Okay, More Like 90%
I write this post while this site is still “under construction.” Yes, it is the first post of my new site, technically, but as I write it the site itself is still hidden from public view, so I won’t become especially sentimental about this moment. Especially when there is a specific issue I want to address with you, my visitors who might not already know what is going on.
TyUnglebower.com is the next step in an evolution of my social media presence. From February 2010, until this month, I kept a blog called Too XYZ. (You can learn more about it by visiting the site, as it remains for archival purposes.)
Last week, on the final regular post on Too XYZ, I mentioned that “100%” of the content over there would be imported into this new space. That wasn’t a lie. It was however, a mistake. As the title of this post suggests, I have imported more like 90% of the original Too XYZ material onto this web space.
As I was registering names, making design decisions, and exporting and re-categorizing nearly two years of posts, something occurred to me that I didn’t think about when I closed Too XYZ. A good portion of the posts from there dealt specifically with the blog itself. Some posts were explaining the blog’s launch, or its reoriented mission. I often wrote entire posts that were tantamount to “State of the Blog Addresses”, which, though important in their place, would seem rather awkward to have here in this new space. After all, I wanted to preserve the valuable content I created there, not simply cut and paste everything from the closed blog onto this one.
So I have opted to eliminate such posts. (Including the previously mentioned final post on Too XYZ, announcing its closure.)
Also eliminated after the import, all of Too XYZ’s January, 2012 content. I dedicated that month to re-posting some of the blog’s most read, most controversial or most loved posts from the previous two years. While I have brought the original posts over to TyUnglebower.com, I opted not to include the re-posts. (Despite each of them containing a small amount of new commentary from me.) It seemed redundant in this venue.
Still, over two hundred posts from Too XYZ now have a home here. All of them have been categorized into the “Too XYZ” Main Topic list, (seen at right under my picture.) As time goes on, I do intent to create new content here that falls into the topic of being Too XYZ, but for now, the category houses the useful content from the previous blog.
If you should opt to explore these imported posts, (and I hope you do, as the topics and issues I bring up therein are still relevant), you can still expect to find such phrases as, “this blog”, which would be referring to Too XYZ. I post an author’s note indicating this fact in most places, but I can’t promise I got every single reference.
Other times, I simple editing the sentence to retain its meaning to the post, sans referencing the old blog.
As I want both old and new visitors to trust me, I wanted to clear this up, and acknowledge that while on Too XYZ I did say, “100%” of the content would be exported to TyUnglebower.com, upon more careful consideration I changed my mind, and have actually imported more like 90% of the content from that site. Full disclosure and such.
Those interested in those posts that didn’t make the cut are of course free to visit the original Too XYZ, which I intend to keep around for awhile if only for archival purposes.
Reverb11: The Finale. Looking Back.
Take a moment to think back on your Reverb11 responses. Have you learned anything? What surprised you about this experience? Which of your responses was your favorite?
So I now reach the end of Reverb11. What started off as a way to kill some time in the first few days this month as I was housesitting for my sister, something I assumed I would only take part in occasionally, but ended up committing to in whole concludes with this final post. I guess the fact that I posted each day from the 3rd on is one of the surprises of this experiences. I will get to the other surprises in a bit. First, let’s break down the final prompt.
Have you learned anything?
I have indeed. I learned, or in the very least was reminded just how prolific a writer I can be, given deadlines and structure. One doesn’t always have such things, and I would not want everything I ever write to be confined in the way the Reverb posts were. Yet I can’t deny how well I tend to cook with just a little bit more fire under me, as it were. (At least when the writing doesn’t involve interviewing other people.)
I learned that I am both on top of some things more than I thought I was, and in need of work in some more things than I thought I was. I am a little darker in places than I realized, and I have the means to examine that. I learned to pay more attention to things happening to me every single day than I tend to do now. I thought I was good at being present, but I learned I can be lacking at that sometimes.
Also learned was a small degree of detachment from my difficulties. Like anyone I have had and will have ups and downs in regards to how bothered I am about the darker aspects of my life and thoughts. I will find myself bothered more by such again in the future, I have no doubt. Yet it will fade again because by writing about my troubles, fears, and obstacles with the intention of explaining them to others, free of the maudlin language I wanted to make sure I avoided this month, I learned that most of my issues have a looser grip on my throat than I feel sometimes when I am in the heat of the moment. That whether through my own means or the eventual hired help of various types of professionals, the things with which I struggle can in most cases appear much more surmountable when shared in an open, yet modest and efficient nature.
I learned that I am a bit fearful of the future, but I also learned I have the means to make a plan because I am able to look at aspects of the whole from a distance, and react accordingly. I guess I already knew this, but I learned I can be better at it than I thought.
What surprised you about this experience?
My own candor.
Now being who I am I have never had much of a problem speaking my mind. I tell it like it is, or like it should be, and to hell if the gurus, thought leaders, or Blog Royalty agrees. Nor have I been shy about sharing my bad luck, or my tribulations. (Regardless of many people figuring I had little of either.) I was committed from the inception of this blog to be honest about what I was up to, and feeling. I have maintained that agreement with myself and with readers.
Yet with these Reverb posts, and the previously mentioned detachment some of them brought about, I was able to open up with my readers in a way I am not always so famous for doing. The less obvious, under the surface, emotional motivation for some of how I think and act were revealed with more frequency, and yet more subtlety than I would have expected before this began. I assure you I have retained my privacy when I needed to, yet Reverb provoked in me a frankness that comes from someone unconcerned about personal judgement. Which, biggest surprise of all, I was. Some of the sharing muscles may be a little stiff from lack of use, but despite the fact I have not bared my whole soul, I have bared more than before, and not felt that worried about it. I still feel some guilt and some shame about where I am in life, but for the first time in a while, not so much that I can’t mention it to others.
Also I was pleasantly surprised at how appreciative people were of my posts, as well as how many new friends I made in the process of Reverb. I welcome them, and hope they stick around for my future online content.
Which of your responses was your favorite?
I guess it depends on the metric, as is so often the case. There are several posts where I quite enjoyed the prose I came up with. I think some of my best formed lines of non-fiction in years have come about as part of these posts. Sometimes they just flowed and sometimes they took some thought, but in either case I am pleased with the results. Some of my favorite prose among my own writing this month was in Traveling, I think. I am quite satisfied with the metaphors I used there.
Then there are the posts that were my favorites to write. Loathing was great fun to pound out. I also got a kick out of writing the inside jacket blurb for my own, as of yet, not realized book in Author, Author.
The most socially important piece, when viewed with as objective a view as I can muster for my own work was probably Let’s Do Lunch, and I almost chose that as my favorite.
Yet in the end, I think Self-Forgiveness is my favorite post from among my own Reverb11 work. It has a little bit of everything in it, from prose I am proud to call my own, personal satisfaction in the composing, a frankness that is the hallmark of Reverb11 as I understand it, and a call to take the most important step we can take in loving other people. Yes. I maintain that if we can begin to truly forgive ourselves, there is little we cannot do for ourselves and for others.
And that, as they say, is that. The temptation is to sum up with some long, sentimental, complex and poetic analysis of the entire experience. Yet I think I will fight with my own inclinations and refrain from doing so. I would hope you could see what each individual post meant to me, and what I was trying to convey in same on the day. Consider it all carefully, and what each prompt as well as the whole Reverb experience meant to me should become clear to you.
In the end, I suppose it was not about each individual stop, but more about the entire month. The journey, as is so often the case, was perhaps the main point of Reverb. And I can think of no better way to end my experience with same then to mention that it was an enlightening and worthwhile journey to me, and I thank each of you for taking it with me.
Happy New Year.
[Author’s Note: This post was originally followed on Too XYZ by a month of reposting my greatest hits in January, and then by the official announcement that I was discontinuing the Too XYZ blog in February, along with an explanation of what to expect in the future. As mentioned before, I have refrained from including those posts here in the new space, opting instead to make this recap of the Reverb11 experience the final entry from Too XYZ that I would include here.—Ty]
Reverb11: Three Wishes
If a genie could grant you three wishes for 2012, what would they be?
For the sake of this prompt, let us assume two things. First, that the laws of physics cannot be ignored. Things get way too fanciful otherwise. Second, that the “Monkey’s Paw” Effect is suspended. It may seem like a silly thing to point out in this context, but being a writer and story teller, it is difficult to get the reference out of my mind.
So, if the wishes were just wishes, with no negative consequences, mine would be as follows:
1) I would wish that my mother could 100% retire.
Because enough already. These are the years she should be enjoying, not raking together just enough to pay bills all the time. A lifetime or working hard should lead to some point of not having to do so. It doesn’t. I hope to have the money to allow her to stop working altogether some day.
2) I would wish for better business sense.
I am right now not that great at marketing, and I need to be if I am to be a full time freelance writer. Or even just a part time one. Or just a novelist. I don’t want to change my personality. I refuse to cold call and hard sell and carpet bomb market as many people do. Yet I know there are more respectable ways to market one’s self and one’s services. I have just been 100% unable to do it. Something is blocked in my mind about it. I hope to fix that on my own of course, in the coming year, at least somewhat. Yet if we are talking wishes, I would wish it to be already done, and in place. Or at least wish for a person to arrive out of nowhere and do it all well for me.
3) I would wish for my own self sustaining theatre company with venue.
Modest stage. Some basic equipment. Dedicated volunteers. Creative control, and no fear. Art for art’s sake. Not art that gets altered in just such a way to squeeze a few more dollars out of people so we can turn on the lights and the heat.
Perhaps not the sexiest set of three wishes you will read about. And I am sure if I thought about this prompt every day, I’d come up with different answers everyday. Plus wishes change over time, whether they are fulfilled or not. However, at this moment these wishes would do a great job in setting me on the right road towards fulfillment and peace. They of course would not provide those things, but they would give me some nice tools with which to do the job myself.
Reverb11: Shake It Up.
Looking towards 2012, what can you do to shake things up a little next year?
Can one shake things up by tightening one’s focus and continuing to pursue that which they have already pursued? Can ridding one’s self of extras actually cause a shake up? It sounds like an oxymoron at first. Yet if you consider that often during 2011 I was anxious about so many goals and plans and problems and thereby running around everywhere trying to put out fires all of the time (some of which were actually there), slowing things down could in fact be a way of shaking things up. I say that because if my mind and spirit are approaching my work and life from a different perspective, things are by definition, shaken up.
I don’t mean it will be a year of leisure. Far from it. I will keep time for leisure of course, but 2012 is to be, if I have my way, a year of some intense work. More work on things with which I am good, and familiar, and the hard work of tackling some new, (and necessary) things about which I know little right now. (I beg of you not to call this “stepping outside of my comfort zone”, because not only am I unsure this applies, but I am just exhausted with hearing that term.)
When I moved into this spare room in Mom’s house, I knew that it would be sink or swim. I have not been here long enough to be certain which it will be. I cannot predict the future. I do however know that if it is to be swim, I will have to in some ways contract my universe, so as to have more control over it, in order to subsequently expand it later. It is this overall theme of contracting in order to expand that applies to many plans I have that will shake things up in 2012. I will in a sense be retreating not only more into my own physical room more often, but also more into my own style, my own work and art, and even my own eccentricities at times. (Things against which I think I have too often rebelled in the interest of financial success.)
My friend Becky likened it to Dr. Who’s Tardis machine, wherein the inside is somehow bigger than the outside. My life shall expand even as it appears to the outside eye to be smaller, both in terms of time spent in one room locked away working, and the metaphorical focus upon my own brand of life, more free of the judgement of others. (Please know in my life I have watched exactly one full episode of Dr. Who. I had to look up key aspects of the series to fully understand Becky’s imagery. But once I did, it worked.)
I mean to delve even deeper into fewer yet more soul strengthening aspects of my existence. Not as some flight of fancy, (though no doubt the business and productivity oriented out there will call it so), but as a matter of health and sanity. It is time to embrace fully that I am Too XYZ, and nourish the things of which I am built. Story telling. Acting. Writing. Spiritual balance. Truth seeking. Greater self-acceptance through self-exploration and examination. Not mere artistic indulgence coupled with navel gazing, but a concerted effort to fully immerse myself in that for which I appear designed in this life. Even if that means I remain a pauper for a while, it will, in theory mean I am at least maintaining my sanity. Sanity brings clarity. Clarity brings options. Options bring confidence. Confidence brings both inward and outward success.
Naysayers to this approach to life abound. On websites, message boards, television, and my own family. I cannot turn them all off, but I can minimize their impact by moving as much of what I am into this spare room/office. To trade in the lack of certain bills that this crucible of comfort provides me in exchange for an intense cocooning into my creative environment. An environment which, I hope, will eventually be a place where I can better my writing, my art, and my business practices. (The latter being by far the most fearful undertaking on this list.) My own pace, in my own way, adopting the ways of others in the small increments I so require, instead of leaping headlong into the vat of Kool-Aid sold by so many gurus.
My goal is not, and indeed my hope is not that I will become a recluse, or hermit. That is no way to be a story teller that affects people’s lives, let alone a man of good business. I won’t be doing the business card exchanges and the other conventional networking stuff of course, because I never do. Yet I will be making connections in my own way, and making that a priority. I will be changing things in my human relationships department. The frequency, nature, and duration of my connections to people will be shaken up.
As will my concept of time. I plan to focus more on the potent omnipotence that is now, and what I can do with it, than the unsatisfying what-ifs of the too far future times. I want to build towards a greater, more satisfying personal future with bricks made of the present. They add up, if we pay attention and lay them in their proper order and location. At least that is my theory. And that alone will be a bit of a shake up in the way I have approached such things before.
I will also, as I mentioned, be shaking things up artistically. I have some big artistic news that I will not elaborate upon here, but will announce in multiple ways once the New Year is a few days old. Stay tuned for that, but for now suffice to say that it too should shake things up for me in 2012.
It’s all rather counter-intuitive. True, I’ve never had any problem telling the status quo to get stuffed, and if you read this blog or know me as a person, you can confirm that. Yet I usually do so in advocacy of people or ideas far greater than myself. Now that I plan to direct all of that in service to me for a while, I am not sure how it will all feel. Yet one thing is clear; it will without a doubt shake things up for me in 2012.
Ty Unglebower 