Writing Like Lifting

You ever heard the expression “heavy lifting” used to describe certain kinds of writing? It’s exactly correct. Some kinds of writing is strenuous. When you write it, your muscles get all tense, your neck tightens up, you clench your teeth. For me, it’s the stuff I write in my own voice that’s meant to inspire. To find that line between glorifying the books I put out and sounding like a self-aggrandizing dipshit, I have to stretch my arm through a crack in the wall, groping with my fingers along the broken bricks until I can feel the water running down the outside of the building.

It’s tricky. I’m genuinely excited about the material I’m writing about (I’m not just being a shill), but I don’t want to gush. There’s pride and then there’s being obnoxious, and I’ve never been good at telling them apart.

My neck hurts.

Music: The Raconteurs, “Store Bought Bones”

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