Going from spark to a steady fire
So, I've reached that point. I know it all to well. The point where a new project or hobby or interest is abandoned. It's happened quite a number of times in my life. I recall bugging my parents about spending my savings on the starter pack for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. My kit contained the Lizardmen, that much I remember1. The point is, I was maybe 13 years old and obsessed with getting this starter kit because I wanted to paint and play Warhammer. I thought.
When I finally bought it, I painted perhaps a couple of figures, and never played a single game of Warhammer. It was soon left behind in a drawer somewhere. And that thing cost me about €100. That was a lot of money in the mid '90s, especially for a teenager without a job. Since then, I've had other interests spark my fire for a time, and then it just dies. The fire doesn't outlive the spark and turn into a steady but maybe less intense flame. Now I'm afraid that the same thing is about to happen to this blog and my writing in general. I have a trail of abandoned blogs scattered over the Internet, but I really want this one to not join the club.
Thus, I now write this post. Perhaps this should actually be the one called "Metaposting", since it's a post about posting. More to the point, it's a way for me to try and get this blog over the fence and out of the place where all my former interests and projects spend their time in limbo, never to be looked at again.
I still read a lot of other peoples posts here in the tiny internet, and it's still very inspiring. Somehow it's also stressful, since I want to also participate and co-create this beautiful place but feel like I haven't got the time, the skill or an interesting enough theme for the blog. I know I can't expect to be a master of the arts of writing or creating interesting texts after having written just a dozen posts. Is that even the purpose of this place?
Robert Birming writes about persistence in doing the work and the benefit of writing even when there's nothing to write about. This resonates with me. And in the moment of writing this, when I went to Roberts blog to find the links to those posts, I found this post. It's ridiculous how well that echoes into what I've written above. Almost spooky that I found that post now. But I'm happy to read that I'm not alone, even though I'm also sorry for you, Robert. I feel you, as they say, the bros.
Time will tell if I manage to make this into a slow burning, but rather consistent and warming fire. I really hope so. Perhaps I should write more about my job? Not everyone put people into a state of controlled sleep and watch over them while a surgeon do whatever they're supposed to do. Or maybe dive into more personal topics? Experiences that has made me grow, grieve, rejoice. I'm open for suggestions.
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Seems to be the fifth edition, according to this nerdy forum post.↩