You've never met anyone as everything as I am sometimes
I've been pretty quiet over here, for a long time. While I enjoyed sharing the Lovecraft, it was just a stalling tactic, and it didn't really sit well with me. Despite my efforts to make it clear that the story I was posting was not, in fact, at all mine in any way, shape or form, I still felt like I was stealing it from Lovecraft. I would feel the same way about Shakespeare, or Austen, or any other words that weren't composed by me. Maybe I'm being hypersensitive, but this is my blog and it's my prerogative to be hypersensitive about things pertaining to copyright, the written word, and other authors. It feels like bad form to reproduce works that aren't mine, even if the authors in question have shuffled off this mortal coil years and years ago. Perhaps the angst is of my own devising. Maybe I am so full of longing to have my own name in print, to have something enviable of my own blood, sweat and tears, that I'm projecting anguish onto the authors in question, were they still living. Point is, it doesn't sit well with me, so I'm choosing to stop. I can't move forward if I'm doing something I don't agree with, so...first step.
Much of the reason I've been quiet is simply because I can't stop bitching. Whenever someone asks me how I am, I either have to respond with the obligatory "fine" or "things are rough." Of course they're fucking rough; everybody is going through one thing or another, be it financial, familial, life planning, etc....if life was ever quiet and happy, most of us would be bored to tears. I think I've discovered that I'm one of those people. Maybe it's the Gemini in me, always of two minds about everything (annoying even to myself, let me assure you), or maybe I was just born inherently contrary, but when things are bad I wallow in it, and when things are good, I wallow in myself.
Those of you who do not have that artistic spirit (mental problems?) may have a hard time understanding what I'm talking about, but it seems to go deeper than a general malaise brought on by a lack of animal proteins or shopping at the dollar store. I know I've spoken of the feeling that I'm destined for something enormous and important, and if that isn't a big ol' slice of ego pie then I don't know what is. Maybe that sense is what urges me to write things down. Maybe it's what keeps me imagining stories of seemingly insurmountable odds. Maybe it's what allows me to briefly appreciate the things I have, like the simple pleasures of a clean, sleepy baby in my arms and a hot cup of coffee. I've struggled with it for years, I've lived in fear of its significance (and then its completely lack of significance), and now...now I don't know. I think I'd like to use it, now. I think I'd like to tame it just enough to tap into its power, without bringing it completely under my control and breaking it.
I'm getting abstract here, and I apologize. The new moon always seems to find me in a philosophical state of mind, and I'm so rusty at expressing myself that I'm having more difficulty than usual in organizing my thoughts into coherence.
I'd like to say that I've found the key to turning my life around, but that would be hyperbolic and patently untrue. I'd be nice, but untrue. I'm closer. I'm not there yet, and there will be setbacks, but I feel like I'm willing now to stop running as a knee-jerk reaction. It doesn't get you anything but exhausted, and if I keep mentally running from myself like this, I'm going to lose things I care about. Things I'm not willing to lose.
So. What does all this mean? More mindfulness, for one. Breaking habits, certainly, especially habits rooted in escaping the present because I'm so worried about the future. I'm bound and fucking determined to finish the first draft of this book, and then finish the one next in line. I don't care if it never sells. I don't care if it sits in a drawer for ten years and I never look at it again; I have to finish it. I have to prove to myself that I can finish a book, any book, and I'm not going to believe that I can until I actually do it. Until then, calling myself a writer or an author is going to sound hollow and pretentious, and I'll never escape the shame of just playing pretend when other people are out in the world doing the things they say they are.
That said, I'm still doing NaNo. I had a huge breakthrough the first year I managed to win, and the second year was a struggle (I've won two of either five or six attempts, I really can't remember), but I crossed the finish line early, and I recall wondering why the hell I didn't just do something a little less intense every day.
What brought this on? I'm starting to have anxiety attacks when I sit down to write. This is not acceptable. I can't afford for anxiety to get enough of a toehold back in my life to start significantly altering my behavior again, I just can't. I don't deserve it, and neither do Nyte and the Podling.
Maybe my life needs to be more difficult. Maybe it's too easy, and I'm skating by on a wing and a prayer because I can. I know there's a core of strength inside me, and it's fierce and scorching and a force to be reckoned with, but I guess my life has been too decent and good for me to need it. Maybe I never had a good enough reason before. Maybe I was coddled and cared for and never had to stand up for myself, so I never saw it except in brief flares of rage. Or maybe I just wasn't ready.
Much of the reason I've been quiet is simply because I can't stop bitching. Whenever someone asks me how I am, I either have to respond with the obligatory "fine" or "things are rough." Of course they're fucking rough; everybody is going through one thing or another, be it financial, familial, life planning, etc....if life was ever quiet and happy, most of us would be bored to tears. I think I've discovered that I'm one of those people. Maybe it's the Gemini in me, always of two minds about everything (annoying even to myself, let me assure you), or maybe I was just born inherently contrary, but when things are bad I wallow in it, and when things are good, I wallow in myself.
Those of you who do not have that artistic spirit (mental problems?) may have a hard time understanding what I'm talking about, but it seems to go deeper than a general malaise brought on by a lack of animal proteins or shopping at the dollar store. I know I've spoken of the feeling that I'm destined for something enormous and important, and if that isn't a big ol' slice of ego pie then I don't know what is. Maybe that sense is what urges me to write things down. Maybe it's what keeps me imagining stories of seemingly insurmountable odds. Maybe it's what allows me to briefly appreciate the things I have, like the simple pleasures of a clean, sleepy baby in my arms and a hot cup of coffee. I've struggled with it for years, I've lived in fear of its significance (and then its completely lack of significance), and now...now I don't know. I think I'd like to use it, now. I think I'd like to tame it just enough to tap into its power, without bringing it completely under my control and breaking it.
I'm getting abstract here, and I apologize. The new moon always seems to find me in a philosophical state of mind, and I'm so rusty at expressing myself that I'm having more difficulty than usual in organizing my thoughts into coherence.
I'd like to say that I've found the key to turning my life around, but that would be hyperbolic and patently untrue. I'd be nice, but untrue. I'm closer. I'm not there yet, and there will be setbacks, but I feel like I'm willing now to stop running as a knee-jerk reaction. It doesn't get you anything but exhausted, and if I keep mentally running from myself like this, I'm going to lose things I care about. Things I'm not willing to lose.
So. What does all this mean? More mindfulness, for one. Breaking habits, certainly, especially habits rooted in escaping the present because I'm so worried about the future. I'm bound and fucking determined to finish the first draft of this book, and then finish the one next in line. I don't care if it never sells. I don't care if it sits in a drawer for ten years and I never look at it again; I have to finish it. I have to prove to myself that I can finish a book, any book, and I'm not going to believe that I can until I actually do it. Until then, calling myself a writer or an author is going to sound hollow and pretentious, and I'll never escape the shame of just playing pretend when other people are out in the world doing the things they say they are.
That said, I'm still doing NaNo. I had a huge breakthrough the first year I managed to win, and the second year was a struggle (I've won two of either five or six attempts, I really can't remember), but I crossed the finish line early, and I recall wondering why the hell I didn't just do something a little less intense every day.
What brought this on? I'm starting to have anxiety attacks when I sit down to write. This is not acceptable. I can't afford for anxiety to get enough of a toehold back in my life to start significantly altering my behavior again, I just can't. I don't deserve it, and neither do Nyte and the Podling.
Maybe my life needs to be more difficult. Maybe it's too easy, and I'm skating by on a wing and a prayer because I can. I know there's a core of strength inside me, and it's fierce and scorching and a force to be reckoned with, but I guess my life has been too decent and good for me to need it. Maybe I never had a good enough reason before. Maybe I was coddled and cared for and never had to stand up for myself, so I never saw it except in brief flares of rage. Or maybe I just wasn't ready.