A few days ago, my wife Evi was having trouble with her web hosting company. I don’t know what the crux of it was, but she said that something about the way her account was set up meant she was paying too much for too little. So she clicked some buttons, made some changes, and, well, next thing I knew, my old blog was gone.
As you can imagine, I about lost my shit. I’m not one of those responsible writers that always makes sure to backup my files.1 Except for the few essays I’ve saved in Amazon format for my perpetually-upcoming eBook, the only place most of those essays existed was on that host.
Well, whatever the situation was, happy ending, Evi fixed it and my old blog is back online. I don’t use it for new posts anymore—I’ve fully embraced Substack—but it’s nice knowing everything I’ve written is accessible.
Ah jeez, is this an essay about writing again? Oh my God, if one of you doesn’t kill me, I’ll kill myself. Nobody fucking cares, Joe. David Sedaris doesn’t write about writing. Just write!
Okay, but since I brought it up, some housekeeping: I know I’ve fallen off the face of the Earth since October. Evi says never to apologize for not writing, because people hate it. She’s probably right, except some of you paid me to write, and it doesn’t seem fair that I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. Since all of my paid subscribers are on an annual plan, I just gave every single premium subscriber an entire free year. Thank you so much for your support. I truly love you.
You freeloaders will still get almost everything paid subscribers do. I just won’t love you as much.
***
A little while ago, I had an interesting conversation with a very close friend who shall remain nameless. I mentioned that I’m having an awful time focusing on creative tasks of any kind, including of course writing. I have started several pieces over the last couple of months and could never bring them to the finish line. These were hilarious stories, by the way. The kind that usually write themselves.
But I’d be chugging away, and next thing I know I’ve been dicking around on Facebook for twenty minutes with no memory of how that happened. Then I’d go back to the piece and simply wouldn’t want to write any more. The flow was gone.
“You should try Adderall,” she said.
“What the hell is that?” I really didn’t know.
“It has been a Godsend for my ADHD. I used to get so distracted and could never finish anything. I take an Adderall and holy cow, for the first time in my life I could completely lock in and focus. It’s been amazing.”
I did some research, and first off, I think I may have a mild form of ADHD. Of course, that’s what happens when you use Dr. Google. You can be positive you have anything. Lupus. Ass herpes. Hair cancer. I’d probably better talk to an actual doctor.
Secondly, it is quite possible that if I do have ADHD, I owe any writing talent I have to it. It turns out that lots and lots of creatives have ADHD, and consider it a blessing. In fact, according to this article, for these people, creative projects are a requirement.
I guess maybe that’s me. Do you know how many times I’ve said to myself, “hey, why don’t you give up this writing horsecrap entirely and just focus on mortgages?” Then I flip my shit. I cannot and will not do that. I’m going to go ahead and confess to God, the Internet and everybody that there have been times over the last couple of months that I’ve wanted to break down and cry over not posting one damn essay since October. Like, it seriously pained me not to create.
And, I don’t know, but I don’t think I want a drug to numb that. I’ll just figure it out myself.
~JCS
Or have his own web host.
I've been in that zone where I couldn't write and it was awful. I'm glad to hear you got your groove back!
That happened to me once. I switched hosts and lost 6 months worth of content. It felt like the end of the world.