Chuck Norris

I missed you. I really, really do. I haven't written in this blog since last June. I figure that the only way I was going to get any real writing done was to completely unplug--and I did.

Then I had a baby. A beautiful baby girl that looks so much like her father it's scary.

And then right after that, my computer broke. I'm borrowing one right now, but I hope to be back online full time by the first week of February.

Life has thrown some major curve balls--still moving forward even when I'm not sure my legs are moving. Sometimes I hurt so bad from the act of growing that I feel numb from the waist down--trying to keep moving forward.

I 'ran' into a very old friend of mine very recently. I feel--I don't know...like I'm 23 again and everything is everything. Those old urges and feelings of restlessness seem to be coming back but this time, I won't repress them because I have to be a 'grown-up' now.

Funny thing about these words--this text is that they seem to be only that. You can make them be whatever you want, make them mean anything you want--sort of like an abstract painting. That's what words are to me.

I didn't make any new years resolutions. I really didn't. I hate the idea of being obligated to myself. Whatever happen will happen and all I can hope is that I make the best decision for that moment and pray it doesn't get me hit by a bus.

I don't know what this year is going to bring, but I pretty excited and freaked out by it at the same time.



Oh...yeah, the title is completely random, so don't even bother giving yourself a headache by trying to figure out what it has to do with anything I'm saying, save for this sentence.

In the immortal words of Arnold Swartzenegger(sp?) in Terminator: "I'll be back."

When it works!

25,000 words and counting!
That's all I can say...amazing.

Instinct

In one day I managed to write over 5000 words. Easily. As soon as I sat down at the computer and opened up my WIP I started writing. I'm now at 17334 words. In all my writing in all these years I've never written this far. Maybe...8000 at the most.

And when the flow stops...it just stops. I don't try to force it, I don't try to analyze it and I certainly don't plan it.

I don't work on a schedule.

My schedule is basically: "I feel like writing" and then I come out with thousands of words in about 4 hours. I stop to eat, deal with my daughter, take a piss...whatever and I write.

My biggest mistake in the past was trying to write on a schedule, trying to write outlines and all of those things. But it always ended up killing the thrill. Outlines are the death of my writing. It kills the instinct. And one of the most important tools I believe I writer has is their instinct.

When something says 'stop', I stop. And believe me, no matter how hard I try, nothing worth anything comes out. I'll go four days without writing and in that time span, I sit and read books.

I just finished reading Insomnia by Stephen King which is easily over 600 pages. It doesn't bother me or...take anything away strangely enough.
Before that I read a book called--crap---what was it? It was a medical thriller and now I'm reading something called Self Defense by Jonathan Kellerman. The story is interesting. I am starting to dig his writing style.

Last week I was completely in love with Eugene O'neil. See, I always pick up free books where ever I find them and I happened to run into a few treasures, Mr. O'neil being one of them. It was a collection of three different plays which were really just extraordinary. Why didn't we read him in school I wonder?

And even with all that being said, I managed to write a short story in less than two days and have some artwork to go with it. I actually made the picture first using Photoshop cs4. Halfway decent too.

The anxiety over everything is gone for the most part. I just write. I know what works now and I stick to it. Things that usually work for most folks just don't work for me. I thought I was being unmotivated or just...stupid. Truth was I was following someone else's perception of what my writing should be.

I I finally do see an end.

Sorry

Sorry for the huge space between blog posts. My internet has gone on the fritz and it only works when it wants to. I don't have too much to tell today. The writing has been coming along beautifully. I'm FINALLY into the double digits. Strangely enough I'm not writing EVERYDAY but when I do, I'm usually writing over a couple thousand.

I have too much going on to write EVERYDAY. But, it's consistent when it happens.

So I guess that's it. Not the most informative post right now, but I just wanted to let you all know that I didn't disappear off the face of the planet. I do come back down to earth from time to time.

If You Gave A Whale A Waffle

Doesn't that title sound like something that's already in bookstores?
So I went to my 8 year old niece's Art and Literature night at her school in Pennsylvania and I just got back.

My niece's book title was "If You Gave A Whale a Waffle" and it was extraordinarily good. Like...not even for an 8 year old either. The teacher went all out with actually getting these blank hard cover books and the kids wrote the story and did all the illustrations.

She didn't finish the pictures, but the story was just...amazing. I was really impressed, and not just in that indulgent way adults tend to be with their kids.

She couldn't take it home yet, but when she does, I am going to take pictures of it and her art work. It was just...good.

So you know my mother, my sister and I were all trying to take credit for her mad skillz!

Confidence

It's not something I ever really had. Maybe occasionally when I was particularly sure of something. And even then, there was that niggling little doubt.

I couldn't at all imagine why something amazing or spectacular could happen to me when there were so many other better people it could happen to.

Thinking like that doesn't really get you far if anywhere. And even upon saying this, I'm sure that some part of me will always have that twinge in the back of my head.

I think the reason why I've had so much trouble with my writing isn't because it isn't good. I know it is. That's not being particularly vain or even confident. I know that because it's probably one of the few things I can do marginally well. It's more along the lines of feeling that somehow no matter how good you are, you somehow aren't as adequate as others.

Then you begin to read your work back to yourself with the eyes of someone who suddenly doesn't feel as confident and you end up second guessing yourself and quitting.

And somehow amidst that, you are foolishly able to convince yourself that you probably aren't that good anyhow. You pick up the pen or turn on your laptop and you keep writing, having no confidence in what you're writing and then you just...stop.

Well, not you so much as Me.

Then I realize that after stepping away for a day and a half and looking at it with new eyes--and a bit more objectively makes all the difference.

Then I can at least say "I'm no Hemingway, but it's actually pretty good."

Don't know how many times this will happen before I'm finished...but as long as their is a finish instead of an eternal pause...then maybe that's not so bad.

Colin Hay - I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You