Tag Archives: Writer

Why I Felt Guilty About Following My Dream.

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As a writer you reach a point in your life where you either have to figure a way to keep writing or give up on it.

This often happens when you’re close to reaching your goal of publication, but you’re unaware of that.

Throughout my life I’ve told stories of one manner or another. I told them to people so they’d think I was interesting, to myself so I’d like me and to my parents so they’d think I was a good kid.

I learned through those stories that I love to create characters from nothing and that with them I could do anything, but something stopped me on the way.

I felt insecure about my writing, which happens often to writers. Something Amanda Palmer has called the fraud police.

At some point I thought people would accuse me of not supporting my family in the “traditional way” and this led me to wonder whether I should keep writing.

In my early twenties, a friend who knew that I loved to write said I should write a book. So I did, a horrible, awfully constructed vampire book.

What I learned from that book is that finishing a book was possible and that I really enjoyed it, then the fraud police showed up in the form of someone else and I stopped writing as much.

It was after I started writing again and finished another book I felt the fraud police again, in the same form as the last time.

I stopped writing for a while, again and fell into a deep depression which I’ve talked about here, which led me to transcendental meditation and getting through my depression.

After I began TM I started writing again. Little bits at a time until I was ready to tackle something bigger.

The something bigger is the second novel I finished and I’m now in my third rewrite and fourth draft of it.

When my wife and I moved, with the promise of being able to write full-time and bartend part-time, I felt guilty about writing. Not because I was afraid of the fraud police, but because I wanted to follow my dream.

Following my dream of being a writer is something that’s haunted me for most of my adult life and I only now understand why.

I’m doing something most people can’t or won’t do. Follow their dream.

When we decide to follow our dreams and our life allows that possibility to creep in, we think we’re getting away with something, at least I do.

I see all my friends and I know they have dreams they want to follow, and some of them are, but there are others who I really want to help, but they’re so used to being in the life they have they’ve forgotten about the dreams they once had, and the fact that I’m able to follow my dream, makes me feel guilty.

Now that I’m getting past the guilt of following my dream and embracing it I understand who I once was as a writer and I love him because he allowed me to be who I am and create the worlds I love.

Gates Swinging and There’s Still More Coming.

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We see the world, its many colors, shades and flowers unlike any we’ve seen through varied glasses throughout our life.

Our sight is often changed by instances of pain, reward and grief.

The change continues until we see the figurative light, which comes when we’re least expecting something to happen.

I saw it the other day, not the way I was expecting, but, still, it was something I’d been hoping to see. He’d never let me through the gate, or control the wheel, and this is, as I write it, is the first time.

You’ve met the deviant, Cubist, now it’s my turn. I’m a bit more sophisticated than that hack, and because of that the words are different.

I am Jackson Thomas Hunter, a name that is different than I planned, but still in a sense what he wanted and then we’ll discuss the other things you may see from me.

These things will be prettier, not because of anything other than the way I feel about the world and its beauty.

I hope you’ll come along and visit, there’s more of us, but I’ll always come when needed.

Regards,

Jack

Why I Rethought The Way I Look at My Writing.

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Each day we’re stuck living someone else’s dream.

We go to a job where oftentimes, we’re creating something for someone else, because it pays the bills.

What if we decided to live our dream, pay the bills and still keep people happy?

This was something I thought about the other day when I was writing.

I work a day job, which I had considered my main job, obviously neglecting my writing and anything creative in the process.

That was until this past week, when I was struck with something, I’m not a writer. I’m pretending to be a writer.

What I realized in that “moment of clarity” is that I’ve been looking at my writing as a second job, sure it doesn’t pay the bills right now, but as long as I treat my writing as the second job and not the first, it will always suffer.

In this realization I thought, “Damn, if I think this way, others do as well.”

What do we do about it?

We rethink our creative side, redo the way we look at our day and come up with ways to put our creative efforts first, and other things second.

I say this as a husband and father, “If your creative side isn’t in first place, it will never win.”

I have obligations, it’s not like I’m going to quit my day job, not right now. I see the time coming when that will happen, but it’s not right now.

The thing is, we all have things we want to do, but we put them in second place out of fear, shame or other reasons.

Fear of rejection, fear of someone not understanding and the fear of failure. And shame, damn, shame is the worst. When we look at the things we’ve failed at there could be a big list, and because we failed at those the shame and fear of it happening again makes us not want to try, not want to do it again.

But, when we come to the realization, as I did, that what we wake up for in the morning should be first. That the thing we want to do most in our life should be first, then, and only then will we discover the will to do it.

I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be hard. There will be people who say you can’t do it, there will be that damn voice in your head and when the voice in your head talks, tell it to F off.

The only way you’re going to do what you want with your life is to put your creative pursuits first and anything else second.

We live someone else’s dream every day, isn’t it about time we live our dream?

When I Wanted the Story to End.

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Looking at life from a writer’s perspective, there’s a beginning, middle and end, right?

What if like some novels, we choose to end the story in the middle or not quite the end?

When we reach the point of ending the story prematurely, we discover who are friends are, who the people are that really care about us and whether our lives mean anything to someone else.

There are two times I’ve wanted to end my story, but I kept the writer guessing, wondering which way I would go.

When we keep the writer guessing, we keep life interesting, and if life is interesting, we want to discover how the story ends.

The first time I wanted to end the story, I was 13, I was bullied often and generally treated horribly.

I sat up late one night, holding a hobby knife as if it were a crucifix. I remember that night better than most. The way my sheets felt, the way I cried, and the way the story kept going.

I let the writer keep doing his thing because I wanted to see how the story would end, or at least how I would get out of the situation I was in. Things got better, I moved in with my mom and step-dad and I started a new school. I made friends, none of which I can remember, but I got through it. I let the story go on.

When I talk about these things some people believe I shouldn’t talk about how I wanted to die, not because I was selfish, but because I thought it was the best thing for my family. I believed they would be better if I weren’t there.

The second time, was more recent.

In February, I sat in my car after work, cried for 20 minutes and called my wife and told her, “I think I need to do something different.”

My work day had been horrible. I got in an argument with a co-worker. My work had been poor and didn’t really care if I made it home.

The whole drive home I hoped I would get in a wreck, I would die and my family would be better off. I believed that because my mind told me that’s what would happen.

That night, I sat at my computer, wrote a little bit and felt a little better.

I didn’t get in a wreck, or try to cause one, but I wanted to. The reason I didn’t was I wanted to see how my story ends, and I know it isn’t close to the final chapter.

I still have grandchildren I want to see. A daughter I want to see get married and a son I want to see turn into a man.

There are many parts of my story which are waiting in future chapters, the most important are still to come and I know that life isn’t done until the those two words come across the screen…The End!

When I Think About The Writer I Could Be…

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Moon in the sky

Standing in the middle of the room, to my left are people milling about waiting for “him” to come on. On my right are people reading books, one particular book, my book.

I sit down, my hat pulled low across my head, hiding my eyes behind sunglasses, because they give me away every time.

My phone buzzes for an incoming text message.

Agent: Where are you?

Me: Milling about with my fans, why, where are you?

Agent: I’m trying to keep the people backstage under control. They think you’re not going to show. They’re going crazy. They got the food you asked for and the tea. They want you to come backstage.

Me: Alright, I’m on my way.

I exit through the front door–my fans never noticing I’d been sitting next to them–make my way to the rear entrance.

A large man who looks as if he worked for the mafia guards the door.

Mafia guy: They’re waiting for you.

He says in a very strong Scottish accent, which I wasn’t prepared for, open my phone–wondering whether I’m in the right place–look at Google maps and think it’s broken until my agent comes out.

Agent: B, where have you been? They’re losing their minds in here.

Me: It’s fine. I’ll start in a couple of minutes and everything will be alright.

Agent: Very well, I’ll tell them you’re here and that they should start getting the stage ready for your speech.

Me: Thanks. I’m going to use the restroom first.

Agent: Whatever, just be ready to go onstage.

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The previous story is how I imagine my first signing going, though I haven’t written a published work, I do write every day, and not just blog stuff.

When I think about the writer I am and the things I think about when I’m published it always comes down to this scenario, I’m not sure why.

I’m sure other unpublished writers think about their first foray into signing, readings and speeches, but lately that’s not been on my mind, I’ve just been writing.

When you sit down to just write your mind goes through processes of trying to figure out whether what you’re writing is any good, but that happens when you’ve taken the next day to read through what you’ve read, though I try not to this always happens.

As I write every day, a lot of my thoughts are on the characters I’m writing at the moment and not what comes next.

I write the first draft just full-blown, the second draft starts after my first read-through when I get an idea about what the story is about, who my MC is and what will happen when I clean everything up when I do an outline, which is what comes after my read-through.

I only start the second draft after I understand what’s going on, and why. After my characters are thoroughly in my head, and not leaving there. I set out to discover what my characters are truly like, but thinking like them, talking like them–which is often fun but can scare my kids–and making choices the way they would.

After all this is finished and I have a better idea of things, I start the second draft, it wasn’t always like this.

When I decided to write a novel, I’d start then stop, just to get the opening right. I’ve written two books in ten years and I’ve recently had my eyes opened to a different way of doing things.

This eye-opening wasn’t just induced by meditation, but by reading more subjects and listening to books on tape. Listening to books on tape by a great narrator can help you understand dialogue better.

When I found myself reading books just to see where the story originated or where the MC first chose their path.

These little things have changed the way I write, the way I rewrite and how I perform my day job as well.

Keeping track of the small changes in your writing makes a huge difference in how well you understand your writing and how much you understand your characters and what they want in the story.

On a side not to this post. I’ll be giving away three books the end of September. Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch, On Writing by Stephen King and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. These books have helped me either learn about TM or helped me with my writing and I’ll be giving them away.

I’ll do this on my last post of the month, so you have plenty of time to get your entry in. Either comment on the blog, share on Twitter with the hashtag #delusionsofink. Share on Facebook and tag the blog. Here is a link to the blog’s Facebook page, the link for my Twitter profile is here.

Thanks for enjoying the blog and good luck.