The Sweet Escape

I can’t. CANNOT. take anymore right now.

It just occurred to me tonight that I haven’t blogged since last week, but I set up this blog to be my writing blog and not a personal one (because my personal life is so boring even *I* am not interested in it, let alone enough to write about it. There’s nothing exciting about ‘got up, went to work, came home, wrote, went to sleep’. Meh) and I haven’t really had much ‘writey’ things to blog about. And, I find that I can either write, or I can blog about writing. I’d rather write, so I’ve been plugging toward completion on my WIP. Soon, these voices will stop talking to me (or each other) in my head, and I can move on to some other voices.

I recently finished a writing class and I’d like to take another one, so I’m on the hunt for something I can do online or via correspondence that doesn’t cost 17 million dollars. I got a lot out of the class I took, namely the correct terms for things I’ve been doing instinctively, and tried to break some bad habits (like adverbs). I picked up tips on effective story telling, drawing the audience in and even a great chapter on dialogue. I wrote a few pieces for the class as well, short snippets that are somewhere along the weekly posts I was doing.

I’d like to take another because, well frankly, I feel like I need to be pushed a bit harder. Of course, I’m scared of being pushed harder, but right now while I’m not being pushed, I think I need it. I review my twitter list several times a day and sometimes I’m just so jealous at the talent I see. People working hard on 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 12th books, plugging away at them and offering great advice. I feel so way behind everyone else and like I’m the kindergartner looking at the big kids playing from behind the gate on the playground. Wishing I was a big girl and could play, too. Why doesn’t anyone tell new authors that you can’t become Mark Twain in a year? That whole ‘this looks easy’, thing that famous authors do is very misleading and deceiving, inside my brain. I know it takes hard work and a lot of rejection, but the notion that I ‘can’ write makes me want to just pop out something and be world famous, simply because I write. It’s just way more than that, I’m learning. Like 1% talent and 98% skill and about another %1 good luck. Or voodoo, which ever you believe.

The funny thing is that when I started writing, I wasn’t writing to be read. I was writing to write. Because I saw other people do it, and thought ‘Well, I could do that!’ And so I did. And it was awful. But instead of giving up, I started something else and that wasn’t too bad. And then I wrote something else and I was kind of proud of that. And then I wrote something else, and someone noticed and now I have a (very) small group of people that will read what I write. And progressively, everything I write gets better, to the point where I look back at what I thought was awesome and cringe. I feel like the ‘practice’ has been really great, and it has even changed my mindset, to where I’m not longer ‘nowhere near thinking about being published’ to actually thinking of writing something and, hopefully with help from my author friends, seeing if it’ll float. And if it doesn’t, cool. But it doesn’t hurt to see.

So, I was going to write tonight, but I feel like if I’m not ‘at it’ by 8, it’s not going to happen. I’ve been coming home and getting lost in the internet and twitter, trying to keep up with this great big world of information and articles and advice and tweets and hash chats and such and I’m just overwhelmed. I need to simplify. Maybe unplug. And just write. I remember when I would come home from work and LUNGE for the laptop and pound out a few thousand words. Now it’s like pulling teeth to get 500 words some days. I wonder what does that?

It’s been a rough week at Chez M. I’m not a crazy fan or anything (right, the mark of a crazy fan is someone that says they’re not a crazy fan) but Michael Jackson’s sudden death was very jarring for me. Kind of surreal at first, but then seeing Janet Jackson brought a swell of emotion for me. We lost one of my brothers very suddenly just a little over a year ago. It’s very VERY hard to get back to what you think ‘normal’ is… I’m kind of still not there yet. I was looking forward to going home and spending some time with the family, the nephews, and sit around and say the things I was too distraught to say over a year ago. There’s just… such a fog and you don’t realize what you’re doing or saying and a month later you won’t remember much. It’s just foggy and I remember wishing I could reverse time, and undo it and bring him back. He was young, 22 and thought he was invincible. I can’t say I understand what it’s like to lose someone like Michael but I know what it’s like to lose a cherished, loved family member, a brother, someone who ‘got’ you and you were close to. I feel for her, and for the entire family. I really don’t know how they’re making it day to day– my parents were simply devastated, and continue to be.

Just when I thought I had things under control, Billy Mays died. Which, you know. It’s Billy Mays, but I liked him, and his son”s tweets are so sad and stoic. It just tore at my heart. And then my mom called yesterday to tell me that my aunt died. And now I’m thinking that I just can’t take anymore. I really just can’t, so I need everyone to get healthy and stay healthy and be here, because really. I just can’t.

You know how when you look up the best ‘writer’s block’ busters, they suggest that you kill someone in the story, because that always creates drama and conflict? The people who give that kind of advice should try living it. Should try being the ones living after someone dies suddenly. I don’t find much, right now, to add to my literary achievements. Grief isn’t really propelling me toward anything moving. Despair and exhaustion isn’t giving me the scene of my dreams.

I think that’s bad advice.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Till next time,

Miss M is a reader, writer, lover of coffee, devourer of words, catcher of spirits, liver of dreams. This blog is my place to spill my writerly musings and observations. I'm trying not to focus on being published or world famous, but to be content to allow the words, ideas, meaning, hopes and dreams to flow from my fingertips and leave the world forever changed for having done so.

MissM

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Tags: advanced fiction writing, writing