Writing (Consistently) with Limited Inspiration, or, Ace’s Day to Day Life for 2126 Historians
I've had many different writing projects since I reached adolescence. 3 Tumblrs—including one called Broken Ambition and another called Pride and Teeth, both delicious old emo name, funnily enough the one I can't track down is the one I imagined as professional—a blogspot, and a tinyletter newsletter1. Like this one, they always start with grand ambition and an absolute sense of self-assurance that I will be able to write at least once a week this time. Easy. Then, duration kicks in. The enemy of all my personal narratives, old duration. Somehow, every day during the work week I feel “the most tired I've ever been”, thus, it’s obviously impossible to write. And so, here we are a week post launch, and I'm doing a classic thing people who’ve known me for a while might remember: writing about how it's hard to write consistently.
Here I am doing it a little over 10 years ago.
Here I am doing it a little under 6 years ago
Well, at least this time around, I’ve read a bit more history. Historians are always reckoning with a lack of source material that tells them what people's day to day lives were like. One can either choose a flashy, polemical history , and feel a little bit uncomfortable about the sourcing, or read a more academic history and grumble about how it's just the author saying “now, we can't say for sure whether...” Then there's older histories, which are interesting but also come from a weird colonialist perspective. I digress, I was talking about my own writing, not the histories I have read in the last year or so. I was providing my lovely readers with an excuse for a banal blog post!
My point is that at some point, however many years in the future, I can imagine someone digging up this archive of my life, (if I'm a little bit arrogant.) Also, outside of a historical context, maybe some of this day to day slice of life will be interesting to you, dear reader. With that in mind, a brief account of Sunday, September 6, 2025 from my viewpoint.
I woke up at about 1:36 P.M. (as seen on the kitchen stove) which is later than I'd usually prefer. I took my medication. I woke from a somewhat recurring dream of being back in university, with one or two courses left to finish and almost incomplete. I suspect this was my mind and body remembering the stress of a writing deadline, I've felt it would be bad to start this blog up and then not even write anything more after just one week. For breakfast I had some cold spoonfuls of a hearty spaghetti sauce I've got in a container in the fridge, and pourover coffee. I dicked around on my phone while lying shirtless on the couch for about an hour, primarily this one episode of Gamechanger on Dropout. I did some dishes to clear the sink, they've been getting kind of bad. Unfortunately, I put a CKUT mug that cost me a pretty penny in charitable donations on the kind of weak little drying hook of our drying rack, and it fell 5 minutes later, losing its handle.
I finished making some plans to meet with a friend for boardgames and dinner, and used that as a way to get rid of some the endless zucchini my garden has been providing. I tried to call home to get more details about a canoe trip I'm arranging with my father. Chatted with my roommate P about an Iron Maiden concert they'd done backstage work for.
Then, I managed to convince myself to actually write today. I used my shitty laptop that lags from basic internet searches, and got frustrated with said lag while adding some of the links here. I was pleasantly surprised by my success tracking down the tumblrs mentioned above. I listened to some Owen Pallett, and then some Big Thief. After I finish this bit of writing I'm probably gonna do some laundry, then go to the aforementioned dinner thing with my friend F. I probably should shower, it's been a few days.
Well readers and future historians, that's it for today. Keep your eyes on Acethetics for writing that's hopefully not all like this, I swear I have some things in mind. 2
1 Tinyletter appears to have been completely subsumed by Mail Chimp in a way that destroyed this archive. Another thing, the “google account” vs “log in using your Google Email” thing is a bit of a nightmare for trying to track down 5+ year old blogs.
2 One thing that tends to lead me to procrastination in writing is when I have a somewhat interesting idea, without any real big hook or conclusion to it. I can bang out things that are kind of rambly, but as soon as I want to actually get a real point across, I get scared I'm going to mess it up. Hopefully over the coming weeks I'll have a little bit more energy outside of the day I feel obligated to get something, anything published.
