I’m 90 days away from 1,000 days you guys…that feels monumental. Tonight especially for some reason.
I’m listening to very, very young versions of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill right now because I was re-editing a section of a friend’s film tonight, and this song just really caught my ear. It’s so fucking dope. “Ready or Not.” It’s inspired. It’s polished. It’s raw, and it’s truthful and it’s youthful…I guess that’s really what’s worming it’s way into my mind right now.
I am young. Still. Not for long, but right now I am. And I’m sitting 90 days away from a major milestone.
I sat down for the first time to write this blog with change on my mind. I realized I wasn’t who I wanted to be, and I felt like I needed to do something about it. So I started writing.
I was talking with a new friend of mine…he’s about to have his first novel come out…and I asked him about he came to that place, where he sat down and write that novel, and he described something very similar in his own life. He said that there was an *urgency* to writing that novel…he felt like he had to write it before his pen ran out, before the ink was stolen from him. That really, really struck me.
Now is the time. Right now. There is no waiting…I have to do these things while I can, and a milestone is coming up. It’s the perfect excuse to set a deadline. So here we go:
Starstuff is going to be finished in 90 days. No. Fuck that.
Starstuff is going to be finished in 60 days. I can do it.
In 90 days, I’ll be setting down like it’s day 1 and writing my next novel. This idea that rolls around in my head and makes me think about my brother who is no longer with me. More than Starstuff, much more than Starstuff, I feel like this is a story I need to tell. A story that I’m afraid will dry up if I don’t write it.
Fuck…maybe that means I need to start writing it right now.
Yup.
Fuuuuuuuck…okay, guys. That’s what that means. FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK. Fuck.
Right.
Day 1 starts tomorrow. 3 pages a day. I’ll have to write my outline on my days “off” and do rewrites on Starstuff at the same time and this coming month is fucking crazy but who gives a fuck it’s the right thing to do I’ll figure it out I just have to start and keep going, right? Right.
Sometimes I feel like my headphones on my computer just don’t quite go loud enough. Real thoughts.
This is good, guys. Really good. Day 1,000: the day I finish novel number two. In so many ways it’s the novel I was always meant to write because it goes so very very far back. The furthest back. The earliest stories I ever dreamed are in this novel. And I’ve learned something in life that’s in this novel, something that might speak to other people out there who have lost somebody and know what that feels like…and that’s so many of us.
I had absolutely zero idea this was happening tonight. This is going to be hard…but it’s also going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t how to explain that, really, but it’s true.
The more I write my stories, you guys, the more I feel like it’s the rightest decision I’ve ever decided. I don’t think I can tell someone else’s story, to be honest. I don’t. There’s this screenwriter that everyone hates right now because he’s sold these specs for a ton of money and everyone’s all angry because he doesn’t do studio assignments, he does everything on spec…and I read about that and I was like, oh shit…I think that’s me, too. I think I’d rather tell my own stories. And I think I’d rather tell them from beginning to end. I can do prose. It doesn’t scare me…
…sometimes. Most of the time it does. But fuck it right? We suck it up and we plunge.
I’m just rambling now. Night.
It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight…the music is so fucking good.