10K WORDS… DAY FOUR

BY GUY BENSING | STAFF WRITER

DAY FOUR

One thousand six hundred and ninety words; that is what I was able to push out of my brain yesterday. Most of them were a struggle. My emotions overwhelmed me. My frailties, self-talk, self-doubt, and insecurities all conspired against me. The part of my soul that is happy with being mediocre and giving up felt attacked.

The monster that has been living in my head rent free had to pay up yesterday. He was scared and did not know how to react or accept what was happening. He lost for the first time in an extremely long, long time.

I won a small skirmish. Now the monster and I must get ready for war. Each day when I sit down to attack this project, I feel like a top fuel dragster rolling up to the line. The engine bouncing side to side as the driver feeds it bit by bit the same way you would a baby. Anticipation filling the air, the noise greater than deafening. I sit on the edge of my seat waiting for the Christmas tree to change from red to yellow to green.

The moment is upon us. The light changes. I put the throttle down and …… BOOM….. the engine explodes. The emotions that just arose are the same ones I feel each morning when I try to start my day. Like Meatloaf sang, “All revved up with no place to go.” Even though I am on the downhill slope of these ten thousand words, the task is daunting. I know I can crash and burn at any second. My fingers are like the edges of the skies. One minor bump, a tiny gust of wind, even just a blink, and it can all come crashing down.

I am starting to feel like Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny.” Near the end of the movie, his character is struggling to figure out how to win his case. That is when his girlfriend, played by Marisa Tomei, starts bugging him about getting married. The stress gets to him, and he finally loses it. He begins listing the many things that are attached to him winning the case. Some, like in every other facet of life, have a greater importance than others.

I could say the same of these ten thousand words. Go back and look at all the importance I have connected to merely typing these letters. The weight can quickly become unbearable.

Now is a good time for me to take a step back and remove some of that weight. If I break it down, the heaviness is the monster having the feeling of being attacked again. He knows the war is coming, and he also knows he is unprepared.

Why should he be? I have never fought with him before. Each time I pulled up to the starting line, he made sure the engine exploded in spectacular fashion. He has to be asking himself, what is different this time?

This time, I am letting the years of therapy seep in. I’m realizing that I don’t have to live the way I have. Just because I FEEL like a failure does not mean I am one. That is an incredible concept. Almost like Billy Crystal said of Robin Williams…what we feel is not always the reality of the situation.

All the stuff that I have attached to this piece is plain garbage. The only thing that matters is that I do it. “You can do it, you can do it all night long” as famously stated in “The Waterboy.” 

I can continue this journey of ten thousand words. Yes, it is possible to finish this and struggle at the same time. Every writer knows that. Each key stroke is one closer to me getting that win that I so desperately want and need. The emotions are just that, emotions…subjective, conscious mental reactions to outside stimuli. They do not define me. They are not who I am.

Who I am might be what this challenge is about. I never completely understood it. I have a friend that is a published writer. Reaching out, I asked them what they thought the theme of this piece is. Their answer did not surprise me, but their response to mine did.

All along, I thought I was writing about me typing ten thousand words. That was what I wanted the theme to be, at least that is what I supposed. When I asked him what the theme was, he said “Traveling forward. Not necessarily with a destination in mind, but on a road.” My self-doubt creeped up. No, I replied, “It is about writing ten thousand words. What am I missing?”

This is where he knocked me for a loop. Ten thousand words are just my goal. This piece is about the journey I am on with sort of a destination. This is the story of my artistic road trip. A journey of not miles but words. 

His response surprised me, because I was so focused on the number that it blinded me to the beauty that lay within the story. The words and how they are used are what will make this what I want it to be. It was always about a journey, just not the one I originally thought it would be about.

I even said it earlier. Some stories tell themselves. I understand now what is happening here. My story to write ten thousand words is telling itself.

This story has allowed me to unlock things I know have been hidden away for so long. Pain, grief, longing, and so many other human emotions. The feelings of each day are also the sentiments of my life. When I started this excursion on Monday, it was not the first time I had thought of it. However, it was the first time I actually started and put those thoughts on paper.

I wonder how they must feel after being locked away for so long. Instead of them feeling elated that they have been released, could they be afraid? Are they worried that they will be laughed at, ridiculed, or shunned because they were never good enough to be released in the first place?

Each moment that I type, I attach all of those thoughts and emotions to each keystroke; forgetting again who this is for. This is not for you, the reader. No, if you like it, you like it. If you don’t, you’re not going to read it and probably have not reached this point in the expedition.

This has to be for me and no one else. Selfish, you might say, narcissistic even. You could be right, but if I wrote this for you, would either of us really get anything out of it? It would only become ten thousand words on a sheet of paper. I feel as if it is so much more than words on a screen.

Now it is my turn to ask you a question. What are you getting out of this? Have you felt some of the same elements and emotions that I have? Has this helped you look deep within like it has me?

I will never know your answer, but I can only hope. Sounds contradictory, right? I just told you this was not for you, but for me. Now I am asking how it is making you feel.

Maybe it is, but there are things that matter to me. Because as I have stated, this is for me, it does not mean I don’t want you to get something out of it. I want those that invest in reading this and joining me on my journey to find what they are looking for out of it.

What that is will be different for each person. While these words will say one thing to me, they surely will say something different to you. It does not differ from the one guy that did not like my introduction to “Damn the Torpedoes.” While others liked it and thought it was on point, he did not. Why? I don’t know. It could be he wanted more from me. It could be how he interprets the world around him. The important thing is that I don’t let it stop me.

Just like I hope my harsher words have not stopped you from getting this far. We all need to do the same thing. Take a moment and go back. Try to see it through their eyes and from their perspective. If I let them stop me and quit, I will never know what amazing work I could complete.

I mentioned I served in the US Navy. It is the reason that I want to write “Damn the Torpedo’s.” One thing that I just realized; I have asked none of my former shipmates to read this yet. Why is an interesting question? Some of those guys I consider my brothers, and would do anything for them. So why not ask a few of them to read this?

I am not completely sure. Am I afraid of what they might think? I could be. Am I worried I have exposed too much of myself? Yeah, I guess that could be a part of it. The number one thing for me is the fear that they will reject it, and that stops me from reaching the destination.

See, here again I am worried that one person may not like it and I have just said what to do if that happens. Writing this will not cure me of my limitations when it comes to these projects. No, but it could make the next one just that much easier. Those are the things I have to tell myself. A win is a win.

While I was working for a private shipyard company, no one wanted to celebrate the little wins. That upset me a lot. From the moment they hired me, I tried to let them know how much I knew about the engineering systems and the tanks on board the ships.

It took two years for me to be put in charge of tanks and when I got there, I helped formulate a plan, and we stuck to it. During the weekly progress meetings, the government rated the tanks Red, Yellow, or Green. That was based on the concern about them being completed on time. Prior to me working on tanks, they would always go red within days of the project starting.

Tanks never went yellow while I was on them. I tried to celebrate this, but was thwarted at every turn. When you don’t celebrate the small wins, the big one means less and, in fact, to me, it can make the big win a loss. That is one reason I try to end each day of this challenge by saying that it was a win. When I go back and re-read everything, I am reminded that this is not something that I was going to complete in one fell swoop.

No. This is a seven-day project, and it will take seven days to complete. I may be ahead of the pace, but as much as this was about writing ten thousand words, it is also about writing every day. This is about me creating a new habit; about defeating the monster. A habit where I am able to sit down and punch out meaningful words and phrases that set my heart on fire.

This is the third time today that I have returned to this challenge. Each time I do it is different. Maybe you have even picked up on that while reading this. Yesterday I dreaded even the thought of this story. Today I have enjoyed the path my story has taken. The word count is not the classroom clock, but a scoreboard that the bigger the numbers get, the more excited I become.

The monster is hiding today. He is not sure what is happening. He knows his power has weakened. This has happened before, but never for this long. I have not cowered this much before. He must be thinking, why now?

This time, I am understanding more about the monster and who he is. I created him, fed him, and gave him that power. It has become time for me to take that power back. I am not a loser or a failure. I am enough.

Yesterday I struggled to reach the five-thousand-word mark. Today I have written more than I have on any other day of this challenge, yet I am not finished. I want to continue. I want to keep unlocking the potential and the hidden thoughts that are fighting to become exposed.

My voice is calling out through these words. It is time I’m heard! it screams. I have spent fifty years locked away. You have kept me silent by forces that I thought I had no control over. I was wrong and now I can begin emerging, like a prairie dog sticking its head up and looking around to see if it is safe. It is safe today. The Monster is losing. I have written more words than any other day. Over twenty-one hundred words. I have explored areas I had kept hidden and I am winning again today. Seven thousand three hundred and forty-five words. Just over the three-quarter pole. This was a great day four.

Day Five awaits.