I started writing about biking just now and wound up talking about depression instead. Gah! Who wants to read that? Pick up John Moe’s new book, The Hilarious World of Depression, if you want to read about how some people tackle depression. I haven’t read it yet, but I love the podcast he does.

This post is not about depression. And it’s not about biking. Instead, I want to write about writing.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but I don’t write.

I’m resisting the urge to backspace over that last sentence because my CLICHÉ! alarm is blaring, but fuck it. Yes, lots of people are frustrated writers, and my story may be pedestrian but it’s mine and you’re stuck with it. Wanna go back to scrolling through Facebook?

I’ve gotten occasional compliments about my writing from family and friends. I graciously acknowledge them, like a polite human being, but what I really want to do is devour the complimenter like a starving werewolf and howl More! More! rampaging over the countryside bellowing to all the villagers: Do you love my writing? Do you? DO YOU?!

That intense need for approval is a good thing, and I plan to start harnessing it. When you want people to like something you’ve done, that means you care about that thing, and caring is the antidote to depression. Caring helps us overcome the resistance to expending effort, and it holds out the promise of feeling satisfaction at some later time.

What I’m striving to do with these short posts is to jump-start my process, to get anything down on the page, and work with it. And do that every day. One thing I’ve learned from years of saxophone lessons is that nothing happens if you don’t practice. When the horn sits in its case day after day, your brain isn’t building muscle memory, and every new practice session looms with impossible hurdles to jump over.

But when you have a daily practice habit, and your body knows how to hold the horn and move your fingers across the keys, you begin to merge with the horn. What you hear in your head can magically emanate from your instrument, without explicit thought. You don’t consciously think Press keys C, B, and A, and raise your tongue and blow for 2.5 seconds. You just do it. It’s such a great feeling to be on the path toward mastery.

I’m realizing that I’ve treated writing the way I used to treat my horn, 10 years ago, before I developed my daily practice habit. I tell myself: I have a talent at this, it’ll just happen. Nuh-uh. Having a little talent or interest doesn’t even plant your butt in the seat. Doing the daily work, marshalling competing thoughts into sentences that flow naturally, one after the other, that’s what builds something.

Do you like it? 🐺