"today i grew eight inches and three years in my mind, because i am sick of having so much to learn. you told me i was born yesterday, and i told you that made me a virgin. my mind is on fire and your hair feels like papyrus and my mind is on fire and my mind is on fire"
mama said by ~eaglewarrio9
I am growing and not in any particular direction. Just growing and branching out into things, then retracting when I am unhappy with what I find. I don't like people touching me, except for hugs. I stress over everything and don't move to fix the things I stress over, or else I do and then I stress that what I've done wasn't the solution the situation needed. I worry about money constantly. I don't spend money unless with friends, but once with friends my money is as good as gone. My friends all have more money than I do. Most of them have jobs and/or driver's licenses. I have neither, and though both are on the list of things to do, it seems like something I will struggle with, for some reason or another. I worry that I don't have a good enough resume to be hired. I worry that my blind eye will cause me to be in accidents, or else that I won't be allowed to get my license because of it.
I worry that I am not good enough to graduate from college, or that I won't be good enough to get into a master's program for creative writing, or that we can't afford for me to go to a master's program, or that I will reach my limit with writing and I will grow tired. My writing feels stagnant lately. I can tell when something I've written is useful when compared to things that are just experimental, but I can't tell if useful is good, or if it's even helpful, or if it's something I could reasonably send to publishers. There have been a few poems I've known in my gut to be really good. But I can't send those to publishers until I know whether or not they're shortlisted for a poetry competition I've entered. I doubt they will be, considering how my imagination is going crazy over it. The more I dream of winning, the more I'm sure I didn't win, and so by now I'm fairly sure I didn't get shortlisted. However, results are not until April 30th, and so I have to be patient. And worry. Ten more days.
I am growing tired of the internet, for some strange reason. I don't know why, but part of me knows that I am not prepared for the world yet, and the internet is my umbilical cord to my childhood. It is that part of me that is not responsible for the things I don't enjoy, but rather fully involved in the things I want to be involved in. Which is strange, because in that regard I am okay with life. I am fine with a menial job, no need for excess striving to achieve in the business front. So long as I can get by fairly comfortably, I am content.
But I don't know how long I would be content with that, and I know deep down I really want to succeed as a writer. But in knowing I want that, I know I'm terrified of what could go wrong. I don't expect my fears to stop me, but I do expect my fears to be right, which is what makes this so hard. I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to get somewhere down the line and realize that I'm incapable of being good enough. Sure my stuff is decent. Sure I enjoy it. But if it's not good enough...
lately my writing has become what defines me, even though I do other things. If writing doesn't work out, I honestly don't have a fallback point. It's this or obscurity. I'm trying not to be pessimistic. But the more I learn the more I fear there is nothing to be done about my potential mediocrity.
I think I've said more than I meant to, and in less of a way than I'd have liked. Ah well.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tidal waves and strange sequences.
"Before electric light, you paddled through the soup of darkness as a crocodile..."
It's raining on and off, like it has been the entire week. It's been cold, though. And not in a temperature sort of way, just cold. The world gets distant when it rains. Everyone is in a hurry to avoid the elements, and no one wants to talk. Everyone just wants to get where they're going.
Being exposed to the elements alone, though...well, it's almost refreshing.
There was no one here Monday. The fountains were running, the rain was pouring, and no one was here. To hear your own boots echo off the ground in the middle of a place like this just doesn't happen. But it was nice. For the first time in almost 21 years, I actually kind of enjoyed the rain. It was a strange echoed combination of me, the rain, and the wind, and it was peaceful. Tuning out the world to the sound of music and singing is something I do fairly often, but tuning into the world as well as the music at the same time...they interacted so interestingly.
It almost makes me like the rain. Almost.
"While we're tidal and flexed on a full moon, it'd be a sure sure shame to not do..."
I found a small book last week, written by one of my favorite authors and the title including one of my favorite creatures. The library was telling me to check it out. So I did. I wasn't expecting Joyce Carol Oates's Triumph of the Spider Monkey to be quite what it was.
That is, I wasn't expecting it to be exactly the sort of book I was looking for.
I've been writing several short stories on this character, Akira Nozaki, for some time. And something small inside me told me I should collect them and make an overall story out of it. I was not expecting Triumph of the Spider Monkey to be in exactly the sort of format that I had considered putting the stories in. I was not expecting it to be so unusual, yet engaging. I was not expecting that there would be such an element of non-understanding to it.
I was not expecting to find direction in a book I knew nothing about.
Hopefully I'll be able to keep writing soon. I haven't felt like writing much lately, but I blame that on the loss of my computer, which is not back from the shop and is not showing signs of being back from the shop any time soon...all the same, I have paper and pens if something should strike me. There is a lot to Akira, and this structure of the stories should allow for a lot, most of which I hadn't even thought to explore before. It's exciting.
"Do it for all the times we wished we had!"
It's raining on and off, like it has been the entire week. It's been cold, though. And not in a temperature sort of way, just cold. The world gets distant when it rains. Everyone is in a hurry to avoid the elements, and no one wants to talk. Everyone just wants to get where they're going.
Being exposed to the elements alone, though...well, it's almost refreshing.
There was no one here Monday. The fountains were running, the rain was pouring, and no one was here. To hear your own boots echo off the ground in the middle of a place like this just doesn't happen. But it was nice. For the first time in almost 21 years, I actually kind of enjoyed the rain. It was a strange echoed combination of me, the rain, and the wind, and it was peaceful. Tuning out the world to the sound of music and singing is something I do fairly often, but tuning into the world as well as the music at the same time...they interacted so interestingly.
It almost makes me like the rain. Almost.
"While we're tidal and flexed on a full moon, it'd be a sure sure shame to not do..."
I found a small book last week, written by one of my favorite authors and the title including one of my favorite creatures. The library was telling me to check it out. So I did. I wasn't expecting Joyce Carol Oates's Triumph of the Spider Monkey to be quite what it was.
That is, I wasn't expecting it to be exactly the sort of book I was looking for.
I've been writing several short stories on this character, Akira Nozaki, for some time. And something small inside me told me I should collect them and make an overall story out of it. I was not expecting Triumph of the Spider Monkey to be in exactly the sort of format that I had considered putting the stories in. I was not expecting it to be so unusual, yet engaging. I was not expecting that there would be such an element of non-understanding to it.
I was not expecting to find direction in a book I knew nothing about.
Hopefully I'll be able to keep writing soon. I haven't felt like writing much lately, but I blame that on the loss of my computer, which is not back from the shop and is not showing signs of being back from the shop any time soon...all the same, I have paper and pens if something should strike me. There is a lot to Akira, and this structure of the stories should allow for a lot, most of which I hadn't even thought to explore before. It's exciting.
"Do it for all the times we wished we had!"
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
That'll put things into perspective.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier..."
I've only had a few people leave me mid-life, so far. Only two of them have been deaths. Neither of those deaths were "end of life" deaths...least, not until now. There is nothing but fact in knowing that Bill lived a complete life, down to the very last moment.
Knowing that there's no reason to be upset is what makes this so hard.
Bill lived a full life, did everything he wanted to, got married, was happy...and I have no doubt that he's up in heaven with the God he believed so faithfully in. He was a great person, and he did so much for so many, probably without even knowing half of what he did. He affected so many lives in such a positive way...
It's really no wonder this is so hard. The world just lost one of the good ones. I'm not cynical, by nature of being, but there's not likely to ever be a person like Bill again. I'm sitting here in the library, having walked from my dorm, just so I can sit in front of a computer and at least feel a little closer. To him. To someone. To anyone.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
Sitting here in the library willing myself not to crack and be upset because he'd tell me not to. Sitting here in the library listening to The Killers and trying not to sing along because it will make me sad and I can't sing songs like these quietly in the first place.
Is it strange that I'm this upset for someone I never actually met in person?
If you said yes, then I'm going to respectfully say you're wrong. The man is one of the reasons I even bothered really learning to write well. I was interested, sure. I was there, sure. But he was the one with the knowledge who sat down and really willed me to learn. Pointed me in the right direction and taught me.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
It's moments like these that you really feel alone in a library, knowing that you are so lost in yourself that you have to further seclude yourself in a four story building already void of other people by putting on headphones and tuning out the silence.
I'm expecting the books to jump out at me. To be smacked in the face by an American Film Institute catalog as if someone were trying to snap me out of it. And I want to be out of it. But I want to be sad, too. I want to sit and be upset and listen to songs that remind me of people I won't see anymore, and I want to let this out.
I forget what story it was--I think it was House of the Spirits--but one of the characters says that if you are to be sad, you must be sad with every fiber of your being, let every last part of yourself be sad and upset. Then--and only then--will you be able to move on. I'm hoping this holds true, and when I'm not in the middle of a foreign building, maybe I'll give it a try.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
For this moment, though...for this moment I will smile, knowing that I was able to know this man in the first place.
To W. Brown, October 15, 1983 - January 11, 2010: Thank you, for everything.
I've only had a few people leave me mid-life, so far. Only two of them have been deaths. Neither of those deaths were "end of life" deaths...least, not until now. There is nothing but fact in knowing that Bill lived a complete life, down to the very last moment.
Knowing that there's no reason to be upset is what makes this so hard.
Bill lived a full life, did everything he wanted to, got married, was happy...and I have no doubt that he's up in heaven with the God he believed so faithfully in. He was a great person, and he did so much for so many, probably without even knowing half of what he did. He affected so many lives in such a positive way...
It's really no wonder this is so hard. The world just lost one of the good ones. I'm not cynical, by nature of being, but there's not likely to ever be a person like Bill again. I'm sitting here in the library, having walked from my dorm, just so I can sit in front of a computer and at least feel a little closer. To him. To someone. To anyone.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
Sitting here in the library willing myself not to crack and be upset because he'd tell me not to. Sitting here in the library listening to The Killers and trying not to sing along because it will make me sad and I can't sing songs like these quietly in the first place.
Is it strange that I'm this upset for someone I never actually met in person?
If you said yes, then I'm going to respectfully say you're wrong. The man is one of the reasons I even bothered really learning to write well. I was interested, sure. I was there, sure. But he was the one with the knowledge who sat down and really willed me to learn. Pointed me in the right direction and taught me.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
It's moments like these that you really feel alone in a library, knowing that you are so lost in yourself that you have to further seclude yourself in a four story building already void of other people by putting on headphones and tuning out the silence.
I'm expecting the books to jump out at me. To be smacked in the face by an American Film Institute catalog as if someone were trying to snap me out of it. And I want to be out of it. But I want to be sad, too. I want to sit and be upset and listen to songs that remind me of people I won't see anymore, and I want to let this out.
I forget what story it was--I think it was House of the Spirits--but one of the characters says that if you are to be sad, you must be sad with every fiber of your being, let every last part of yourself be sad and upset. Then--and only then--will you be able to move on. I'm hoping this holds true, and when I'm not in the middle of a foreign building, maybe I'll give it a try.
"I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier."
For this moment, though...for this moment I will smile, knowing that I was able to know this man in the first place.
To W. Brown, October 15, 1983 - January 11, 2010: Thank you, for everything.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tired and insecurities
I have been exhausted as of late, even on the days I've gotten extra sleep. I think it's because I've been trying to eat healthier, which has inevitably led to not eating as much, which is probably counter-intuitive. All the same, I feel better eating a sandwich wrap and soup than I do eating a burger and pasta, so I think I'm going to continue eating as I have. I think things would be better if I woke up sooner, so I could actually eat breakfast once in a while.
I've felt very out of it the past few weeks and I haven't been doing things like I usually do. I'm usually keeping occupied on the internet and the like (usually to a fault), but lately I find myself just sitting around feeling unmotivated. I'm hoping that the two week break will get me energized to do stuff again, but that doesn't help me right now. Finals left, a room to clean, packing to do...and that's overlooking Christmas shopping and sending gifts out, which is going to be a task of the ages, methinks...
More than anything else, though, I've been lacking creativity. On all fronts. Usually I get tired of writing poetry, so I write prose, or vice versa. I haven't wanted to write anything since November. I mean, I have ideas in my head, but I have no desire to write. And usually that transfers over to music, and I increase my clarinet practice time. Haven't touched my clarinet since my jury performance on Monday afternoon. I think I just need to read more. And I think I'm going to try drawing lineart over the break, because there's images in my head. I don't know. We'll see.
I've been listening to a lot of music lately. More than usual, I think. Mostly music I've listened to before, though. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen. No idea why, though. I certainly have no reason to be expecting things to happen, there's nothing remotely exceptional coming up save for the holidays. Maybe I'm just being paranoid or something. Ah well.
I'm waiting to hear back from my school's lit magazine. I sent in a few poems, though I probably won't know if I've gotten in until February or March. If one does get in, then it'll be the first time I'll be published in a print magazine. If not, I'll probably be a bit upset for a while, but that's what comes with sending things out for publishing. It could be worse. I'm just nervous. With online magazines, I don't know the people, I don't know the process, it's all out of my mind. But with publishing here I know the people involved, I know the writing preference of the faculty advisor, and I know that I'm not as experimental or as traditional as some of the writers here like to read. So I guess that's my concern, and likely why I'm feeling so insecure of it. I don't know what the staff is going to think of my writing. But I've got months to worry about that. In the meanwhile, I suppose I ought to study.
Two finals to go. I can do this.
Keep smiling.
I've felt very out of it the past few weeks and I haven't been doing things like I usually do. I'm usually keeping occupied on the internet and the like (usually to a fault), but lately I find myself just sitting around feeling unmotivated. I'm hoping that the two week break will get me energized to do stuff again, but that doesn't help me right now. Finals left, a room to clean, packing to do...and that's overlooking Christmas shopping and sending gifts out, which is going to be a task of the ages, methinks...
More than anything else, though, I've been lacking creativity. On all fronts. Usually I get tired of writing poetry, so I write prose, or vice versa. I haven't wanted to write anything since November. I mean, I have ideas in my head, but I have no desire to write. And usually that transfers over to music, and I increase my clarinet practice time. Haven't touched my clarinet since my jury performance on Monday afternoon. I think I just need to read more. And I think I'm going to try drawing lineart over the break, because there's images in my head. I don't know. We'll see.
I've been listening to a lot of music lately. More than usual, I think. Mostly music I've listened to before, though. I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen. No idea why, though. I certainly have no reason to be expecting things to happen, there's nothing remotely exceptional coming up save for the holidays. Maybe I'm just being paranoid or something. Ah well.
I'm waiting to hear back from my school's lit magazine. I sent in a few poems, though I probably won't know if I've gotten in until February or March. If one does get in, then it'll be the first time I'll be published in a print magazine. If not, I'll probably be a bit upset for a while, but that's what comes with sending things out for publishing. It could be worse. I'm just nervous. With online magazines, I don't know the people, I don't know the process, it's all out of my mind. But with publishing here I know the people involved, I know the writing preference of the faculty advisor, and I know that I'm not as experimental or as traditional as some of the writers here like to read. So I guess that's my concern, and likely why I'm feeling so insecure of it. I don't know what the staff is going to think of my writing. But I've got months to worry about that. In the meanwhile, I suppose I ought to study.
Two finals to go. I can do this.
Keep smiling.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
It's been a while...
Life is taking it in turns to be underwhelming and then overwhelming.
I was so excited at the prospect of moving back to school, and at the prospect of having everything taken care of, and then I arrived and...felt dull. The loan fiasco didn't help this, of course, but I was rather unchanged before we knew about the loan, so it didn't cause it, either.
Mom turns to me and tells me I need to pray about the problems we're having right now. She knows I don't. She knows I won't. Even if I did, it wouldn't bring me relief. She wanted me to go to church too. I thankfully have an audition that morning and need to be here, but I wouldn't have gone anyway. I wrote this earlier today, though I won't post it on dA. I don't like it.
I am not at church. I am not going
to church. I am not going to pray.
I am going to write. I will write
about strings and chains and I
will say the same as anyone else
who is sitting in church or
kneeling at sheets. I don't worship
false gods. I don't believe in
the pen over anything else. I
express myself through my words
and through my actions. I don't
need a building to speak. I can't
act with my hands folded together
at the crux of my wrist as though
cuffed. I am not going to pray. I
am not going to church. I am going
to write.
It's not that I don't believe that there is a god. I think there very well could be one. It's just that I don't feel that, if there is a god, he would put us somewhere and then expect us to spend all of our time praying to him. If he put us here, he wants us to do stuff here. So we need to stop wasting time praying and start spending time doing.
School starts Monday. I am...less thrilled than I was before. I usually love the prospect of classes, for as sad as it sounds. But I am not excited. I'm worried about the loan, and about being kicked out, and I'm terrified at the thought of having to live with my parents during the school year.
I'm terrified I won't live up to the expectations people set on me. I'm terrified I'll grow old and end up like my father. I'm terrified that I'm already an adult and I don't know how to file taxes.
My mom told me that I always worried about adult things when I was a kid, and that she had to tell me to worry about kid things.
I never was very good at listening to her. It's not her fault.
I don't have much to say on the writing front. When I write these days, my quality filter doesn't seem to work very well. I hope it's that my writing's getting better rather than I just have no idea, but somehow the latter feels more correct.
This feels cathartic.
I've been stressing about random things for the past month, and now it just feels...like the tide going back out to sea.
I'm listening to Imogen Heap's "Canvas" right now. It is entrancing and helping my mood profoundly.
I think I've run out of things to say now. But I have liked saying them, more than usual.
I was so excited at the prospect of moving back to school, and at the prospect of having everything taken care of, and then I arrived and...felt dull. The loan fiasco didn't help this, of course, but I was rather unchanged before we knew about the loan, so it didn't cause it, either.
Mom turns to me and tells me I need to pray about the problems we're having right now. She knows I don't. She knows I won't. Even if I did, it wouldn't bring me relief. She wanted me to go to church too. I thankfully have an audition that morning and need to be here, but I wouldn't have gone anyway. I wrote this earlier today, though I won't post it on dA. I don't like it.
I am not at church. I am not going
to church. I am not going to pray.
I am going to write. I will write
about strings and chains and I
will say the same as anyone else
who is sitting in church or
kneeling at sheets. I don't worship
false gods. I don't believe in
the pen over anything else. I
express myself through my words
and through my actions. I don't
need a building to speak. I can't
act with my hands folded together
at the crux of my wrist as though
cuffed. I am not going to pray. I
am not going to church. I am going
to write.
It's not that I don't believe that there is a god. I think there very well could be one. It's just that I don't feel that, if there is a god, he would put us somewhere and then expect us to spend all of our time praying to him. If he put us here, he wants us to do stuff here. So we need to stop wasting time praying and start spending time doing.
School starts Monday. I am...less thrilled than I was before. I usually love the prospect of classes, for as sad as it sounds. But I am not excited. I'm worried about the loan, and about being kicked out, and I'm terrified at the thought of having to live with my parents during the school year.
I'm terrified I won't live up to the expectations people set on me. I'm terrified I'll grow old and end up like my father. I'm terrified that I'm already an adult and I don't know how to file taxes.
My mom told me that I always worried about adult things when I was a kid, and that she had to tell me to worry about kid things.
I never was very good at listening to her. It's not her fault.
I don't have much to say on the writing front. When I write these days, my quality filter doesn't seem to work very well. I hope it's that my writing's getting better rather than I just have no idea, but somehow the latter feels more correct.
This feels cathartic.
I've been stressing about random things for the past month, and now it just feels...like the tide going back out to sea.
I'm listening to Imogen Heap's "Canvas" right now. It is entrancing and helping my mood profoundly.
I think I've run out of things to say now. But I have liked saying them, more than usual.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A plethora of completely disconnected thoughts.
Breaking the small habits...not so sure about the big ones...
I am a chronic nail-biter. It's been an awful habit of mine for basically my entire life. I chew on my nails when I'm nervous, when I'm anxious, when I'm bored, when I'm hungry...you get the point. More recently it got so bad that I was chewing all of the white ring at the fingertip off, and then chewing past that as well. I was beginning to worry that the white rings at the tip might not grow back, so I told myself last Sunday that I was going to stop biting my nails. I'm happy to say that though I did come very close to biting them a few times over the week, I didn't bite any of them, and they've all grown back. I haven't felt like biting them today or yesterday, either.
I'm cleaning things up. I used to let things gather for weeks on my floor and then I'd spend hours cleaning it all up. My floor is currently empty save for my electrical cords and shoes. The shoes are lined up against the wall, and the cords are tucked under the desk. The trash was taken out this morning. The doors and windows are open to give the air a chance to circulate so the room doesn't smell so stale. Except my suitemate needs the bathroom, so now the bathroom isn't airing out. Oh well. The rest of the room is.
People walk too fast when they don't need to be. Walking fast when you're in a hurry is one thing, but on a Sunday when there's really not much of anything that needs to happen on a schedule, there's no reason to be walking as fast as some of the people around here do. It's beautiful outside. There's a wonderful breeze right now. It's somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees. This is ideal weather, and people are in such a hurry to escape it for some reason. I had a wonderful walk to and from the cafeteria, just moseying along as I did. Gives you a chance to appreciate the things you miss out on on the average day.
I seem to be growing so slowly now. I'm learning to make up for the mistakes I've consistently made before, but I am still missing on so many levels at this point. How long does it take for one to properly collect their thoughts? Am I still on schedule, or am I falling as far behind as I feel like I am? I hope I'm not lagging behind.
School ends in two weeks. The thought of once again needing a job scares me. I suppose I will make do, if nothing else.
Things are going to go well. So long as I remember that and smile, I will be fine.
I am a chronic nail-biter. It's been an awful habit of mine for basically my entire life. I chew on my nails when I'm nervous, when I'm anxious, when I'm bored, when I'm hungry...you get the point. More recently it got so bad that I was chewing all of the white ring at the fingertip off, and then chewing past that as well. I was beginning to worry that the white rings at the tip might not grow back, so I told myself last Sunday that I was going to stop biting my nails. I'm happy to say that though I did come very close to biting them a few times over the week, I didn't bite any of them, and they've all grown back. I haven't felt like biting them today or yesterday, either.
I'm cleaning things up. I used to let things gather for weeks on my floor and then I'd spend hours cleaning it all up. My floor is currently empty save for my electrical cords and shoes. The shoes are lined up against the wall, and the cords are tucked under the desk. The trash was taken out this morning. The doors and windows are open to give the air a chance to circulate so the room doesn't smell so stale. Except my suitemate needs the bathroom, so now the bathroom isn't airing out. Oh well. The rest of the room is.
People walk too fast when they don't need to be. Walking fast when you're in a hurry is one thing, but on a Sunday when there's really not much of anything that needs to happen on a schedule, there's no reason to be walking as fast as some of the people around here do. It's beautiful outside. There's a wonderful breeze right now. It's somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees. This is ideal weather, and people are in such a hurry to escape it for some reason. I had a wonderful walk to and from the cafeteria, just moseying along as I did. Gives you a chance to appreciate the things you miss out on on the average day.
I seem to be growing so slowly now. I'm learning to make up for the mistakes I've consistently made before, but I am still missing on so many levels at this point. How long does it take for one to properly collect their thoughts? Am I still on schedule, or am I falling as far behind as I feel like I am? I hope I'm not lagging behind.
School ends in two weeks. The thought of once again needing a job scares me. I suppose I will make do, if nothing else.
Things are going to go well. So long as I remember that and smile, I will be fine.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Sporadic thinking
I re-opened Worlds Apart today after months of letting it sit. I felt compelled to write more of it. It's hard to believe, as I write the story so sporadically. However, when I start writing after not writing for so long, I go back to read what I've already written, to make sure that I remain consistent to what's already down.
Now, it's a habit of mine to write each chapter in its own word document. I do this so that the thoughts can be organized more easily. I don't actually like chapter structure, and when I finish the story, I'll either be re-working or removing the chapters. More likely reworking. I am not a fan of chapters, but I think that after a while it would become difficult to read, as everything would mesh together. Anyway, went off on a tangent. The reason I brought that up is because out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the word count was for the story so far. I'm seven chapters in, working on the eighth. I am not even a third of the way into the story yet.
19645. I have almost 20 thousand words.
This blew me away. In less than three years of writing this story on and off, I have written 6k less than half the expected length of an average novel. There are people who write 50k in one month. I am not one of those people. I cannot trust myself to sit and write and write and write prose as though my life were about nothign but writing prose.
However.
After finding that I have made that much progress with this story already, I have decided that my goal for the remainder of this year is to finish this story. If I write one chapter a month, I'll be relatively close to done by the end of the year as it is. However, I know myself better than that. I never write one chapter at a time. I write a chapter and a half, and then leave it for months. So, my goal from here will be to write consistently. To finish this bloody first draft once and for all, so that I can finally allow myself to go and revise the first chapter. It desperately needs revision.
This is good news, though. I am going to do this. I will write. I will do this.
Beyond that, I've made a decision. By the end of this year, I want to be able to call myself a proper writer. I want to be published at least once. I want to finish this novel. I want to write poetry that people can enjoy for its topic AND for its technical skill. I want to be a featured writer. I want to be featured for my writing, not just because I know how to get work done.
I want. I WANT MY SELF-ESTEEM. By the end of this year, I will be able to call myself a writer.
I. I will. No more passive writing because I think I'm not good enough to do anything with it. No more. No more telling myself I am incapable as a means of striving for improvement. I will strive to improve because I CAN be good enough. Because I have improved so far, and I can do so much more. Because I want to. Because I need to. Because I am tired of fighting for approval from others when all I've been looking for is approval from myself.
"Oh now, feel it, coming back again, like the rolling thunder chasing the wind, forces pulling from the center of the earth again, I can feel it!"
It felt so good to say that.
I didn't even realize how much I've been holding myself down. I didn't know. I always told myself it was a means to improve, that if I kept myself down I would work harder. Somewhere along the line, I hit a point where it stopped helping me.
I have been preventing myself from having self-esteem, all the while thinking that I was making things better on myself.
No more.
The next time I smile...it will be me smiling for myself. And I will be happy with myself, even if I am not happy with other things.
Now, back to writing.
Now, it's a habit of mine to write each chapter in its own word document. I do this so that the thoughts can be organized more easily. I don't actually like chapter structure, and when I finish the story, I'll either be re-working or removing the chapters. More likely reworking. I am not a fan of chapters, but I think that after a while it would become difficult to read, as everything would mesh together. Anyway, went off on a tangent. The reason I brought that up is because out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the word count was for the story so far. I'm seven chapters in, working on the eighth. I am not even a third of the way into the story yet.
19645. I have almost 20 thousand words.
This blew me away. In less than three years of writing this story on and off, I have written 6k less than half the expected length of an average novel. There are people who write 50k in one month. I am not one of those people. I cannot trust myself to sit and write and write and write prose as though my life were about nothign but writing prose.
However.
After finding that I have made that much progress with this story already, I have decided that my goal for the remainder of this year is to finish this story. If I write one chapter a month, I'll be relatively close to done by the end of the year as it is. However, I know myself better than that. I never write one chapter at a time. I write a chapter and a half, and then leave it for months. So, my goal from here will be to write consistently. To finish this bloody first draft once and for all, so that I can finally allow myself to go and revise the first chapter. It desperately needs revision.
This is good news, though. I am going to do this. I will write. I will do this.
Beyond that, I've made a decision. By the end of this year, I want to be able to call myself a proper writer. I want to be published at least once. I want to finish this novel. I want to write poetry that people can enjoy for its topic AND for its technical skill. I want to be a featured writer. I want to be featured for my writing, not just because I know how to get work done.
I want. I WANT MY SELF-ESTEEM. By the end of this year, I will be able to call myself a writer.
I. I will. No more passive writing because I think I'm not good enough to do anything with it. No more. No more telling myself I am incapable as a means of striving for improvement. I will strive to improve because I CAN be good enough. Because I have improved so far, and I can do so much more. Because I want to. Because I need to. Because I am tired of fighting for approval from others when all I've been looking for is approval from myself.
"Oh now, feel it, coming back again, like the rolling thunder chasing the wind, forces pulling from the center of the earth again, I can feel it!"
It felt so good to say that.
I didn't even realize how much I've been holding myself down. I didn't know. I always told myself it was a means to improve, that if I kept myself down I would work harder. Somewhere along the line, I hit a point where it stopped helping me.
I have been preventing myself from having self-esteem, all the while thinking that I was making things better on myself.
No more.
The next time I smile...it will be me smiling for myself. And I will be happy with myself, even if I am not happy with other things.
Now, back to writing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
