I was one of the co-editors of the school paper in high school and while it was always fun to edit articles and columns and see the result of my hard work every week, it never felt like a real thing to me. It was a lark, a class I took because I enjoyed writing and my papers/essays always garnered good grades. I wasn't in a large school, so I knew most of the people in my grade even if I wasn't friends with them. It was only when I started writing for the paper in college that I felt the weird thrill of being a writer, having my ideas, thoughts, and feelings go out into a world, never knowing who would read them and what affect it might have on their life and mine. I remember very clearly the morning the first issue with my writing in it came out, walking around campus and fully expecting every person to come up to me and ask if I was that new guy in the paper. Nothing came of it immediately; my expectations were too high and I wanted the feedback loop to be as immediate as the Internet can be. Still, by the time I graduated, you'd be surprised how many ways the columns and reviews I did ended up helping me, whether it was--in a round-a-bout way--getting me a girlfriend or having some random guy at the library tell me he liked my stuff.
At any rate, I think the thing that helped most about writing for the paper was both the deadlines and the limited number of articles I had per month. I am not so much a procrastinator as I am someone who lets ideas percolate and soak until they're ready to be served. Often I would know I had to get something written, edited, and submitted by 5 P.M. on Thursday, for example, and I would end up with two or three concrete ideas by Wednesday night. I never missed a deadline because I always had a few ideas to choose from; whichever one seemed the strongest or I was especially interested in putting down would be the one I chose. It was as if every week I was separating the wheat from the chaff in my writing, thus over the course of each semester putting out a 'Greatest Hits' of things that spilled out of my head and unto the page. Looking back now I'm embarrassed by a lot of it but I was young and impulsive, not the epitome of restraint and wisdom I am now. Er, yeah...
I've been thinking about college and how I used to write back then because once again I find myself with very limited time, a lot of ideas, and not enough energy to get them all done. I've tried to do my best to keep my personal life out of Whiskey Pie, but since it's always been a personal thing no matter what I did, let me reiterate again that in January I started working two jobs. One of them is full-time, Monday through Friday, and the other is part-time on weekends (and randomly during the week when other people can't work). Someone with all the energy in the world and no need for down time could keep Whiskey Pie updated five days a week, but I am not that person. I've done my best to keep up with the Monday through Friday schedule I set for myself but increasingly I feel like I only manage two or three really good updates a week and the others are stop-gaps or throwaways.
So, starting next week, I've decided to move to a three-day-a-week update schedule. This will give me more free time so I don't go crazy/can get my other non-Whiskey Pie writing done while at the same time making those three articles as good as they should be.
Just to be as clear as possible, Whiskey Pie is purely a labor of love on my part. I haven't made any money off of it. I do it because I need to. It's an impulse I can't deny. I mean, I don't even know how many readers I have, if I've gained any outside of my friends/family. Probably not...??
The new schedule will begin this Sunday. Whiskey Pie will be updated on a Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday schedule from now on. Or at least until I lose my one or both of my job or bring another write on board or become addicted to stimulants so I can go without sleep.
Questions/Comments?? GregRadiohead@Gmail.com
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