[col-sect][column]You know how many draft articles I have on this blog? Seventeen. Seventeen articles that I have started to write, but haven’t finished. So they just sit there backstage. Not sure how exactly this happens, but there seems to be an optimum amount of effort you want to put into an article. Less than the optimum and your piece will not gel. It’ll be loose or rough or not sufficiently developed. It’ll come off as a piece that makes sense to you, but no one else. On the other hand, it’ll probably have that kind of free style that we all love so much. Interesting side note that the pieces that I get the most positive feedback are the “stream” ones – where out of tiredness, I just go for it and write as it comes and don’t bother to edit. Well I edit spelling… not because I’m a bad speller, but because I’m a clumsy typer. What? the red dashed line says that typer not a word? Rubbish. I’m not writing “typist”. I’m not a typist. It’s not my profession. Ha! Actually, wrong again. because come to think about it, it is actually my job, meaning that much of my day is writing emails – and get this, starting this past week, writing reports. Passionless bureaucracy for its own sake. Action must be taken. BUT then again, my current job is not my profession. Confirmed, there is no “typer”. And that’s still rubbish. After all this time since I first called it. Apparently, just going for it and writing what’s on the mind seems to keep the customer satisfied. Weird. Ok fine. What kills my writing I guess is putting in too much effort; editing beyond the optimal threshold. Then you lose the spontaneity. Then you need it to make sense, not just to yourself but whomever. Then you hear that whomever’s voice and she’s stupid and irritating and needs things spelled out to her, so the writing gets over-explainy; but she’s also easily insulted and a little touchy about her stupidity. So you go easy on her. Such a pain in the ass to write to this person. And when I do, the whole process slows down and gets bogged in bogdom. In the end your piece has been drained of its love. [/column][column]Note to self: yet another relationship between time and love. I have this theory, well it’s not just mine, but whatever. It has to do with certain time frames. Jesus this is oddly hyperparallel to the effort/writing thing that I started off writing about. It’s just that in order to start the fire, you don’t only need the right combination of inputs, but you want to introduce them at the right rate. Huh, this is interesting. Because it’s not like there’s necessarily a set time-frame, but it’s the relationship of effort to whatever stage you’re at. Too much too soon, it breaks. Too little too late, it dies. We know this. Bla bla bla, time window. Yeah yeah, but that doesn’t preclude the right input at the right dosage for the whatever circumstances you’re at to achieve ignition. I’ll do a diagram to make it clear. Some day. Might need calculus.

So yeah. I think that some of the draft pieces behind the scenes actually had potential; they were going somewhere. I’d like to think that they’re 75% done, but something tells me that in reality if I read them again now after letting them sit on the shelf, I’d instantly know that I’d have a better shot of getting it actually out and published if I just started the thing all over. Why am I talking about this.

Because the most recent draft was a light-hearted piece that I started just the other night. But I took too long refining and editing and rewriting and it got less light-hearted. And I’m not sure if its finish-able. Sidenote: it was originally inspired by this video on the onion. I just find it amusing… this common notion that women seem to have that moving in together with the boyfriend is somehow another step closer to whatever it is that woman are after. In reality it’s quite the opposite, as usual: a step in the direction of permanent stasis. But that’s how it works. That is all I wanted to say. But I couldn’t say it right, it got a little heavy and lost it’s edge. It may be retrievable, perhaps this weekend.[/column][/col-sect]

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