You can’t always write what you want

Topics/tags: Writing, short

Tonight has not been a good night for musing. I ended the day with a lot of ideas for a follow-up essay to my notes on creating new letterhead. While that essay had ended on a positive note [1], I encountered a host of other issues. But, well, that was a nontrivial musing and I had a lot of preparation to do for game night this week. Game night also went late; folks stayed until a bit after 11:00 p.m., and I stayed up with them. Even though I did start to write a bit while they were finishing up, I didn’t have the time or energy for the revised letterhead musing.

Before I came up with the fonts and formatting topic, I had been planning to spend some of today working on my notes for a panel I’m participating in tomorrow. I figured those notes should become a musing. I did develop a few rough notes and ideas. But I realized that I should not post a full musing on the panel until after I participate in the panel. So they remained as rough notes [2].

Instead, I picked up a musing that I’ve been working on once in a while for the past few weeks. It’s a longer-than-normal musing, currently at about 2500 words. I made some progress on it, but I had trouble wrapping up, perhaps because it’s late at night. However, when a musing is that long, I like to have a solid ending. I also like to revisit it to edit. So, even though I made some progress on that musing, I did not finish it.

But my goal remains to muse every day. So I went through the list of potential quick musing topics. My muse appears to be in a bad mood [3]; she [4] quickly rejected each of the five or so I considered.

It’s after 11:30. When I reach this point, I normally write about my experience of muser’s block. But that’s not quite the right term. I was able to write [5]; I just couldn’t finish writing anything I started.

But then our family’s motto came to mind. Or at least a variant thereof. To paraphrase the Glimmer twins [6], You can’t always write what you want. But sometimes you might just find you write what you need. Perhaps I needed a night to just write about my experiences writing. Perhaps I just needed to write something quick.

Thanks Mick and Keith.

Postscript: There are, of course, other reasons that I can’t always write (or at least can’t post) what I want. Good taste. Decorum. A desire to keep my job. Maybe I’ll write about those other reasons in the future.
However, this musing is supposed to be short.

[1] And even continued on a positive note; my contact in Communications generally liked my custom letterhead.

[2] I’ll need to make them much smoother before the panel.

[3] Or perhaps my failure at the other two musings put my muse in a bad mood.

[4] I’ve forgotten, do I gender my muse? I think so.

[5] I even took some notes for the musing that is tentatively entitled Frustrated with fonts and formatting.

[6] No relation to Glimmer labs.

Version 1.0 of 2018-05-30.