You guys,
All my ideas sucked this week.
I tried to write this newsletter multiple times. I wrote about how my 1-year-old son scratches my face, pinches my skin, and flails his entire body back-and-forth against my chest and makes me feel inadequate as a parent. I wrote about my field hockey team being so bad that it feels like the beginning of a cheesy sports movie where the team has zero chance of winning any games but somehow, someway, they prevail.
Ironically, I also wrote about the importance of sharing tiny ideas. I even gave a pep talk to almost 300 students on the first night of Write of Passage. I told them, “When you sit down at your computer to write you shouldn’t be thinking about writing things that are important and life-shattering. The only way to build a writing and publishing habit is to have fun. And the best way to have fun is to start with tiny ideas.”
Yet here I was, feeling blocked and hating everything I put on the page.
I was not having fun. And the closer my deadline approached the more pressure and stress I felt.
My husband is the one who has to suffer my whining and complaining and aggressive Jersey vulgarities that come out whenever I struggle. And it was he who told me to write about my experience this week because it’s relatable and vulnerable and that’s what this newsletter is all about.
He was right. Writing about the real struggle I was facing in real time was easy. And fun. And I no longer think all my ideas suck.
We’ll see how I feel next Sunday night.
Essay of the Week
Write of Passage Cohort 7 kicked off last week!!!
Our first assignment was to answer, “What’s your most frequently asked question?”
I’ve been getting a lot of questions around pseudonymous writing, so I wrote about what I wish I knew when I first started writing under Charlie Bleecker 18 months ago.
100 Foot Wave
I’m equally terrified of sharks and jellyfish and have no desire to try surfing. I don’t even like to go in the ocean past my waist.
But I’m drawn to surf culture. I lived in LA and Long Beach. Sam and I got married in Rincon, Puerto Rico and found our home in Wilmington, North Carolina. There’s something about the beach and the weather and the people that pulls me in like a strong current.
So as I watched the surf documentary, 100 Foot Wave, I was in awe of the insane people who go big wave surfing. One such surfer had this to say:
“No one conquers the ocean. It just doesn’t happen. You flow with it very briefly, and if you’re lucky, it’ll let you go.”
As a Type A control freak, I love the idea of surrendering in order to succeed.
---
Until next week,
Charlie