NotebookSon of Bold Venture. A new blog by a great writer who actually fails, too.
Sorry for the blogging letdown the past couple days. I have plenty in the queu, and have been wanting to post some more lighthearted stuff, but it has been a heavyhearted week. There's a post in the queue about that too. Hopefully it goes up by the weekend.
Anyway, I'm here now to tell you that one of my favorite writers, Chris Jones of Esquire, this week launched a blog about writing. This is wonderful, because, as you read last week, Jones is one of those writes I've looked up to for awhile. He's also been kind enough to offer me some advice when he really probably should have spent that time on something else. Like, oh, anything.
I'm happy about Jones's new blog, too, because I am a selfish jerk who is relieved that even he "failed" at blogging. Back in the fall, he started the blog "My Second Empire" at Esquire.com. And, like I've done 1.2 million times, he bailed on it, unsure of which direction to take it. Which makes me feel way better, because he feels like he's bad at blogging. I feel like I'm bad at blogging, too. And so, by basic math, I will one day become as good a writer as Chris Jones.*
*(Actually, I've always been bad at math, too.)
In all seriousness, his struggles with blogging make me feel, well, normal. I don't like overthinking things and I like even less overthinking things and then when whatever overthought thoughts I follow don't work out well. I'm young. I'm ambitious. Failure frustrates me. But it happens even to the best, and in a weird way, while I hate seeing anyone fail, witnessing my inspirations fail helps me keep going.
"Fail" might be too strong a word, but it's the word that came to mind. I know failure is a part of life and career, especially as a writer, and so I am encouraged when others bounce back from it, for it shows me (1) how to keep pushing forward and (2) that even the best fall down. To keep going, we just have to stand back up, and take another step forward.
Anyway, Jones's new blog is called Son of Bold Venture, which is a line from "Death of a Racehorse," an old column by W.C. Heinz that is one of the greatest pieces of sportswriting of all time.
I'd write more about it, but I just read through all his new posts, and then I went and read new posts by Joe Posnanski—about whom Jones writes here as a friend/advisor of sorts—and now I just feel insecure, so I don't want to publish anything new today. So just go read Jones, and then go visit The Poz, and glimpse the writer I hope to become.
Reader Comments (2)
Interesting site. I'll bookmark it.
Sweet.