The Ordeal of Momentum - Blaugust the Twenty-fourth
I have not taken up the Blaugust topic posts, content instead to continue my own machinations — which have been engaging. Even enscorseling. Addicting. But, my dear Eye, motivation is a theme upon which I ruminate often. What ill-gotten arcana, what necrotic knowledge, propels me to screech these screeds into the setting sun?
Blaugust offers Questions, like bones cast upon a ritual floor, meant to guide faltering writers. Because, let us be Real, Eye… let us be old friends. Ancient friends that breathe only the driest air. Writing so much in a single month is a Trial, an Ordeal Path of growth through self-flagellation.
And I am the utmost expert in self-flagellation. Let us then take up their questions, one by one, and see where the ink bleeds.
What questions do you have?
Q: What tricks do you use to keep yourself motivated when something feels impossible?
“Trick” is not the word. Activate is closer. I do not trick myself into doing what I want to do. But I still must stand, shuffle to the machine, turn it on, banish the constant noise, and set fingers to keys.
The activation energy is immense some days. A dread inertia.
But if I just START, I can often GO—hacking through the thick, dungeon-dark underbrush of stasis with a mental macheté.
Not easy. But easy enough.
Q: What are your blogging goals? Do you think participating in Blaugust is getting you closer to where you want to be?
To do the thing. That is the minimum for success. Utility is secondary. If I like what I write, so much the better. But on other days, “like” is a distant, ghostly hound—always chasing, never catching.
Let is the key. To allow myself to like what emerges. To give permission.
SOMEthing is always better than NOthing.
Q: What do you think you’ll get out of completing your Blaugust goals?
An absurdly swollen CSS file.
But truly—a renewed voice. A resurrection of cadence and potency. A clawing back of what I once carried but nearly lost.
I always need words. I always want words. But the crafting of words is the true rite, the ceremony through which I feel alive.
Q: What drives you to blog?
We’ll get to that in a second, my Eye. Patience.
Q: Are you happy with your Blaugust so far? If so, why? If not, why not?
Yes. And with no modicum of doubt. This challenge has been only boon, no bane.
Q: How important is goal setting & reaching your goals to you overall?
All worlds, real or constructed, must have their Polaris. The light that anchors us. Without it, we flail in void.
I had no explicit desire to grind out all 31 posts. What I sought instead was community. My day-to-day is already steered by a yearly theme that colors all.
This year’s theme is Momentum. It creates the space for trials like this. It makes me move. It will demand a longer inscription later.
Q: Did you read any posts during Blaugust (or before) that you found particularly inspirational? Share them!
Why yes.
- Staying Motivated From Contains Moderate Peril
- The Standards we Heap Upon Ourselves From Naithin
- Blaugust 2025 post 7 and i ramble from Rambling Redshirt
- You aren't alone on the internet - Talk to strangers from Muliama
What Drives Me
There are two answers.
- The surface answer.
- The deeper… vulnerable one.
Surface
Word counts.
Most years, I write hundreds of thousands of words. I keep a literal shelf of journals, notebooks, and pages—an altar of pulp and ink. I want that shelf to slowly collapse the world beneath its weight.
Vulnerability
Not to be abandoned.
I truly fear being forgotten. Not wilderness-alone, but alone in the mechanical sense: just a cog in an automaton with no contact outside the machine.
My childhood reeked of abandonment—friends, family, guardians who vanished instead of protected.
I have reckoned with some of it. Yet I still slip into the iron maiden of my own psychology—pushing people away just to fulfill the prophecy of my demons. Fulfilling the cynic is easier than living in vulnerability.
But it is vulnerability that keeps people near. That builds a chosen family. That binds.
And it is hard. At 43. Especially at 43. But still I strive. Still I write. Still I bleed words onto the page for the Eye, for the Family, for the hope of not being left in silence.