Painting new pictures
I have a personal to-do list that is a mile long — or, rather, it would be, if only I would take the time to write it. 😉
Bounty — finally
A fantastic opportunity came my way yesterday, and I’m going to take it. Not to sound like an ass, but the universe owes me for inflicting 2004 on me. 🙂 I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, but it will be a pleasant diversion. I always get slightly terrified before I start a new journey, but I feel really good about this one. It is one of those opportunities that found me, not the other way around.
I do hope I will do well with it — it’s a HUGE book project that will undoubtedly give me the confidence I so desperately need to do this for myself. Because I want to get back to my ill-fated novel — the first in a consecutive series of six. My life situation prevented me from immersing myself in the conjuring of ideas time that was so necessary. I tend to punish myself by not allowing myself to dream and to run free within my mind, where are there are typically neither stop signs nor traffic congestion. And boy, did I punish myself back then … it’s a wonder I was able to even pull it together to attract/finish my freelance projects and interview for the fabulous job I got.
I never really talk about my book, but because it’s been on hold indefinitely, I can say that it has a lot to do with people my age (29+1) and pop culture. But I’ve never known how to break into the pop culture world, research-wise. I had one connection that went sort of bust, but I may have found another one. I’m starting to get the hint that the forces of nature have positioned me “just so” for me to cross paths with people who are going to be influences in a variety of areas. I just hope they are OK with the responsibility because I can be really persistent when I need something. 😉 It’s just good to know that the puzzle pieces eventually come together and that my real role is to superglue them together. 🙂
Inspiration — at long last
In any event, the Muse has rescued me and she is two steps behind me, kicking my ass to move forward again. She has ordained me to bury my old journals and start a new one — she says you can’t pick up writing in a book that only brings you pain when you look at it — even if you’d only written on 12 pages and have the rest of the book available. She’s right, as always. I thought I was supposed to pick up where I left off, but the fact of the matter is that, when you’re handed a clean slate, you can pick your new starting point. So your golf ball gets stuck in a tree, so what? Shake that bee-yotch and put the ball where it needs to be and drive it on home from wherever you are.
Seriously, the link above? It’s called “Everything can be fixed in the rewrite.” I have finally, finally been blessed with the chance to make revisions to the screenplay of my life. And while I can’t change the plot or the characters so far, I can end their scenes and write in a fantastic ending, surrounded by light and life and love. It’s great to have the ability to go back and see how far you’ve come — I’m not in the same place that I was last June when I made my last journal entry. I’m not the same girl who wrote my last blog (so get off my new site, trolls — you won’t see it again so please disappear from my referral log!).
And that new journal? Contains visions that I want to come true. Now, the conundrum lies therein whether I will, in fact, be OK if things do NOT happen the way I am seeing them. I’d talked to a friend awhile back about whether a vision is actually a premonition or simply wishful thinking. He’d given me a lot of insight without answerng the question directly — that you see visions and if you like them, then you work to make them come true. And if you aren’t so pleased with what you see, you were lucky enough to see what the future could have been, and you have plenty of time to paint a new picture.
Mmm, java
When I started my freelancing odyssey (ugh. Never again!), someone had remarked to me that I was so fortunate that I would be able to lounge the day away at S’Bux while everyone else was trapped in their windowless hell. Honestly? Never did it. Marketing yourself takes 25 hours a day, and I never really even opened the curtains because my self-punishment for not achieving certain things was to deny myself sunlight (I am beginning to sense the onset of psychosis here! LOL).
But I did take a trip to S’Bux this weekend. And I wrote and wrote and wrote in my journal long past the finishing of my venti caramel macchiato. There was a really cute guy there, flirting up a storm (we’d walked in together and even walked out together!), but that was that. And I take it for what it’s worth — a feel-good moment. But I wonder if I am unapproachable because I expected him to at least ask for my number (I won’t ever call a guy. Never ever never. Don’t even ask me about it — I need to be worth it for them to chase). In any event, it was like my pen were possessed — I did not stop writing for an hour. And, re-reading it, even my journal is cryptic. I don’t use names or places or direct quotes — it’s like my blog! LOL. I guess I have had my personal journals (online and off) invaded so many times that I cannot trust that it will always remain in my own hands.
Lost art
In the coffeeshop, I sat opposite a girl with a laptop. She was fascinated how my hand couldn’t stop writing. Even when I was looking out the window into the parking lot, I wrote and wrote and wrote. And despite the fact that she had a Dell (I have better taste!), I was covetous of her having a laptop. And she didn’t type much at all. I guess it’s something about putting pen to paper. It’s a lost art. I can be a computer enthusiast when I want to be, but let’s face it, whipping out a bound journal on a whim (even in traffic *cough cough*) can be quite therapeutic.
What’s interesting, though, was how we ended up staring at each other off and on. No, it wasn’t an attraction thing (I don’t think so, anyway!) — it’s just a quirk that writers have that is totally acceptable when they are around each other. When you’re looking around the room or wading through your “happy place” in your mind, your eyes often fall on something or someone interesting or, at least, someone within your direct view. And I think we both rather enjoyed the other swearing, laughing or otherwise grumbling at ourselves and/or what we’d written. I love the writers’ community and need to spend more time in it!
Priorities
I am gazing at my pile of jewelry-making shit, the to-buy list of paints and canvases and whatnot, the folder full of poetry, the unread books, the unhung curtain rods/curtains/pendant lamps/artwork, and the less fun stuff like unpaid bills, unorganized closets and shit that needs to find a home other than on one of my many decorative tables. And it’s disconcerting. Really. The reason I cannot face my tasks is because there are so MANY of them. I only do basic maintenance anymore — the lightest of cleaning, the least amount of work that needs to be done to the car, etc.
But I’ve found that by adding journal-writing, it’s like whistling while you work, so to speak. I have a fun chore, because I do treat it like volunteer work more than anything. I expect that someday, someone will read my journal. I don’t want it to be public knowledge, of course, but my hope is that the *right* person will read it and *get* it because they *get* me — that maybe the writings will somehow fill in the blanks that I wasn’t able to clarify otherwise.
Anyway, that day’s about a hundred years from happening, if at all, but I guess what I wanted to say was that maybe I need to chuck the side projects and focus on my writing as my full-time hobby. Because while I enjoy everything I tackle, I save my love for imagining the world in which I aspire to exist. And I’ve been long overdue for love of any kind — maybe this is where it starts; maybe I will finally know it when I see it because I finally think I believe it exists .. and that it can, even for me. …
On iTunes: Melissa Etheridge, “I Want to Be in Love”