Tag Archives: Belief

Muse and Motivation, where have you gone?

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If you’re a long time reader you know my struggles with motivation. Well, I feel someone else has flown the coop.

I’ve been trying to stay motivated lately but I stare at my phone more than Scrivener.

When I do write, it doesn’t feel good and the fiasco of the missing 25,000 words hasn’t helped.

I feel like any motivation I have at one moment is gone the next. That my muse has flown away. I hope her wings have been singed by the frustration and anger pouring off of me.

So I feel I’ve reached that crossroads, the move on or die point. What I call waypoints.

It’s been hectic, to say the least. My mind has broken itself up into separate entities to deal with shit. Now with the motivation to write, the feeling that I’m failing myself, and that sobriety is making me feel better, I’ve reached a waypoint.

I can stop this train right now. Get off and never struggle with writing again, or I can what I know, fix what I’ve struggled with(hint editing)and do this shit for real.

I’ll have to do things I’m not comfortable with. I know I’m not happy with how my writing or how I’ve dealt with childhood trauma, but getting better is an everyday journey.

One step after another brother, one step after another.

So, I misplaced 25,000 words

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You ever have that moment where you’re staring at your computer like it’s lost it’s mind?

This past Friday that happened.

I wrote a novel through the fall and finished it the end of November. It was about 44,000 words barely a novel to some people, but it was done.

I’ve started editing it the last couple of weeks and I thought everything was cool.

Friday afternoon I go to send it to my wife to read. There was an anomaly.

It was not 44,000 words but only 18,000 and change.

I’m not sure how this occurred. I possibly saved it wrong, overwrote it or something similar.

So there I was thinking I had a completed story. Nope!

I will be going back to finish this story instead of what I planned on doing. Which was edit it.

Now I believe in fate. That there’s a purpose for things like this.

I plan on taking advantage of those missing words like a kid in a toy store.

There’s a reason I screwed up and I’ll take advantage of being able to rework it and change the things I remember not being right.

Oh yeah, happy Monday!

 

 

This journey is rough.

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I’ve been sober for a month and some people don’t understand that. They see me and think, “he doesn’t have a problem”.

Maybe not, maybe yes.

I drink often enough and think about my next drink when I’m not drinking. That’s why I stopped.

I can’t go to AA because I lost any belief in a higher power 20 years ago.

I believe when we die that’s it. The lights go out. I do believe in fate however.

I believe we’re destined to follow a certain path. We reach the larger arc of those paths through waypoints. Little things that trigger butterflies at the moment of decision.

It’s that fork in the road moment. We can take one path or another. It’s these waypoints that create our lives.

I’ve hit a few waypoints that changes the direction of my life, for good or not so good.

I don’t feel I’ve reached a waypoint in my life in a long time.

Our move from Las Vegas was a natural progression of where we wanted to raise our kids. It wasn’t a waypoint moment.

In my writing, I’ve never felt it and maybe that’s why I’ve struggled so much. I want that butterflies in the stomach feeling. That I haven’t reached that stage in my writing is distracting.

Sobriety feels like a waypoint. Maybe it’s a step towards a better understanding of my writing? I’m not sure. But a month in, it feels different than when I stopped last fall.

I’d like to get that feeling with my work. I want to be excited about it. Don’t get me wrong, a new project excites me but I rarely get that butterflies in the stomach feeling with it.

Maybe I’m trying to hard. Maybe I haven’t hit that magic point.

But I think I’m more involved with finding a waypoint than working.

Taking the blue pill(placebo).

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I’ve had thoughts about a great many things this week, as is evident by this week’s output.

The main point that been floating in my brain is about how I’ve distorted the functions within.

How I deal with doubt, crisis, pain, loss, and what those emotions emit to the outside world.

That I have quit drinking isn’t the big thing, but that I have is a godsend to my writing and the interior functions between my ears.

I’m learning to trust myself in a way that I haven’t done before.

I’m trusting the writing process in ways I never have. This is had all led to a new perspective on my drinking.

Life as we know it is filled with all manner of decisions. Some we undertake willingly, others not so much.

But in undertaking these things we try to dull our senses. We do this so we don’t feel the pain.

We take our drugs, our alcohol or what have you and use it as a dulling agent.

But it’s only taking a placebo to the true problem. We choose not to deal with it because it’s too hard.

It’s ourselves that we don’t want to talk to. It’s ourselves that are the problem.

We have one choice, enter the real world or escape as we’ve always done.

Working through things.

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When you’re working through things it’s hard to get peace of mind.

I see it happening as I struggle to maintain sobriety this week.

It’s Sundance in Utah and as a bartender by trade I work it because it’s good money and fun.

Though when it comes to alcohol I’m on the program. It doesn’t interfere with my bartending but I do still want a drink.

I’m hoping that I won’t be doing this in a year. I want to be writing and get paid for it.

It won’t take much for that to happen. I only need to make a certain amount for my life to function properly.

But this week is difficult.

I went sober from July until October but this time feels different.

Then I focused on working out. This time my focus is distorted.

This time I’ll be throwing everything into writing, where it should’ve been.

I haven’t reached that moment but it’s coming.

There’s more to this but some things I need to keep close.