The Fear

Two and a half years after I last wrote on this page I have finally got The Fear. (Something inside me is still yelling 'no you haven't!' But if I write it down I'm sure that'll make it true.
The Fear struck me when I realised that my life wasn't my own anymore. That my life had been given over to 'should', 'must' and 'ought to' and it was making me miserable. My daughter made me realise that I really am nothing without my happiness and all the achievements in the world won't mean anything if they don't come form my heart. I suddenly wanted to be all the things I told myself I would be but never quite got around to being and I have spent the last ten months spectacularly failing to achieve any of the life goals that I thought would make me happy.
So am I a success or a failure? At this point it is hard to tell. I can see that I am less cerebral than I was two and half years ago, but less idealistic? I don't think so. In spite the deafening silence of my achievements towards self improvement, I have to give myself some credit - I am back here with the same ideals and the same desires as I had back then. I have shown consistency. I am consistently big on ideas and small on substance. But I am here nevertheless.
I have just read through some of the thoughts I posted here and some of the work I posted in my other blog with my head getting higher and my chest visibly pushing out; it's really pretty good. It sits unread, even by me, gathering cyber-dust and fading into oblivion and now I am under pressure to make money, be responsible and a good role model. There is only one of those 'musts' that I really care about and that is why I am back here. I refuse to be one of those people that always dreamed of xyz, but never quite had the time to do it. I will not become a failure - so there's your answer.
Now I have The Fear. At least I hope I have The Fear. Perhaps The Fear was there all along I just didn't allow it to surface. So what does this mean for me and my dreams? Does it mean that they will suddenly show me all in a blinding flash of light? Well it would certainly make things easier, but I very much doubt I will spend much time waiting for it. So I have to work. I have to work bloody hard. Problem is I don't have enough space in my head. It's like my head is made up of a finite number of small compartments and each on contains an aspect of my life - work, house, friendships, partner, children, family and dreams. It's just that my writing doesn't seem to fit into any of those compartments at the moment - it's not my work, but it is more than just a dream. Might sound ridiculous, but if it doesn't fit into one of my little boxes then I find it hard to keep it in my brain at all. It might be one of those atributes that are linked with autism or OCD, but I find it difficult to make sense of things if they are not ordered and logical - how on earth do I think I will ever make it as a writer??!!
So where is The Fear in all of this? Let's change the tone a little and get a bit more serious. I have seen what apathy can do to people. I have seen lives lived that have never really been lived. I have watched people destroy themselves and they have never once mentioned their dreams. I have known people for whom dreams were replaced by fears, that in turn were replaced by expectations and requirements. In short, I cannot bear the thought of my life being lived along straight lines. I cannot live with the thought that I will settle for anything other than what is ideal and I couldn't live with myself if I ever let my dreams dissolve into nothing for the sake of ensuring security. I need to know that I have something better to move towards, that there is the potential for perfection in my world. I cannot ever imagine a life where I sit comfortably looking on and thinking of it all as finished, nothing left to do. I crave challenge, excitement, the new and the difficult and although I don't always realise it, I desire to be kept moving, to live like no one has ever lived before, to become legendary.
Am I afraid that none of this will happen? No, that's not The Fear. I'm afraid that time is becoming my enemy and although there is still time, it isn't as infinite as it used to be. I see an opportunity heading my way and right or wrong I'm going to grab it, not like a bull by the horns, more perhaps like a freight train that I hang on to for as long as the metal railing will stay in my grasp, sparks flying from the wheels and the wind slapping my face as my body sticks to the cold steel container wall. Sounds like fun, right? Perhaps fun, but also petrifying and painful.
I guess I'd better start running before the train catches up with me...

Is there anyone in there?

I was asked today what I did when I experienced true beauty and wonder, in whatever awe-inspiring guise it might take. Did I phone a friend and tell them all about it? Did I stop and stare as if I could fix it in my memory? Or did I look around for the means to write it down?
I was asked this as I read through one of the writing handbooks I have taken out the library to start me on my freelance writing quest. I pondered for a moment: I'm not much of a ponderer, if I haven't an answer straight away I tend to think I'm not good enough to find one. But as I watched a program about the way human beings deal with nature's toughest challenges I found my answer quickly enough.
I suddenly found that I did want to write about what I was seeing. For two reasons: I wanted to share the awe I felt when I watched a person crossing what amounted to a tightrope across a torrential, gushing river to feed his family for the day. I also wanted to write a quite different and less beautiful story asking why people in the west were so selfish - I spend all of my time worrying about the money I owe, the things I can't buy, and all the time this guy is taking his life into his own hands to feed his family every day. I wanted to write about the greed of a culture that has made me so worried about 'surviving' that I have borrowed money until I can't afford to pay it back, just so that they can make me feel inadequate again when they intimidate me with their threats of bankruptcy and losing everything I have. What will they take from me anyway? No matter what they do I will have my life. The man over the river doesn't care for finances and empty threats made by money grabbing fat cats; he moves slowly, hand over hand, foot over foot, his only concern is staying alive. I find it ironic that his only worry is the one thing that I can guarantee above anything else: none of my worries will have the power to take my life. Yet I would rather live in fear like him than sit in my comfartable house and worry that one day I might have to move into a smaller place and stop renting DVDs. It's ridiculous when you look at it like that and I feel a huge sense of shame that I live this priviledged life. I was born into it, that is not my fault, but to not even have thought of the futility of it all before now humbles me. I could change my life, but that isn't the point. The point is the system that has sucked me in. The point is the senseless greed, the way we create ownership and place our own values on things that ultimately aren't even real. Debt, money, possessions, they don't really have value. They come and go and we are forced to feel that if they are taken away from us we will somehow cease to be living. But we won't. What can they do if one day we just turn around and tell them we won't accept their values any more, that suddenly the rules have stopped applying? Would the world spontaneously combust? Would we all stop being? No. Life would just become simple. Perhaps it would just be about living.

I didn't realise that when I started to explain what I wanted to write about it was all going to come out like that. I simply wanted to outline the point that I had found the desire to write and to share, that it had always been there. I guess I proved that.
There is certainly a voice in there, but that rant would take a lot of shaping if it were to end up as a story, I know that. I think it is enough to know that the story is there, if I need it.

Getting serious

I have had some very interesting ocnversations over the past week; it's interesting that when you begin to open yourself to possibilities more seem to show up than you initially thought were available to you. Some of these we bring about ourselves by being proactive, some just seem to fall into your lap because you happened to think of a course of action. Whatever the reason - call it fate if you like - I'm determined to continue a trail of thought that I hope will ensure more and more opportunities drop into my lap in a similar manner.
If I really want to become a writer, I have spent an awful lot of time sitting around thinking about it. Whether it has been fear of failure, fear of success or general feelings of inadaquacy that have caused my procrastination seems nothing more than academic now; I have to start creating openings for myself and stop living in my own utopia where not a jot of hard work will ever be necessary. My thought seems to have been: if I don't work for it, I can always dream that it might happen while never actually confirming or denying my ability.
Time to take a stand and get myself out there. I can't say that I'm not terrified of the results, but I have more of a sense of achievement after a couple of hours than I have ever had in the rest of my life. I have had an idea, now let's see if I can sell it...

One year on...

Why is it that the longer you leave something, no matter how much you know you are going to enjoy it, the harder it becomes to tie yourself down to it? It's been a year since I wrote a blog and I'm nervous about coming back to it!
I still have the same dreams, I still want the same things, yet here I am, still dreaming, still wanting. I haven't met the dragon head on, I didn't even get that far the first time around, but a lot has happened and perhaps I won't have to wait for third time lucky.
Sometimes when you really want something it is that very thing that you avoid, put off, procrastinate about, in order that perhaps you might never have to face up to the fact that you want it so much you don't know what you would do if you got it; if you failed...well you fail every day that you don't do anything about it. That's far easier to deal with.
Perseverance is a state of mind; the most vital state of mind for getting anything that you really want. Admitting that you really want something is, I suppose, the first step. I WANT TO BE A WRITER. There. I've admitted it. I don't suddenly expect the job offers to come pouring in, but at least I can feel a sense of peace about my goal and ambition.
Positivity is another state of mind. I'm still working on that one, but I think I'm mpving in the right direction; that's my first positive step.
This is the story of my journey through becoming a writer, interesting to very few I expect, but writing, writing anything, is paramount at this stage. I don't think that because I haven't written for a year I have become a failure; I have taken a vital chapter of my journey and it hasn't involved writing. I suppose that even the non-writing has been a part of my experience as a writer. What have I learnt from it about writing? Not much. What have I learnt from it about my fears and the dreams I have? Plenty. The fact that I am still here and have taken this up again because it was once more thrown my way has shown me that real dreams don't ever go away and if this one is here to stay, then I'd beeter get on and satisfy it. It's the only way I will ever become whole, become my real self. It feels a bit like that with writing to me. It's as if I have something missing if words don't feature in my life in a major way - books, diaries, stories, poems, essays, I could consume them everlastingly without ever feeling full.
So I start another chapter of my writing journey and I'm sure that this one will have more writing in it than the previous chapter, perhaps even more than the one before that. I have my fingers crossed and my eyes towards the sky...

Finally it pays...well not actually pays

I won my first challenge today!
As a memebr of a writer’s group on the net I have been pretty slack in joining in with stuff. I’m finally beginning to learn the lesson that just getting on with it really is the way forward. ‘Write and write lots’ they keep shouting at me from the wings and yes, believe it or not, the published authors are right.
I have to say that I feel pretty damn good about it and find myself far more willing to take criticism constructively in the light of someone actually showing that I heading in the right direction. For that I thank my group, I would not want to be writing in a bubble anymore, nor am I scared to show even my laziest work to others. So the best thing I have done so far is joined a writer’s group. I have realised, humbly, that you can’t learn and improve on your own (I should know this - I am a teacher) and that if something is worth doing it will always pay off in the end.
So many hurdles to jump, but the first I hope will be the hardest...
No bloody chance.

So Much Choice

It is clear by the frequency of my writing these days that I have managed to lure myself out of hibernation for the time being. (I like the analogy - a hibernating writer!) I have found my 'get up and go' and I am going to take full advantage of my current disposition - wish I could learn some dedication, but I guess I'll have to take what I can get.
My problem today is that there is so much I want to do. I can think of worse problems and I'm sure you can too. This is all part of the positive thinking drive I am taking, part of the 'learning about Buddhism' movement. Positive thinking is getting better, I think. It can be hard to tell, the mind is a complex organ and when it begins to think, sometimes I just can't keep up. But that is what mind control is all about - being able to control the thoughts you are having in order to be able to view with clarity and insight. I have to say, I not there yet (this was meant to take a week...I'm on week two already), but I want to do this properly. Otherwise, what's the point?
The point is that when you open your mind, there is an awful lot to take in. This is not a bad thing; it just leads to some difficult choices, or an entire week of never going to sleep. I have started reading journals and review magazines, aside from the reading I do on a day to day basis. I have started writing for my forum groups again and I still want to write daily for myself. There is no way I can fit all of this in during a regular working week, so how do I deal with the infux of knowledge and information?
Perhaps I should pick up the first thing I read on any given day and give that topic my full attention for the rest of the day. I might choose to read a literary review first thing in the morning, as I did today. Taking today as an example, I would have spent the rest of the day looking for other feminist articles based on De Beauvoir's The Second Sex and creating my own writings around this topic. But this seems to me a very shallow approach to writing on a certain topic. Surely you need more than a day to study De Beauvoir alone, without all the other commentators. When I get down to something I like to do it properly, anything else is just bad form.
I may be heading towards an answer here. I like to have my life rigidly set out into sections, but I also live with the understanding that most of the time life just isn't like that. So here is my compromise to myself: I should discover my topic first thing in the morning, through reading an article or extract, checking my mood and deciding how I am placed for that day. When I have decided on my topic of choice, be it creative writing, politics, the feminine or whatever, I should decide on a time frame to give that topic - a piece of creative writing may only last a day, feminism on the other hand could last at least a week(!) I will see if in this way I can limit the scope of the writing I look at without needing to levave anything out. I don't want to feel like I am spreading myself too thinly, nor do I want to feel I am spread too thick!
Having discovered some fascinating facts about De Beauvoir and her writing today, I got so caught up in covering as much ground as possible, that I left her and her musings somewhere behind, waiting for a more interested soul to retrieve them. That soul should have been me. The other writings will wait. That is the wonderful thing about writing, it will never go away.

Still Not Quite There (Not Even Close)

Finding my feet in the writing process appears to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I am torn between writing in a style that is recognised and sticking to the person I am and writing with my own fluidity. The latter sounds far preferable, if only I knew what it really meant all of the time. The writer inside me is inconsistent, untamed and unconventional, making it an uphill struggle; perhaps writing in the traditional style is the easiest thing to do.
I used to feel 'called' by my writing, I used to feel that it owned me. Looking back over writing in my past it was far more inspired than anything I have written in the last 5 years. Does that relect the pain I was going through in the early years of my life? Does it mean the onlyway to inspire my writing is to be in a constant state of heightened emotional being? If it does, you can bloody well keep it.
I found as I got older the more self aware became. I was suddenly aware of the consequences of my actions, the way people would change their thoughts of me because of certain movements; that s not to say that I want to act in an immoral way, but I have become aware that everything I do is notice and scrutinised by those around me. I don't feel the freedom to act as myself anymore, there are too many other aspects to consider. I think that this feeling has found its way into my writing and I have locked the door on any artistic quality my life previously had.
Sounding so final is not what I mean, of course, my life is far from over. I shall have to go through a process of finding my self (or losing my self consciousness) and becoming an artist again. I have said that I have been studying the way of the buddhist and although I have not been successful yet, I have learnt a lot about myself. Something that is meant to last a week will certainly take me a month to practise and perfect, but I will get there. It starts with positive thought, something that the majority of people would find a difficult concept these days. I find it most difficult not for others or the world around me, but for myself.
I find it difficult to think of myself in positive terms for longer than a couple of hours. When the novelty wears off and I am tired of making the conscious choice to think well of myself I have a tendency to let my guard slip. As our negative thoughts are involuntary (so I am told) it is all too easy for my brain to follow the mould it has been forced into for the last 20 years; back to negativity it goes. I have found it much easier to look on the brightside when I am interacting with others, although this is something I need to practise for it to become automatic, it is dealing with myself that I find most difficult. This is simply a habit I have to break. I think it has had a huge impact on my writing, back then I believed in myself, my choices and my actions were my own alone and for that reason I could believe in my writing too. Self doubt has led me to handcuff myself to wondering what other people might thnk if they saw me.
I am not ashamed of becoming this way, I am simply working to get out of the situation. Becoming a writer will be a far greater, fasr longer road than I ever thought it would; the further I travel, the more determined I become and - I hope - the more successful!