Thing 82
They're holding this draft hostage and won't let me publish unless I title it, so here you go
I want to approach this with a second kid frame of mind. First kid: if their cheerio falls on the floor of a sterile room, you trash it and give them a whole new fresh bowl. Second kid: if their raisin falls in the gutter, give them a spoon to help themselves and call it an E. coli immunization. Figuratively speaking, people. In other words: care a little less.
What would that mean for writing, this second kid approach? Thinking about these sentences with less intention, less calculation. Zero “imbuing” the moment with a sense of meaning. Being just relaxed and indifferent and sloppy (or efficient?) enough. If this were post or dispatch 82, I’d crank it out with few fucks. Instead, I’m thinking “rhetorically.” What goes where? What effect does that have? What is my aim? Most of all, I’m thinking about categories: What is this thing that I am writing?
But naming it — post, message, dispatch, missive, letter, beginning, note, intro, note to self with phantom audience, message for my always alpha reader (hello, you!) — is, for now, uncomfortable. So I’ll call it a thing.
My aim here is to just get this thing written, and out, so the next thing is not the first, and soon, it feels routine.
Intention doesn’t need to overtly guide me. My intention already courses under and around every word. It is the impulse that pushes forth these lines and everything I’m about to do.