Dear World

Please Kill Me,

Good Morning, evening, or night (or apocalypse depending on your take of the current state of the world). Well, last week ended up being kind of a wash for me on the whole “Writer’s frontier” (for reasons both internal and external) , but I’m back and -as we creatives do- I’ve escaped my pendulum of wall to wall {insert avoidable mishaps here] , ready to get back on the page and continue my journey through this thing we call craft (basically perpetual instances of the better parts of the 5 stages of depression).

Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve kind of dropped the ball on a few things as of late. Rather than wallow in my own self-pity (a prison that attempted to render its’ wretched form, last week) – I’ve decided to do what I do best, and ignore the living crap out of everything that isn’t the end game. But first, there’s obviously some sweeping of the proverbial floor that I must attend too.

1.) Becoming Utopia – Yes, to all of you eagerly awaiting my debut novel (which is obviously Becoming Utopia) it is still going to be released. Admittedly, I had to take a little while away from that whole thing. To be honest the stress that comes with people knowing about it (especially now) has been truly overwhelming. Nonetheless, I made a promise and I WILL be keeping it. So stay all geared up for that.

2.) NaNoWriMo – …..Oooooo, yea *drops head in palm* that one. Once again, I’ll be completely honest with you – I had a “Writer’s Block moment” and literally said “Fuck this, I’m getting whiskey” – (probably not the greatest way to handle that problem). However like it or not -I’ve once again committed to something -and if there’s anything that can kill a goal (or a plant) quicker than inattentiveness -I don’t know of it. (I mean, I do – but for the sake of dramatization – I DON’T !!! BURN EVERYTHING!!!!) I may be less at fault for that than my busy work schedule is -but nevertheless, the whole point is to finish something –November or not, that’s what I’m gonna do.

Alright, that felt good. So the questions now become: What do we do when we’re faced with trials and negative thinking? How do we prevent allowing life, to get in the way of our authorial progress? How do we avoid negative thinking; if we can’t avoid it -then how do we get out of it?(And most importantly – Where’s that whiskey that you were talking about earlier?) My solution? Write harder.

Life will always throw us curveballs (whether we’re up for taking a swing or not). The key is not to indulge in the problems that you can’t solve -and to fix the ones you can solve, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Yes, some things are unavoidably time-consuming. But for most things (which are not) we must learn to persevere. We must learn to find comfort in our ritual of writing -even if it’s only for writing’s sake.

You see, the secret about aspiration -the one that no one ever tells you- is that they’re always “up the hill, over the mountain, (and across the fucking lava)” – but that’s okay, that’s why they’re worth chasing. This may come off as cliche’ – but anything worth having is worth fighting to get, (damn, I’m getting old).

Dust yourself off, get over what you can, and get back in the chair. Don’t let ANYONE or ANYTHING distract or dismay you (that goes double for your own mind -you creative nutcase). Learn from the deflated tire, cut down your recovery time, and get to work. (Sure, I may be talking more to myself here). Let’s face it – at some point, you needed to hear this. At the very least, you have it for next time.

Write Harder,

-Antwan Crump.