Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

Writing into the Darkness

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s almost 1 AM now and I’m still awake. Despite having morning class tomorrow and knowing that being up this late is going to make me super tired for my favorite class. This isn’t the first night this week I ended up late. Why? I’ve been asking myself that very same question and so far I don’t really have an answer.

Things aren’t particularly bad right now even if I do have a tone of work from school. With just three weeks left of classes, plus one week of finals, things are getting pretty intense. The two literature classes that were manageable all semester have become a bit overwhelming. Yet really it’s just a lot of reading. Nothing I’m not used to in the end. Except I’m having trouble sitting down and doing it. I’m distracted and I have trouble concentrating.

Dead Wesley Smith talks about writing into the dark on his blog. It’s the phrase he uses to describe writing when you have no plan, no plot, and no idea what you’re going to write about. You just start writing and go. I really like this idea and I’ve been itching to try it. Then I realized that’s pretty much what I always do with my blog entries. I don’t have a plan. Sometimes I have a thought and that’s my starting point. One little thought. Tonight my thoughts are rioting among the streets and alleyways of my mind and it’s making me crazy.

I’m sad and depressed, yet hopeful and determined. Mixed feelings describes it well. Then there’s the fear. The nagging, little voice in the back of my head fear that this is all going to come crashing down and I’m just a stupid little idiot for every thinking I could pull off writing for a living.

A poem written about fear and anxiety. By Aaron Lowe
A poem written about fear and anxiety.
By Aaron Lowe

Late Night, Old Movie

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I’m watching a little movie that came out in 1990 called Pump Up the Volume. Again. I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched it, but it’s definitely over 20 but less than 100. It’s become my go-to movie when I don’t know what I want to watch, or even when I don’t know what to do. If I were to sum it up I’d call it a coming of age story about a high school pirate radio DJ who is searching for meaning in life. The funny thing about this movie is I hadn’t seen it until 2006 or 2007. Go figure.

On the one hand I find the dated aspects of the movie really amusing. In part because I remember what it was like. I wasn’t quite in high school by 1990 so it was probably a bit over my head at the time. On the other hand, I feel like the search for meaning, the struggle to figure out who we are: these things are timeless. Perhaps that is why I come back to this movie again and again. In the end the message of the movie is to find and use your voice. The movie uses pirate radio DJ’s but it was made before blogging or any of the other many free and easily accessed methods people can use to get their thoughts and whatever out into the ether. I myself sat in front of the family computer many a night wishing I could do or write something meaningful, then put it out there for other people. Some things never change I suppose.

Dream on folks. Find your voice and use it.