"Writing is a lonely endeavor. You write before or after the party, not during it...."

I've been writing these pieces for almost 2 years now. Proud to say I haven't missed a single one. I promised 3 each week, and somehow, someway, I've delivered 3 each week. There's been some close calls ("will anybody REALLY notice if there are only 2 this week?.........Well, yes....I'll notice") but my Irish Catholic guilt always kicks in at the last moment. What was promised must be delivered.

It sounded simple at the time. We were deep into Covid lockdown back in February of 2021 when this column idea was hatched, so brains weren't really functioning properly. If at all.

A friend of mine was doing it. He posted long weekly essays….and I became a paid subscriber because they were brilliant (and still are). And then I got really jealous because he was doing it and I wasn’t. So then I did it too.

A mere 700/800 words or so....that being the magic length of a newspaper column. A mere “bag of shells” as Ralph Kramden used to say. A few bloated paragraphs. I was writing that much anyway, I told myself. I wasn’t, not even close, but I wanted to believe my own lie and so I did.

I could write about whatever I wanted. No rules. No boss. No editor (not sure THIS is a good thing but….) Three a week? That gives me 4 whole days OFF. It would be easy.

Note to self. It has NOT been easy.

That does not mean it hasn't been tremendously fun, because it has. I'm grateful for every single subscriber I have. You guys keep me engaged, and hopefully engaging. Before this paid column I wrote some, sure. But I never sweated.

Now I sweat.

Good on you. Writers should sweat.

But I must have been out of my fucking mind. Because 3 columns a week is a full time job, and I already HAVE a full time job. You can see my problem. My approach to time management has always been to wait until the last possible moment and then panic and pull an all-nighter. This has worked so far but makes me grumpy.

My dream remains to have enough paid subscribers to make THIS my full time job, thereby jettisoning the other one and getting more sleep, but I'm gonna need a LOT more of you for that. So spread the word if you can. I'll be forever grateful. But for now at least, grumpy I will remain. And forever in search of things to write about.

Let us discuss my creative process.

In a nutshell, it is this.

Sit in front of a blank computer screen.

Think of something to write about.

The end.

Normal people have something to write about BEFORE they sit in front of a blank computer screen. That seems more conducive to productivity. I am not a normal person.

Sometimes it's dead simple. If there's an ongoing insurrection on live TV I would probably choose to write about that. But then again today there WAS an ongoing insurrection on live TV, in Brazil, and I decided not to write about that. I feel like we've covered this already. Only the color of the shirts and flags were different. The imagined grievances and the batshitery are the same. Why repeat myself? I did find it interesting that the instigator of the insurrection, former Brazilian President and election denier Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Trump of the Tropics", is currently in Florida, but then again of course he is. Also interesting is that the coup is being condemned by virtually everyone around the world except our own republican lawmakers. They may simply be too exhausted from kicking the shit out of Kevin McCarthy all week. Or maybe it's just because....well....you know....

one of these things looks just like the other…..

In truth, all this Trumpian strong-man stuff is getting old and boring. All these rampaging incels are like the hair bands in the early 90s right after Nirvana’s Nevermind came out. It's all getting a bit pathetic. In Brazil many of the rioters were arrested on the spot...a novel concept that might have saved us a lot of time and money 2 years ago around these parts. But whatever.

But I digress. Alas, most days do not feature the attempted violent overthrow of a democracy, so I'm left to my own devices. So I might write about music. Or narrate a recent walk. Or eulogize the recently deceased. Or wax poetic about my favorite watering hole, which recently re-opened with prices so high that I can’t afford to drink there anymore.

And there is nothing in this world I hate more than a mockingly blank page. It's like looking in a mirror and being catcalled by the reflection. So I will find a way to fill it up. Deadlines are healthy, even if they are self-imposed. And there are so many stories to tell. Every person. Every light in every window. Every song. The order in which a finite number of words can be put together is infinite. There are no blocked writers, only lazy ones. My intent is to never be one of those.

Hence, some 300 columns and counting. In my father's newspaper career, he wrote over 4000 of these things, so all I have to do is keep at this until I'm in my 80s. Which I'd be happy to do if you folks agreed to come along for the ride.

Writing is a lonely endeavor. You write before or after the party, not during it.

And sometimes, you write about the party.

Thanks for coming.

In a bit…

—tf