Starting Anew

I’ve been absent awhile, for which I do not apologize. Throughout the summer I was planning a wedding, after which I got married, went on a honeymoon, started a new job as a first year Special Education teacher and adopted a dog. It has been a busy few months and I have not found the time nor the energy to update this blog.

The work/life balance is a tough line to toe. There’s days I’m simply exhausted after the day’s work and cannot bring myself to begin the creative process and write. In the morning, between walking the dog, showering, shaving, making breakfast, getting lunches together and finally getting ready for work, there is very little time for anything else.

All of these are excuses, I know. If I want to write, I must make time for it. Sometimes, I ask myself if I simply stopped writing, stopped trying and just enjoyed my time without having the nagging ‘I should write’ feeling in the back of my mind, maybe I’d be better off. Maybe it would be better to just stop. Forget the disappointment in my lack of writing, my lack of effort, and just give in. To simply leave the whole ‘writing thing’ be. Would I be happier?

I’m not sure. Maybe you were expecting me to say “But of course, I couldn’t stop and blah blah blah, I had to write…” but that’s simply not true. Sometimes I think I would be able to enjoy other things more if I left the writing gig behind. I need some soul searching, some deep digging. I believe that I want to continue writing. I’m beginning to find balance between my new job and my hobbies and my social life. It’s difficult but maybe it’s not impossible.

I’ll keep going, for now. We’ll see how it goes as the year goes on.

The Blank Page

In good times, the writer looks at the blank page with excitement, with potential, with joy.

Excited by the words they will soon put down, the story they will soon tell, the characters who will soon breath, live and sometimes die. There is potential there, so much potential for things to happen, it is a joyous experience.

Other times, the writer looks at the blank page with trepidation, with fear, with disgust, anger, frustration, indignation.

Fear of the unknown, of the lack of ability, of innate inability to produce anything of worth, anything worth reading, anything worthy of anyone else’s time.

Disgust at the fact that the page lies blank before them, blank, a symbol of the writer’s inability to commit ink to paper or words to the screen.

Anger and frustration at themselves that they cannot seem to get the ideas in their heads out onto the page, such fantastic ideas only to turn into plain boring text on that page.

Indignation, this writer calls themselves a writer and yet cannot, does not, write.

What is this inability, this refusal? This difficulty? Where does this stem from and why?

Writing is work. Work is hard. Make the choice, do it or don’t but do not dwell too long in between. Making the choice to write or not is meaningful. Deliberating over long is a waste.

Do something. Anything.

Don’t waste your time in the middle.

The Writer

There was a moment when I was young. I read a National Geographic article about Giraffes. I liked how the words sounded, how the sentences flowed. So I copied it, word for word, in my own handwriting. I wrote out the article completely, until my hand hurt and cramped, until I’d finished. Then, I had pages of my own handwritten work. I’m still not entirely sure why I felt the need to copy it. I had in my head goals and plans to write out all the articles, for some unknown reason. Perhaps I simply enjoyed the act of writing yet hadn’t put much thought into writing my own ideas, so copying others filled that void. Maybe I saw the collection of articles within the magazine and wanted my own collection, even if the content was not my own.

But I think, now looking back, I simply wanted to write sentences that flowed, that worked well, that made sense. My own writing was obviously below the level of the professional article-writer but I wanted my writing to sound like that, to look like that, to look professional. Perhaps that was when I started wanting to be a writer, without even realizing it. I didn’t end up copying any other articles. It didn’t seem…useful anymore. I’d done it once and…that was enough, I guess.

There were other moments. When I played with action figures, I preferred playing alone. I told stories to myself, epic in length. There were no simple battles, every conflict had a history, a backstory, every character a past. Every conflict led to conclusions, usually more conflict. In using GI Joe’s, I could see how the characters could move, what they might do, how their bodies might act, it helped me visualize the story. In fact, I used GI Joes to visualize stories up into High School, though I let nobody know it, playing with them in my room, alone. A little strange, I admit.

I daydreamed constantly. It helped when I had to do mundane chores like chopping and stacking wood, or when I had to run for long distances for Wrestling or Lacrosse. I could distract myself easily, get lost in a story, an idea, a world I’d concocted. There are times, this day dreaming leads me to trouble. I sometimes do it when I should be focused on interacting with others, on conversations, on listening. I am easily distractable, often thinking about my imaginary universes which makes me forget other things, or lose track of the conversation, etc.

Now I have a real job, a real career, but I still craft worlds, build characters, tell stories. I still day dream, and visualize action sequences, battles and conflict, (though without the GI Joes, lost long ago). It’s not something I can help, really.

That’s why I call myself a writer.