for their actions. I do not agree with using it in that way. The nuances here may be something I explore in the future but for today, I’m referring to the literary device.
This week, it was an off week for paying subscribers and I. If you want to see what happened during an on week, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Remember, for the whole of NYC decade-aversary, paid subscriptions are 10% off.
Thanks for sharing this corner of your brain with us. Writers block and mental health blocks should be talked about and normalized. Hope you’re able to find some energy for the bank soon!