busy busy boy
I had another night that I couldn't sleep, but it ended up being a good thing. I've been writing a lot at night, and last night I think I had my most productive night yet. I did a word count, and I wrote a bit over 4300 words on my novel, which comes to about 12 pages. I am amazed that I got that much written. Of course, a lot of it was rewriting, but still, it counts. I feel like I am on a roll.
This is not something that I have really talked about in a public entry, but I've had a change of plans. I really got clear about this after my last visit to my mother. I was talking with M (her ex) and I said something to him about feeling like I was at a crossroads, and I could go down either path or try doing a half-assed job of going down both and not really putting my all into either. And he said something unusually perceptive. (Not that he is not perceptive, but usually we don't have that kind of conversation with each other.)
As a bit of background, my mother used to teach at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. It's the closest thing to a university for learning to work on people's auras that I know of. And now he is a student there, about to start his third year if I remember correctly.
Anyway, he said that it felt like I really have two choices, that trying to do both wasn't really an option, and deep down I knew which one I feel pulled toward on a spiritual level. There is the one path that Everyone expects me to go, and the one that is my heart's desire, and I knew deep down that I needed to follow my heart's desire.
It really got me thinking.
Going back to school, for me, would be More Of The Same. It would be about getting qualified to get another job so that I could sell myself to some outside authority. They buy my time, and in exchange I have someone else imposing discipline on me, working around someone else's demands, someone else's schedule. I don't think that school means that for everyone, but for me that's what it would mean.
And then there is the option behind Door Number Two... it's still kind of scary to admit it, but I have always wanted to be a writer. I remember teaching myself to read when I was 4, and writing my first silly little poem when I was 8 and reading it over the PA to my school. It's been this secret little fantasy of mine pretty much my whole life, the dream I didn't dare give into. But now, it really feels like that's where I need to put my energy. I've been kinda sorta working on this novel for about 6 years, and having little bursts of productivity, but I always let myself get distracted away from it and never really work out the details.
I remember reading Travels by Michael Crichton when I was in my early twenties. He talked about how, when he was at Harvard going thru med school, he was getting pulled into writing. At first, it was something he did to pay for school. But he felt himself getting more and more disillusioned with school, and with the medical field, and more and more focused on writing; that was where his bliss was. In his senior year, he had what appeared to be an episode of multiple sclerosis. That crisis made him think about what he wanted to do with his life. If it did develop into more than a one time episode, and he did indeed only have at most twenty years left to live (this was the sixties) then he didn't want to spend half of it going to school and the rest of it doing a job his heart wasn't really into. In retrospect he felt like he created that crisis on some level to force him to choose to follow his bliss.
I think I might have done the same kind of thing. Last year, on New Year's Eve, I was admitted to the hospital with chest pains. It ended up being pericarditis, and while it was definitely treatable, it was the second time in a twelve month period (actually, a seven month period) that I had been hospitalized. It was a crisis moment for me. I saw that the stress of working for an airline was having detrimental effects on my immune system, and eventually it was going to shorten my life if I didn't get out of there. My immune system has come a long way since I tested HIV+ in 1999, but it hit a kind of plateau that it wasn't getting past, and my counts were (and are) still a bit too low for comfort, so the threat was very real. I could have literally worked myself to death. I think I needed that crisis, in a way, to set things up so that I could reach this point in my life, where I can actually follow my bliss.
That's really what this is all about, following my bliss.
For a long time, any time I thought about being a writer, I did one of several things. I thought of doing it as a hobby, something to be squeezed into the little bit of spare time I might eke out for myself. Or I fantasized about becoming rich and famous, having this yet unwritten novel made into a movie, with lots of big name stars, getting interviewed by Barbara Walters and The Advocate. Or never finishing it because it is, after all, just a silly little pipe dream, and getting published and actually making a living at it is next to impossible; who do I think I am anyway? Stephen King?
But it's not about any of that now. I can finally admit this, out loud: I have always wanted to be a writer. It has been the dream I haven't dared to surrender to my whole life. I feel most at peace with myself and the world when I am writing. I taught myself how to read when I was 4. I remember so many times how writing has been my escape, my anchor in sanity, my raison d'être. It's always been my most effective form of communication. So many times when I have been confused, writing has been how I found myself again. And there is no way to describe the joy I feel from creating. I know I have this story to tell, and more after this one.
I really feel like things are falling into place now. The dead ends that I have run into with the plot are working themselves out. I have put myself on a schedule, and I am treating it like a job in a sense; I have deadlines for myself set in place, quiet time that is for writing and nothing else. The specifics of exactly when that is has been fluid, but it is no longer this on and off, whenever-I-can't-find-anything-else-to-do thing anymore. And I feel like I have gotten a lot accomplished, even though the actual schedule has been a bit sporadic. On a weekly basis it's evened out.
My intention is to have the rough draft ready in the spring, and to have it published by the end of next year. I really do believe I can do it.
I've got mixed feelings about writing in the wee hours of the morning. On the one hand, I would like to have a little more normal of a sleep schedule. But on the other hand, if this is when I feel my most productive and creative, then I guess that's when I need to be writing. I am hoping that I can have a big chunk of the rough draft done by the end of the year. Surely, if I made this much progress every day, I would, but I can't expect that. I don't always feel this inspired, and I don't always get such a good flow going with it.
Still, even though it's past noon and I am just now thinking about getting to bed, I feel good. I feel like I am moving in the right direction. (and, probably since I am feeling sleep deprived, I feel like I am rambling, so I think I will shut up now...)
This is not something that I have really talked about in a public entry, but I've had a change of plans. I really got clear about this after my last visit to my mother. I was talking with M (her ex) and I said something to him about feeling like I was at a crossroads, and I could go down either path or try doing a half-assed job of going down both and not really putting my all into either. And he said something unusually perceptive. (Not that he is not perceptive, but usually we don't have that kind of conversation with each other.)
As a bit of background, my mother used to teach at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. It's the closest thing to a university for learning to work on people's auras that I know of. And now he is a student there, about to start his third year if I remember correctly.
Anyway, he said that it felt like I really have two choices, that trying to do both wasn't really an option, and deep down I knew which one I feel pulled toward on a spiritual level. There is the one path that Everyone expects me to go, and the one that is my heart's desire, and I knew deep down that I needed to follow my heart's desire.
It really got me thinking.
Going back to school, for me, would be More Of The Same. It would be about getting qualified to get another job so that I could sell myself to some outside authority. They buy my time, and in exchange I have someone else imposing discipline on me, working around someone else's demands, someone else's schedule. I don't think that school means that for everyone, but for me that's what it would mean.
And then there is the option behind Door Number Two... it's still kind of scary to admit it, but I have always wanted to be a writer. I remember teaching myself to read when I was 4, and writing my first silly little poem when I was 8 and reading it over the PA to my school. It's been this secret little fantasy of mine pretty much my whole life, the dream I didn't dare give into. But now, it really feels like that's where I need to put my energy. I've been kinda sorta working on this novel for about 6 years, and having little bursts of productivity, but I always let myself get distracted away from it and never really work out the details.
I remember reading Travels by Michael Crichton when I was in my early twenties. He talked about how, when he was at Harvard going thru med school, he was getting pulled into writing. At first, it was something he did to pay for school. But he felt himself getting more and more disillusioned with school, and with the medical field, and more and more focused on writing; that was where his bliss was. In his senior year, he had what appeared to be an episode of multiple sclerosis. That crisis made him think about what he wanted to do with his life. If it did develop into more than a one time episode, and he did indeed only have at most twenty years left to live (this was the sixties) then he didn't want to spend half of it going to school and the rest of it doing a job his heart wasn't really into. In retrospect he felt like he created that crisis on some level to force him to choose to follow his bliss.
I think I might have done the same kind of thing. Last year, on New Year's Eve, I was admitted to the hospital with chest pains. It ended up being pericarditis, and while it was definitely treatable, it was the second time in a twelve month period (actually, a seven month period) that I had been hospitalized. It was a crisis moment for me. I saw that the stress of working for an airline was having detrimental effects on my immune system, and eventually it was going to shorten my life if I didn't get out of there. My immune system has come a long way since I tested HIV+ in 1999, but it hit a kind of plateau that it wasn't getting past, and my counts were (and are) still a bit too low for comfort, so the threat was very real. I could have literally worked myself to death. I think I needed that crisis, in a way, to set things up so that I could reach this point in my life, where I can actually follow my bliss.
That's really what this is all about, following my bliss.
For a long time, any time I thought about being a writer, I did one of several things. I thought of doing it as a hobby, something to be squeezed into the little bit of spare time I might eke out for myself. Or I fantasized about becoming rich and famous, having this yet unwritten novel made into a movie, with lots of big name stars, getting interviewed by Barbara Walters and The Advocate. Or never finishing it because it is, after all, just a silly little pipe dream, and getting published and actually making a living at it is next to impossible; who do I think I am anyway? Stephen King?
But it's not about any of that now. I can finally admit this, out loud: I have always wanted to be a writer. It has been the dream I haven't dared to surrender to my whole life. I feel most at peace with myself and the world when I am writing. I taught myself how to read when I was 4. I remember so many times how writing has been my escape, my anchor in sanity, my raison d'être. It's always been my most effective form of communication. So many times when I have been confused, writing has been how I found myself again. And there is no way to describe the joy I feel from creating. I know I have this story to tell, and more after this one.
I really feel like things are falling into place now. The dead ends that I have run into with the plot are working themselves out. I have put myself on a schedule, and I am treating it like a job in a sense; I have deadlines for myself set in place, quiet time that is for writing and nothing else. The specifics of exactly when that is has been fluid, but it is no longer this on and off, whenever-I-can't-find-anything-else-to-do thing anymore. And I feel like I have gotten a lot accomplished, even though the actual schedule has been a bit sporadic. On a weekly basis it's evened out.
My intention is to have the rough draft ready in the spring, and to have it published by the end of next year. I really do believe I can do it.
I've got mixed feelings about writing in the wee hours of the morning. On the one hand, I would like to have a little more normal of a sleep schedule. But on the other hand, if this is when I feel my most productive and creative, then I guess that's when I need to be writing. I am hoping that I can have a big chunk of the rough draft done by the end of the year. Surely, if I made this much progress every day, I would, but I can't expect that. I don't always feel this inspired, and I don't always get such a good flow going with it.
Still, even though it's past noon and I am just now thinking about getting to bed, I feel good. I feel like I am moving in the right direction. (and, probably since I am feeling sleep deprived, I feel like I am rambling, so I think I will shut up now...)