The Dartboard

The Dart Board

               I realized that writing a blog is a lot like throwing darts at a dartboard whilst inebriated.  The more darts you throw the more likely you’ll hit something, that is, write something good.  I’ve decided to throw more regularly.  Not all of my throws will be on target.  Most of the time I won’t even hit the board.  I hope eventually I’ll be able to effortlessly and efficiently land darts quivering in the red center of the target, but until then, until I learn to throw, all you’re gonna get are drunken, ill-aimed, blog posts.  I’m never going to learn to throw if I continue to fear missing.  So here’s the first dart. 

Afraid to miss

               A good friend of mine who is one of the best writers I know always felt like he was going to get found out to be a fraud.  He would go to every college class afraid someone would blow the whistle on him and yell, “Stop!  Stop!  You don’t belong here, you’re a fake!”  His fear to not be “found out” pushed him to be extremely successful in academics.  And I think he proved adequately that he belonged.  Summa Cum Laude, Phi-Beta-Kappa or whatever.  But he still probably resents the teachers that gave him those A minuses.       

               I guess I should explain.  I’ve always loved writing but I’ve never been consistent about writing or blogging.  I even was a Creative Writing Major in College.  Why?  Because I’ve always been afraid I would write something less than spectacular.  I guess I’m worried I’ll be declared a fraud.  But, c’mon, I got an “A” in Advanced Fiction Writing.  I’m no mere Advanced Fiction Writer—I’m an Exceptionally Advanced Fiction Writer, a Fiction Writer deserving of an “A”.  I have a plaque somewhere to prove it.              

  

               But that’s a lot of pressure to live up to.  What If I spell something wrong or mistake “their” for “there” or “your” for “you’re”?  What if I incorrectly conjugate a verb or, heaven forbid, have a run-on sentence?  It’s much easier not to write because then you can’t mess up.  An Advanced Fiction Writer that never writes can never have their title revoked, you know, labeled a Less-Than-Advanced Fiction Writer.  When they put you before the judge of advanced fiction writing you just demand they produce the evidence for their libelous accusation.  Hah!  You can’t!  Because I’ve never written anything!

               Every time I think about writing, before the pen hits paper, I expect the whistle to sound.  A few sentences go by; the anxiety is no better. I wait for that whistle to shrill.  Peering over my shoulder, peeking anxiously around the corner, a child tip-toeing down the hallway knowing the slightest sound will rouse his father from hibernation with a switch in hand.  Stop!  Stop!  You don’t belong here.  What makes you think YOU of all people can write?  It’s kind of paranoid.  So when I take that first look at the words I’ve written, a few things come to mind:

1-     This is stupid

2-     You’re stupid

3-     What’s the point of even trying, you’re just going to mess up

               It’s a credit to my giant, city squashing ego that I think every word that I speak and each sentence I type will be perfect on the first go.  It’s a kind of megalomaniacal idealism that makes me so afraid of writing anything.  I’m scared to mess up, I’m scared that I’ll fail, that I’ll miss.  But missing and messing up be damned!  How am I ever going to get good at anything if I too afraid to try?  How can you ever write if you’re afraid of looking carefully at that first draft, with all its incomplete sentences and stilted prose, with the conspicuous footprints of verbiage and overcooked metaphor, and saying, “This must go?”  With those words, self-delusion has to go.  When that sentence isn’t unadulterated brilliance, when it’s something more along the lines of pure crap, I’m forced to say, no Daniel, you can’t just breeze along and expect people to dote over your every sentence.         

Advanced Fiction Writing 101

               I took advanced English with Mr. Raines my sophomore year of high school.  I got a B+.  I wanted to go to Honors English but he advised me not to.  I got the counseling talk in his office. 

               “If you talked more, Daniel,” He explained, peering at me over his glasses, “or wrote better, I would recommend you for Honors English.  Let me explain.  Some of your classmates are energetic participants that liven and invigorate class discussion.”  He paused, making it clear that I didn’t fit into this category.    “Others may not talk much but are excellent essayists who have mastered the thesis statement and the five paragraph form.”  Another purposeful silence. 

               I considered the papers I had written for Mr. Raines and concluded that excellent essayists probably should be able to explain what a thesis was.  I couldn’t.  It was probably a bad sign that all of my five paragraph essays were four paragraphs long and that I made pie charts when our assignment was to compare and contrast literary texts.  But no!  I was creative!  I couldn’t be boxed in by any of those stupid restrictive essay guidelines.  My innovated essays redefined the five paragraph form.  My theses transcended what we were taught theses were.  My pie charts blew those stupid compare and contrast essays out of the water!   

               “So I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go into Honors English,” he concluded, smiling at me apologetically.  I was crushed.  My fragile adolescent ego was shattered.  I learned that I was neither a prodigious talker nor a masterful essayist.  Was it coincidence that from that moment on my grades plummeted?  Was it coincidental that from that moment on I started my long-lasting and ill-advised love affair with the fast food chain, Taco Bell?  I think not!  And I think that from that point on I’ve always been deathly afraid of being told I was a bad writer.  In fact, I’m deathly afraid of being bad at anything. 

              

Growing Pains

               If I made a list of the things I regret the most, I would probably put not crying in front of Mr. Raines in that office near the top.  You know, guilt him into placing me in Honors English.  A few choice words.  I’ll try my best Mr. Raines.  I’ll become both a lively participant in class discussion and a masterful essayist.  I’ll even stop turning in the pie charts.  But I guess it worked out ok in the end.  After all, I am an Exceptionally Advanced Fiction Writer.  Suck it Mr. Raines!

               The other thing I regret is not trying out for basketball my freshman year of High School.  For you, oh reader, to understand the gravity of that decision with all of its far reaching and tragic consequences, I have go back a long way, back to when I first picked up that orange spherical object with those weird rubber lines all over it.  You know, a basketball.  Back to the third grade. 

               Actually I don’t remember when I first started playing basketball, but I kicked butt at it.  In third grade I absolutely destroyed this Christian Basketball League I was in.  All I did was dribble past people and make layups but I was really good at doing just that.  I had a tight handle with both hands, could do a crossover in either direction, and ran pretty fast.  I dribbled everywhere.  Inside the house, outside the house, on the carpet, off the carpet, in bed, out of bed.  I slept with my basketball, ate with my basketball, read stories to my basketball, made sure to regularly water my basketball so it could grow to be big and strong.  Anyway, I was probably one of the best third grade basketball players in the world.  Standing a whopping 4’6, an excellent size for a top-flight point guard recruit, my career could only go in one direction.  Up. 

   

               And it did.  My career went up.  Unfortunately my height never quite seemed to catch up with my lofty basketball playing ambitions.  So there I was, at St. Francis High School, standing 5’1 ½ as a freshman, quivering dart-like in my polo shirt and khaki shorts, too afraid to try out for the basketball team.  I was practically a midget.  I don’t think I had hit puberty at that point.  How could I possibly compete with all those tall, post-pubescent boys?  So I didn’t try out. 

               Later that year, I went on to play pickup basketball with players on the Freshman team.  Much to my chagrin, I realized that I could still dribble past people and make layups.  I could still find the open man.  My deft court sense and tight crossover dribble still served me well.  I think I could have made the team, even standing a meager 5’2.  From there on, who knows?  J.V.  Varsity.  College.  Professional.  I mean if Muggsy Bogues, standing at 5 ft 3 in could play in the NBA for 14 years, who is to say that I couldn’t.  I got like 6.5 inches on him.  But of course, after I didn’t try out, all those other kids who were on the team were forced to play hours an end.  They honed their fundamentals on the court, improved their conditioning, and got in-game experience.  But I was too scared to try, so my skills, rather than improving, stagnated. 

               So here I am, a tragic goldmine of untapped, un-mined basketball potential.  A symphony never finished.  An ice cream sundae never to be eaten.  Nope, no delusions going on here.     

The Here and Now

               That all is sad, Daniel, but get to the point.  Ok, I’ll get to the point, now that I’ve lost most of my readership to arduous anecdotes, bombastic hyperbole, and cumbersome analogies.  The point is that I don’t want to live paralyzed by fear.  Other basketball players may be taller than me.  Other bloggers might be more accurate with their dart throwing.  They might even be better writers than me.  But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t write.  I’m here, I got what I got, and I want to make the best out of it.  And the only way I can tap that potential, be it in basketball, writing, singing, or playing guitar, is to vigorously defend my time doing those activities.  I want to do the things I love heedless of their tangible results.  Because again, drunken dart throwing.  Pay too much attention to the darts peppering the floor, sticking everywhere on the wall except for the dart board, and I won’t want to keep throwing.  But throw I must and fail I must.  There’s no other way to get better.  

                For the last couple of weeks I’ve written 1,000 words a day, 6 days a week, and I hope to write steadily at that rate.  I also know that the only way I’ll force myself to cut those dumb metaphors (Dart throwing?  Really Daniel?), derail, err, decommission, those train-wreck sentences, is to write to an audience.  Hopefully I’ll be posting a couple of times a week on things I want to talk about.  The ole East Palo Alto fellowship, basketball, music, books, the Bible, God, whatever else strikes my fancy.