We’ve had quite a few new folks join the PDW community recently. To you, I say welcome! To everyone else, I say welcome back!
I thought I would take this opportunity to reacquaint everyone, myself included, with the story of PDW and to take a quick trip down literary memory lane.
In 2017, it hit me that I was a full decade out from high school and my career as an actor hadn’t unfolded as I thought it should. I was creatively stalled and unfulfilled. I wanted more. The hunger of my early 20’s had waned and a low-grade desperation took its place. A burst of energy, the kind that comes from realizing that 30 is right around the corner, motivated me to start a blog.
To this day I have no idea where “Pat Does Words” came from, but it seemed like the most accurate description of what I wanted this space to become. It was a repository for my words and thoughts. Maybe I could sharpen my writing skills there too. I built my own website and published my first post in August of that year.
The goal was to post a new essay every Friday. It could be about any topic I wanted, knowing it would likely be about the creative process, my life as an actor, and my life as a human. Some months were more consistent than others but, here we are, 7 years later and I have published hundreds of essays. Eventually in September of 2020, I moved that clunky blog over to Substack and it’s be symbiosis ever since.
This thing, with its small but loyal readership, has become one of the greatest endeavors of my life. In many ways it is my life’s work. I’ve exposed the rawest parts of me, fumbled my way through poetry, dipped my toe into surrealism, and learned the discipline of a creative practice. Along the way, I’ve developed a voice and a style. I learned how to write.
Recently a friend said that my writing has become “incandescent.” It’s probably the single greatest compliment a writer could ever get. And while I’m sure the validity of that statement could be debated, what cannot be debated is the fact that my writing has certainly gotten much better. Reading my early work makes me smile though. It’s rough stuff, long winded and in much need of editing. But those early essays remind me of the earnest man who thought he knew a few things. They remind me of how I was thinking about the world 7 years ago. They remind me of how far I’ve come. With any luck, I’ll be a completely different writer in 7 more years and 7 after that and 7 after that and 7 after that.
While this certainly isn’t an exhaustive or scientific list, here are some of my essays from over the years that I would give to someone just discovering my work. If that’s you, enjoy.
If that’s not you, you’re still allowed to enjoy.
Onward!
P
My Favorite Essays:
Where I discuss how hard it is to say out loud, “I’m an artist,” (aka my very first post)
That time I clogged a toilet at a convent
This one where I relive the first time I told someone I was gay
The one where Dad and I fight over what a boom crotch is and is not
The Great Sock Incident of ‘08
The soul connection of friendship
Seven years!!!! 💖👏🎉🔥