Category Archives: Writing

Be the Writer not the Person Living the Day Job.

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We find our lives in creative things by experimenting and finding a happy place that we call our own.

Just as I don’t believe I’m the person who goes to a day job and slings drinks for tourists on the Vegas strip. I’m the person who stays up late writing words on the page for me.

I was listening to a song the other day, “Wild Again” by Starship. It’s on the Cocktail soundtrack.

But the lyrics in the song struck me, “Is this life I’m living mine?”

The life I’m living is that of the person slinging drinks for tourists because it pays the bills. But what if I start living like the writer I am. If when I meet someone and they ask me, “What do you do?” and instead of saying, “I’m a bartender at a Strip Hotel”, I answer the question with, “I’m a writer.”

I’ve read the once you start calling yourself a writer, others will see you as a writer.

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but it was the little things I neglected about being a writer.

Saying your something, but not following what that “something” is are two different things.

Believing you’re something you’re not, at least that you’re not giving your life to. That is where the divisions lays.

You need to believe wholeheartedly that you’re this person, or do like Neil Gaiman says, “Act like a person that would be able to do that thing.”

I like Neil’s idea, and in believing you’re a person that would do something the other person wouldn’t do, for me it would be being the writer and not the person who works the day job.

For you it could be, Being the artist not the College Student, or being the actor not the Single Mom.

Each of us are different in our lives, that’s what makes us unique and it’s also what makes us who we are.

Be the Person you are supposed to be and ignore the person you have to tolerate in order to be that person on a permanent basis.

Writing with the Cheshire Cat staring at me.

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Sitting upon the ridge behind where I live the moon sits, its Cheshire cat grin a notice that life isn’t supposed to be fun all the time, neither is writing. If you’ve ever spent a night staring into a white screen, blank pages or miles of edits, you’re aware of the not so fun parts of being a writer.

Yesterday was my birthday, and with every year, I look back at where my writing’s gone and where it hasn’t.

I started this blog last year to help writers who’ve gotten lost in the delusions of what writing is and isn’t.

Initially I talked about the little things, but it became clear (through my own writing) that I something else was needed.

Moons come and go, followed by the sunrise, but in between the two is a pleasant darkness. It’s not the death throes of depression that I’ve been dealing with the past six months, it’s a darkness where things just are.

The animals scurry across the desert landscape, their bodies oblivious to the knowledge that their lives are short. Because they’re not cognizant to realize this, they don’t care about crossing that street or running through the field where coyotes reside.

They don’t care, they just live.

As humans we care about crossing that street. We know where the coyotes roam, and we steer clear of that area, but if we’d only let go for just a little while of how uncomfortable we are in thinking about that street or those coyotes, we’d do something great.

The Grin on the moon’s surface is only a reminder that its part of its cycle, that in a few weeks there will be no cat staring down, it will be the man himself staring, his face aglow with the sun’s rays.

Stepping into the Cheshire Cat sky I look up at the cat staring down and wonder if this will be the year, then I quickly forget it, walk back inside, sit down and finish my word count, because regardless of what pays the bills, I’m a writer and finishing word counts or page counts are what get me to the next birthday.

Writing and Dancing in the Puddles.

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When the clouds get dark, the rain decorates the valley and the sun finally comes out, life feels better, though without thinking about it, our lives follow this path.

Life gets dark, bad things happen, but the bad things eventually go away, as do the bad people.

Throughout our lives we’re left with the people we work with, live with and are associated with one way or another.

These people can be forgiving, loving and supportive, but then there are the others.

The other people, they’re the ones who criticize what we do. They think we’re wasting our time writing and creating. They ask us when we’re going to be published, not because they’re curious, but so they can mock us.

Each writer has dealt with this, sometimes there are multiple people like this in our lives, we have to get rid of them one way or another, only then can we create without the unneeded distractions of being told we can’t write, we do that enough ourselves.

After a rainstorm the desert smells fresh, the cacti look greener and the animals are scurrying about, almost seeming to be playing in the puddles the way my kids do.

We only see the day in front of, the storm, but afterward our lives are greener, we see things clearer and we’re free to dance in the puddles left over.

Enjoy the rainstorm, seeing clearer and the puddles, without every rainstorm we don’t see life as something to enjoy, instead of something to tolerate.

Get out and enjoy the puddles.

 

Writing Through Darkness

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“At the midpoint on the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, for the clear path was lost.” Canto I, Dante Alighieri

Last week I missed a post for the first time since I started this blog, it has given me something to write about, something that has been plaguing me for most of my adult life.

You’re not told there’s anything wrong with you. People wonder if you’re okay, they ask you questions like, “What’s wrong?” or “Are you okay?”

The truth is I haven’t been okay and there has been something wrong.

Any writer who’s read anything about Hemingway knows he suffered from severe depression and is possibly the reason he took his own life.

Depression and mental disorders run rampant in writers and all creatives, it’s one of the things which make us creative, but if you believe that bullshit, then I want to send you to the moon on a cannon courtesy of Jules Verne.

The truth is depression and mental issues give us something to write about, they make us who we are and along with things we may use to cope with our depression and mental issues–drugs, alcohol, video games, meditation–we have to find a way past the drugs and alcohol and into a place that is safe for us, our family and friends.

I’ve been in a very dark place for the last few months, and though I’ve been writing, it’s been very dark subject matter.

My depression started the end of November, at least that’s what I believe, though it could have begun when my grandfather passed away in September..

His presence when I was a kid and going fishing with him and my cousin are my favorite childhood memories.

Though I’ve reconciled with most of that side of my family. My dad’s reaction to my presence was not as heartwarming as I’d have liked considering the circumstances.

Depression of some sort has been a staple in my life, especially in adolescence. Writing and books were always may way through my depression, though recently my writing has become a subject of my depression– I’m a writer and I believe my writing sucks regardless of what everyone else tells me–these things have caused me to second guess what I write as well as if I should be writing at all.

Though I love writing and enjoy every moment of story creation, depression has been causing me such problems lately that I’ve contemplated quitting writing altogether.

I won’t let depression beat me and I won’t quit writing because it’s become who I am over the last few years and I won’t change who I am for anything or anyone.

The Pool and the Pen

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I learned to escape in middle school, first it was the pool class we had, then it was writing.
I was bullied in middle school and the pool was the only retreat I had. None of the bullies had that class, and because of that I felt at home in the water.

I felt as if I was meant to be in the water, not just as an escape, but that it was something I should embrace, and I did for a long time, but I haven’t been a pool in years, not for lack of desire, but for lack of access.

Just after I got used to the pool I started writing, only for myself out of fear. I started filling notebooks and would use money I’d gained from doing chores for notebooks.
These notebooks are lost now and though I wish I’d retained them for myself. I’ve thought about them recently, only because I’ve begun feeling out of water again.

I’ve started writing more—a lot more—and because of it I’ve been thinking about when I’d sit up writing in bed, only the light from outside to fuel my frenzied scribbling.

There were a lot of stories in those notebooks which I don’t remember, a few poems too.

When life got out of control I had the pool and writing, both of which have always given me the comfort of escaping my life.
The pool was a physical escape from the troubles I faced in the halls of the middle school.
Writing has always been my mental escape, my way of getting my mind off the things that distracted me from living.

Today things are distracting me which I’m trying to control, but like middle school the writing, much like the meditation I practice, keeps me grounded in the now and makes my life complete, at least in my mind.

The reality of life is nothing is ever as perfect as we want it to be, not our writing, our personal lives or the relationships we have with our family and friends.

With perfection we’d have nothing to write about.

With the troubles of daily life, we keep our heads down in our laptops, notebooks and PC’s.
Writing is an escape from reality that I need, without it I know I wouldn’t have made it through middle school, without the pool I know I wouldn’t have gone home every day in a good frame of mind.

Without the pool and the pen I’m not sure where I’d be today.