2 posts tagged “writing”
This has been week two of toughness, of seeing my attempts at good deeds go rather punished. Wow. Stepping back it's so fascinating to watch the very different angles and reasons we all come at things. I have had to face myself very squarely and see just how much I still want gold stars and kudos from my efforts and it's a trait I'd really like to let go of. I want to learn to move forward looking more for my rewards from within.
Everything is a process. There is no arrival. We hear this and think, "oh yes, I get it." But it's hard to own, hard not to keep looking towards a brighter future when we've accomplished "x" and then "x" and "x" which will finally make us feel accepted, real, fully adult, whatever.
But in reality you accomplish something that you thought would be the end all be all and it's usually it's just not. It's just a moment, often one you don't remember to celebrate because you're too busy to remember that it was so important, or as in my case these past two weeks, others are so disappointed with a particular aspect that it really ruins the fun and pride.
So yes, time to focus less on kudos possible from within and focus instead on those from within, and of course, my own private project - the book.
I am struggling through a revamp of my 3rd and 4th chapters of the novel and I think I need to strop struggling and let them be where they are right now. Inspiration comes to be slowly, unfolding in dreams and walks and conversations and internet searches. And that's okay. I love writing. I do. Sure it gets lonely and boring sitting here staring at the screen, and I find a myriad of ways to distract myself, but still I love it. I like to see what I've put on the page, and then I like to go back later and check if I still like it.
And amazingly sometimes I do. Now if my lines of writing could feel to me as beautiful as the above rows of lavender, or one of my very favorite songs called, "The Lines of My Earth" by Matthew Preston Slocum of "Six Pence None the Richer" I'd be pleased indeed.
I am on a journey to write a book, my very first book. I have been
published in portions of another book, in print and online, but I have
never completed and published my own book. And it's one of those things
in life I really really want to accomplish, just for me. Oh sure, I'd
love it to be a best seller. I'd love to finish the first book and have
the publisher like it so much I receive an advance for the second one.
That is the dream. So that I could go off to Europe and do deeper
research on someplace other than the Internet.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now I'm on the journey of daily writing the book. Of daily thinking about the book. Of daily wondering about the book. And it's quite a journey, one that I'm only a quarter of the way or so into.
I have had a big struggle from adolescence onward to really show up for myself, to follow my own bliss, my own creative drum. I so love the collaborative process that instead I would usually jump on someone else's creative process in order to be included, in order to participate, feeling that I could earn my way in to being worthy by hard work and good feedback. This would be my trick with romantic relationships as well. And I'm sure you've already guessed, it didn't work out so well.
Oh yes, I did end up enjoying the creative collaborative process quite a bit, but it wasn't truly mine - so I had to constantly fight for the space to have a say, and frankly, I often pushed those who simply weren't ready to go where I knew they could go. Because I had the vision, because I knew how to get there. And in the end, though much good was done, it always ended badly. Because it wasn't really mine, and I knew that in my gut.
It's not that I haven't had my own creative projects all along, but my dedication to following my own creative drummer waxed and waned. I was not consistent. I kept thinking someone else's project was so much more legit than mine, so much more important, so in need of supporting first. I couldn't follow my own dreams first because I felt I hadn't been given a permission slip from God. That's my phrase for it that I've used for a long time.
But God doesn't send down a white photo copied form that you remember from school, he/she sends the yearning, the longing, the ideas, and when you pick up the pen and begin the journey support comes. Now I have thrown down the gauntlet to myself, the challenge - do your own thing, write your own book. Give it a total go, see what you can do.
And a fascinating thing happened, something that blew a big hole in the wall of my fear and resistance - two friends from my past have shown up and are showing support. One is my best friend from grammar school and she found me via the Internet about a year and a half ago, the other is my best friend from High School who found me via facebook about a month ago. Both have always supported the idea of me as a writer - and both love the genre I'm writing in - young adult fantasy (focused on girls).
Much of the book is plotted out, I'm now working on second drafts of the first six chapters (1 & 2 are done). It's moving, it's going, but it's still a challenging journey. There is a hole in the wall, but now I can see just how far I've got to go and it's daunting - like LOTR at the end, where it feels like Frodo and Sam will never get there. But they do. And now I just have to keep remembering that it will only happen one paragraph at a time, one page at a time, one chapter at a time and not get ahead of myself and full of worry that it won't be enough when I finally reach the end. The doing needs to be enough in itself.
