STATUS – 02.04.2026 – Rock Bottom Spark

I wrote the above in my Morning Pages journal a few days ago. Let’s quickly talk about it.

I’ve been borrowing from Austin Kleon’s journaling practice for my Morning Pages from time to time, when I don’t feel like doing my 500 or so words every morning. Seeing him use big, bold markers to get a point across gave me a pretty good out when those feelings crept in.

Speaking of feelings creeping in…

I reached the lowest of low yesterday. A low I was scared to reach. But one I realized where I was falling to, I decided to just let it happen. And the funniest thing, as it is with all harrowing life events, they happen when you least expect it.

This was in the line to pickup my kids from school.

I thought, for just one long moment, what if I didn’t become a writer?

It’d be so much easier, yeah? I wouldn’t have to try so hard. I could focus my attention on other hobbies, other interests, not stress out about getting my words done for the day.

Because honestly, it felt like the spark was gone. The thing I relied on, to help me get up before the kids, before the rest of the family, to sit at a computer and work on something odds are no one was going to read, was extinguished. It felt gone. Completely. I reached in to try to find it, and it wasn’t there, just some smoldering embers.

I was honest with myself.

I just don’t have the spark to write right now.

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And I realized, yesterday, in the pickup line for my boys’ kindergarten, that there is no spark, yes, that is true, but also…my car is really, really dirty. Like, I can’t even imagine the last time I went and took it in for a car wash. A couple of months? I thought to myself, “Hey self! Now that you’ve effectively given up on your dreams to become a writer, a published author, you can take the car to go get a car wash!”

And do you know what I said to myself? “Nah. I don’t have the energy today to go get a car wash.”

No spark to get a car wash…huh…

I don’t have the spark to write stories right now the same way I don’t have the spark to wash my car. Or take my wife’s car in to get the oil changed. Or to fold laundry.

But I still do those other things. (Eventually. Scheduling can play a big role in that, too, as a parent of four, you know?)

So why not writing?

And before the boys even got in the car, I found my new spark. No. Not a roaring flame of inspiration, but, something. Something to use. And it will never go out.

The burden of responsibility. I have a responsibility to myself to do this. To make the choice I made nearly ten years ago to walk away from teaching worth it.

Just grab a blank page and let the bad ideas flow.

PROJECT UPDATE:

#AMQUERYING – NESS is up. For serious this time.

CITY – On pause. Until Project NESS’s R&R gets done.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: I have almost all of PokeRemixStudio’s work loaded up on my PSP (which I’m now using as my primary audio player and will talk about later) and came across this bad boy and feel just oh so good this morning.

CURRENTLY READING: Finally finished up As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (B&N) and while it was a hauntingly lovely portrayal of a man I’m becoming more fascinated with, it’s also a revelation of overcoming fear and accepting the past you’ve had. Brilliance and I’m so grateful Anne shared her stories with us.