paradise

Dear Reader/Friend/Shoulder,

Should I even write like this? To you and me?

I'm having second — nay, third — thoughts.

I'm going to let you in on a secret.

I'm super antsy about writing commercially. For blogs and emails. I don't have nearly the “rolls off the tongue” nerdy wordy voice I have here and in other casual text avenues.

And its bullshit, because I know if I talked one on one with a lot of my clients, I pretty much act and talk the way I write here.

Nerdy.

Wordy.

So I'm ridiculously annoyed I have trouble doing this at scale.

There's a lot of chuff about “Impostor Syndrome”.

What is that, even?

I'm not going to pretend to know. I pretend to know things a lot. Maybe this is that syndrome they're talking about! People pretend to know things. Unless you're a two-comma-club investigative reporter with a years time budget to really scoop the truth on a subject, we're all baffling 'em with bullshit. Everyone is an impostor.

College essay writers.

Local newsies.

Husbands to wives and vice versa.

Parents to kids.

Pharmaceutical companies.

Cult leaders.

Marketing agencies.

Publicists.

People. Just people.

I mean: These are Grade A++ bullshitters. Some of 'em are triple-comma-club level bullshitters. Some of 'em are guilty of heinous crimes against humanity level bullshitters.

And we loooove it. We smear it on our faces in prophylactic doses to block out the sun's rays and give our looks a youthful, non-tired energetic glow.

But does it say anything?

No, it moves us along in another day on the timeline, a timeline where the terminal point is death. Not just death, but for the grand bulk of us, “being forgotten”.

The only people who aren't nitro-level bullshitters are people with something to lose if the rest of the world succumbs to the barrage of bullshit.

Old intelligentsia come to mind. Thinkers who have risen above their own self-deluding bullshit to give you the best of their experience-worn brains. I seriously think it takes like 7 decades for someone to get to that point. Maybe that's why we collectively have to live longer...

Back to the subject at hand.

So.

I figured it out.

So

Here's some of my hangup.

I can personally blog or personally email until my fingers spasm stiff, that's no problemo, Joe.

But add a time pressure, boss, and dollar amount to it, all of a sudden it's not fun anymore

AND

I navelgaze wondering, “why would anyone want to listen to me say anything?” “I'm too young. I'm too X. I'm too Y. I'm not Z enough.”

So that makes me a true non-professional. A promising — but ultimately disappointing — amateur.

I growl a bit at editors, because they hurt my feelings. I know consciously they shouldn't, and ultimately we're a team, and the PIECE is the prize, the goal, the focus, but I still can't shake feeling a bit angry, hurt, and bothered that I just didn't get it right the first-first or ten first times, solo. I wish I could have more end-to-end ownership without meddling or intervention. I get too self-conscious.

And just thinking about that editor makes me rewrite paragraphs six dozen different times until all the air is out of the soufflé and all we have is a puck of hard cold eggs and veg. I lose the strength and passion in my voice. I'm tepid, not intrepid.

Then I'm in this “empty ramekin” no-man's land where I think my ideas are shit, my writing is shit, and no one wants to show up, buy my pitches, or even be my friend.

It's a rollercoaster of totally faggy emotions that are solved by

never writing commercially.

But there's another way. Because we can't just not write and not get paid.

I could just take some drugs and remember the PIECE is the PRINCE, and that we all serve the common god known as the PIECE. That's our master and savior, and all parties involved — writers, re-writers, editors, publishers — are teammates working together to rally the Holy Piece's objective into the common GOAL. “Get X to do Y.”

Get prospect to buy product.

Get customer to buy more product.

Get human to feel scared.

Get kid to go to school.

Get adult to go to rehab.

Get woman to have sex with man.

Get group to hate other group.

Get woman to go anorexic, orthorexic, or exercise addicted. (or hop into the nearest plastic surgeon's office)

Idk.

All that. You get the idea. Get X to do Y.

And whatever. We're a team.

The audience is our cheerleader.

Whatever.

Whoopee.

Believe it and it's real.

Idk.

We'll just leave it at this. There's no conclusion. The thought is ongoing. The loop is open. The wounds are real [because I believe in them].

Dear Universe,

Please make me a legendary commercial writer, that net me at least 15k of take home pay per day. When I get to that point, raise it to 82K/day.

Thank you.

Another day in, Paradise

— .:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:..:~:. published not proofread. #NeverLookBackspace! Words, Ideas, Magic copyrighted by Zem in Paradise. this is confidential communication. Protected by US and International law.