April 12th, 2025

Only skipped a week

Routine and Practice

The struggle to maintain a proper routine has been difficult recently, hence I wasn't able to write a blog post last week. Similarly, my reading and writing practice has been a little slow as well, most likely on account of burnout as I approach the end of my university career. The cultural pressure, the desire for those around me to give in to "senioritis", aids in helping to destroy my motivation to keep working towards my long-term creative goals.

I wrote a story story earlier this week that I'm actually quite proud of. It's maybe the first thing I've written in a while, or maybe even ever, that I think I don't think is terrible. It's very amateurish, that can't be helped I suppose, but it felt like there was a clarity to its tone and a specificity of its ideas with which I wrote it that I don't think I've ever been able to hit recently. Thinking about it turned out so well, I think the primary reason was that I struck a magical balance between not antagonizing myself over the overall quality, while simultaneously antagonizing myself over making sure every sentence worked. Ram V, a writer who've I've always held as inspiration, once described his process similarly. He looks as it like a stone sculpture, slowly chiseling away at the project until every little detail is perfect.