{"id":2913,"date":"2022-02-23T23:30:30","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T07:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shirscribe.com\/?p=2913"},"modified":"2022-02-23T23:30:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T07:30:34","slug":"a-writer-grapples-with-the-idea-of-writing-in-obscurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shirscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/23\/a-writer-grapples-with-the-idea-of-writing-in-obscurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing in the Absence of Light"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/WJfX_HFV3f4\n<\/div>
Recently I was on Twitter and someone asked to name TV shows with the best theme songs. There are many, but this is one of the first that came to mind. I was a pretty young kid when this show aired, yet it stirred my soul even then. I thought the lyrics were quite apropos for today’s post and that’s why this video is here. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They say figure out what you love to do and find a way to get paid for it\u2026or something like that. I think it was Kathie Lee <\/a>Gifford who said her father told her that<\/strong>. And I guess with this blog, that\u2019s what I am trying to do. I love to write\u2026well, I don\u2019t really love to write. I mean I love to write when I don\u2019t have to think about it much and the writing just flows. When that happens, writing is pure bliss. But that\u2019s totally rare. Most of the time writing is excruciating hell that hardly ever matches up with what\u2019s in my head, though I\u2019m learning to make peace with that<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I really love is telling stories. You see, I\u2019m somewhat of a know-it-all, and by know-it-all I don\u2019t mean I actually know it all. It\u2019s just that I\u2019m so often right that I move through life accordingly. That is, of course, until I\u2019m proven wrong, which has happened more often than I\u2019d like, but not enough to negate the fact that I\u2019m almost always right.  I love to pontificate on the shit that goes down in life \u2013not just my own \u2013 good, bad or what have you. This blog gives me the opportunity to do that. I would do it for free\u2026wait, I am doing this for free, no actually it’s an expense. It\u2019s not even free. I\u2019m paying for this! So I guess I\u2019m still working on Kathie Lee\u2019s father\u2019s advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only am I doing this without pay, I\u2019ve been at this for a minute\u2026the whole time without pay. This is the third iteration of my blogging ventures. I\u2019ve actually been doing this on and off for over 12 years. \u00a0It all started when I turned 30, that\u2019s when\u00a0I created a blog called 365 days of 30. I got the idea after seeing that movie, \u201cJulie & Julia\u201d<\/a> starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, where Amy played a woman who decided to make every recipe in Julia Child\u2019s cookbook called \u201cThe Art of French Cooking.\u201d If I\u2019m not mistaken, she made a recipe every day and blogged about it every day. After seeing that movie, I was like I can do that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Of course I wasn\u2019t about to make my way through Julia Child\u2019s massive culinary tome, but 30 is a big birthday so I thought it would be interesting to write about what it was like for me. It\u2019s an age where people expect you to have your shit together, even though I can\u2019t think of a time when I wasn\u2019t expected to have my shit together, even as a kid, though I never did. Thirty is the age where many people consider you to be good and grown. It\u2019s the age considered by many as the start of being old. It\u2019s a milestone birthday in one\u2019s life. So, inspired by the aforementioned movie, I wanted to document every day of the year I spend being 30 with daily blog posts until I was 31, hence the title 365 days of 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That blog got absolutely no traction. It actually turned out to be more like 65 days of 30 rather than 365 days. And it wasn\u2019t even that I didn\u2019t have anything to write about. The problem was, I just wasn\u2019t up to writing every day. It\u2019s really hard to write when you\u2019re getting no response. It\u2019s like talking to someone and they don\u2019t talk back \u2013 it\u2019s tr\u00e9 frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, when you really want to do something, it\u2019s hard to give it up, even when you don\u2019t get your desired outcome. Funny how it can be hard to keep going and hard to quit at the same damn time. Anyway, I kept going. Sporadic as they were, I continued to post throughout the year until I turned 31, which made 365 days of 30 an even more unfitting title on top of my sparse posts, and so, I changed the name to Shescribe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I blogged under that title for about 10 years, on and off, until last year when I decided to change it once again. This time it was because someone else\u2019s website had a very similar name and she\u2019s had hers long before I had mine. She\u2019s never contacted me. I don\u2019t know if she knows my site exists. Right now, my reach isn\u2019t big enough that anyone would care, but you know, in case I blow up (Do people even use that term anymore? I\u2019m seriously so out of the loop with the slang?), I don\u2019t want no trouble. No need to send me a cease and desist. No need to sue me. I\u2019m already way ahead of you. So now we have Shirscribe.  I play fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no matter the name, the whole time I\u2019ve been blogging, I\u2019ve never gained a big enough following to make a living off of it. At first that was because I simply didn\u2019t know how. Now I\u2019m more aware of the marketing strategies necessary to grow an audience, but I find them really hard to execute, not because they\u2019re complex, but because even if I master them there\u2019s still no guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therein lies the difficulty. Therein lies the fear, which causes apprehension and then paralysis: the thought that you can work really hard for something and still not get it. I was a poor student for most of my school-going years. Not that I wasn\u2019t smart, I just didn\u2019t work very hard. Like high school and college especially, I barely scraped by. Yet for all of the pain and regret that those choices caused me, oddly enough there came a small sense of relief in believing that it was because I didn\u2019t do my best. I could always tell myself that if I would have put in more effort, I too, would have had a better outcome. It\u2019s a crutch of sorts, one whose validity can never be authenticated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because who wants to work hard and fail? Yet in the pursuit of one\u2019s dreams that is the risk you must take. That risk, for me, is writing in the absence of light \u2013 a play on words from the title of the HBO documentary \u201cBlack Art in the Absence of Light.\u201d<\/a> It\u2019s all about the challenges of being a black artist and getting your work seen in a world that so often would rather you be invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the challenges of being a black artist in any art from are unique, having your work be seen is no easy feat for most in general, not to mention getting it to the next level of being celebrated \u2013 that\u2019s a-whole-nother kind of rarity. And it\u2019s that uncertainty that makes me hesitant to proceed even when the Force which compels  me to write in the first place pushes me forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a firm believer that no written work is truly finished until it is read. Like that\u2019s a major reason why I write here is to have it read, and preferably by the masses. Otherwise, I\u2019d just write in my diary. That\u2019s part of the reason I took a break. My blog seemed to be going nowhere fast, and yet it was consuming me: trying to give it structure, trying to make it better, trying to come up with ideas to write about,  becoming stressed because I was writing last-minute almost every week, writing last-minute so often because I barely believed, wondering does any of it really matter when I\u2019m not being seen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet I\u2019m back because overall I believe the work still needs to be done\u2026even if in the dark. Perhaps I\u2019m not meant for many, perhaps I\u2019m called to a few \u2013 Lord only knows. But I pray to God, and I know He\u2019ll answer, that whoever needs to see this will see it, and therefore, I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See you in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the lyrics to the \u201dAmen” theme song as I here them:<\/strong>

Turn on the light of heaven Lord, shine on me
Turn on the light of heaven Lord, shine on me
Shine on me

Turn on the light and put me on the right road. Help me find my way home.
Turn on the light of heaven Lord, (Shine on me)
shine on me (shine on me)
shine on me\u2026
I need You, every day, every hour
I can’t make it without Ya, shine, shine, shine (shine on me)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They say figure out what you love to do and find a way to get paid for it\u2026or something like that. I think it was Kathie Lee Gifford who said her father told her that. And I guess with this…<\/p>\n

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