lmaooooooooo are you actually gonna get this shit done?

reflections on goal setting + a free live writing event for paid subs

I’ve been in a shit mood for the past few weeks. I’ve been working on an essay for the past few months about my dad, and I’ve felt like a literary Sisyphus with my recent drafts. I push up a boulder up a large hill with every draft I write, hoping I’ve reached the finish line, only for an incisive friend to roll it back down with a comment about my content or the style.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to stick to my goal of one well-crafted Substack essay per week, outside of this long-term dad essay. For the most part, I only have time to write during the weekends, so I have to form my idea, write a draft, have Alex tear it apart, polish my essay, hit publish, and then promote it all in a few sittings.

I’m no William Faulkner, who wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks, or GPT-4, who we know can churn shit out like none other. Every sentence I write takes emotional labor and time. These days, writing feels akin to pulling teeth, except I don’t have any anesthesia, so I have no choice but to bear that pain.