One of those types of days

This weekend a bunch of time got devoted to cleaning up my office. I even went back into a stack of paper journals that has remained unmanaged for years and managed a huge stack of randomly piled things. That is part of my effort to clean up things. My Scandinavian Designs credenza is certainly a place where a lot of nonsense could be stored. It has rather large storage compartments. One of them unfortunately was filled with a stack of journals, papers, and other collections of just pure nonsense. I have not used any of it in well over a year and it seemed like this weekend was a good time to clean that mess up. I think that has to do with my interesting in getting things extra clean this weekend. I’m not entirely sure where that need to clean came from this weekend, but it certainly happened.

Yesterday, I sat down to watch some football over the air (OTA) which worked out well enough. I had my Google Pixelbook Go with me and for some reason. I did not want to write anything. Throughout the day 3 different games were on the screen. Time passed and writing could have happened, but instead of working out some things on the keyboard my mind just wondered around ideas without producing any prose. It was one of those types of days. It happens from time to time that the writing process just functionally stalls out. I’m rapidly approaching the 104^th post on my Substack writing plan. Maybe something about that is lingering in the back my mind. It is a major milestone.

At the moment, I’m ready to shift over and start the new journey at post 105, but that is problematic given that I’m working on finishing up post 91. The rest of the posts between 91 and 105 are all framed up and ready for writing. The rest of the topics seem pretty workable. I think the blocking factor is just getting stuck on the content for the 91^st post. The main content is already written, and some links are assembled on that one, but it is a short post. The best path forward at the moment might just be to accept the brevity of it and chalk it up to a bit of pithiness.

My fountain pen needs to be cleaned

This current writing streak has covered the majority of the month of July. Part of extending this current writing streak will be about continuing to sustain the focus and routine. While it is barely the start of the day here in Denver the sun is already up. According to Google the official sunrise was 0548 hours which is very early in the day for things to get going. Even the dogs went right back to bed after I got up and made espresso shots. I spent some time messing around with my fountain pen yesterday. A couple of years ago I started a collection of fountain pens. The rest of them are stored in a zipper pouch having been cleaned and put away. You have to use them on a regular basis or problems ensue. I went a couple weeks without using my main fountain pen and the ink will not flow. My main writing instrument is a Parker Sonnet fountain pen with a medium nib. It was manufactured in France and has been my favorite fountain pen for years. Currently we are at a point where my fountain pen needs to be cleaned. That is a point in the life cycle of owning fountain pens that I generally try to avoid. It would have been better to keep using it on a regular basis and not run into this situation.

Maybe the same could be said about the writing process. You have to keep using your writing skills on a daily basis or you get to the point where you need to work out some of the stagnation and get a bit of a cleaning out of the way. Sometimes that could be equated with a false start in terms of writing. The production of bad prose happens from time to time and it certainly could be called a false start or maybe just poor execution. Writers write. You have to sit down and do the work to be a writer. It does not happen in any other way. Unfortunately, not every writing session begins and ends with spinning golden prose. The other side of that coin is also important. In those precious moments of spinning golden prose it is best not to stop those writing sessions prematurely. You have to know when you are in the writing zone and do your very best to focus those golden hours on the right things. A spark of inspiration will strike from time to time and you have to take advantage of those times. They are the ones you have to cultivate and utilize to the best of your advantage. More often than not the process of writing is about being the prompt and just working along a bit a time as part of the process. Following that process is how you open the door to the daily routine of creating output. You have certainly seen evidence of that process across the thousands of words being stored in this latest Microsoft Word document format .DOCX file where I’m keeping posts.

My desk is cleaner than usual

It turns out that sometimes during periods of stress I clean my desk a bit during the day. It happens a little bit at a time. Right now my desk is cleaner than usual. When I switched out the Studio RTA executive glass desk for this desk that fit in the window it was a big change. I had been using that “L” shaped executive desk for well over a decade. It would have lasted forever unless something broke that tempered glass. This wooden desk is a little bit different. Taking it apart for the first time reminded me of just how different the process was. We actually added four brackets to the underside of the desk to reduce wobble. Sometimes our hundred pound dog Rocky runs into the side of the desk and I was afraid that it would tip sideways and plunge my monitors to the floor. Adding the brackets was pretty easy. It will require dealing with 16 more screws the next time this desk is moved, but it is worth it to get that extra piece of mind that the desk is stable.

Today happens to be the default Star Wars day. I’m not sure if we will end up watching one of the movies today with a bit of popcorn, but that is certainly possible. Outside the clouds are creating a gloomy scene. I’ll take the rain of course. Rocky of course will seek out any mud that happens to show up in the yard. I sat down to write for a bit today after attending the Colorado Avalanche game last night. As you can tell my initial writing today was a lot more tactical than strategic in nature. It seems that my focus dipped into the blocking and tackling part of my day. Naturally, I would prefer my focus to be on pathing to the perfect possible future. Sometimes that does not happen and you end up working on the things in front of you.