Tag Archives: writing life

Dump the Negative and Live The Life You Want.

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We see the darkness, it dances across our eyes. It pleads with our souls and steals our desire.

Within our lives we’re stuck living the life we don’t have, but the thing about being stuck, there’s always a way to get out of it. It takes force, it takes effort, but we have to get through our life, because why should we live life we don’t want?

There are zero reasons to stay in in a job you don’t like. There are zero reasons to live a life that you’re not enjoying.

But, there are things you must do, and a path you must follow.

The first step is clearing all the bad stuff from your life. This could be friends, family and the best way to get rid of these people is to ignore them.

In the social media world, you’re probably connected to people who you don’t talk to on a daily basis. You possibly see their posts on Facebook, Tweets, Snaps, Instagrams, but you keep seeing what their saying.

Their negativity is infecting your soul, filling it with rage, hate, anger and strife.

The faster you rid your life of them, the better you’ll life will be.

It won’t be easy, these are people you care about, but they are infecting your dreams. They’re stopping you from becoming great.

They’re limiting you to be the person you’ve been, when you see someone else you’d want to be.

You know the person, you see them your reflection, your future reflection.

Change your life and live that reflection.

Paperback Landmines, Barbwire and Flies

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The part about writing that always confuses, the writing.

We write, because, well…it’s what we do. There’s nothing I can see myself doing for the rest of my life, definitely not my day-job. I don’t want to be slinging drinks at 50.

I have books by King, Maass and one or two by K.M. Weiland, not to mention Strunk & White.

These books have gathered at my desk for an intervention.

They’re not in a pile, they merely litter my desk like paperback landmines.

One or two sit open, they’re pages alight in streams of fading sun filtering through the blinds.

I see a few of my notes about this, that or the other and find myself drunk from the new knowledge of outlines, plot and character dissection, which oddly sounds like some medieval torture.

I’ve never been fond of these books, but my writing, well it’s on the verge of discovering what landfill flies actually eat, don’t ask.

The headaches are back, the stress of not getting things on the page, when I desperately need the release.

The little synapses are firing, but there’s not much to fire into when the stories are stuck in a no man’s land surrounded by paperback landmines, gas canisters of regret and bullets made of that little gooey stuff that comes out of bugs when you squish them.

I see the books, they’re little bugs telling me to do things I don’t want to do. Outline, plot, character dissection and a myriad of other little things my heart doesn’t want, but my mind keeps telling me, “Listen up, it will help.”

My heart is torn between what my writing wants and what my mind knows needs to happen.

I’ve read all the books, done some of the exercises, but that doesn’t feel like enough tonight. The pillow calls, but I’d rather wrap it around my head with barbwire than leave the desk, because I’m a writer and I have to write.

The writing doesn’t come, it spurts and spills like fresh blood from an artery, cascading across the page in large arcs.

The arcs begin small, but then, something amazing happens…I begin to write.

Finding Peace with the Angry Eight-Year-Old

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When I was eight years old my parents separated and eventually divorced.

I dealt with it like and 8-year-old would, I pushed the anger at my parents deep down inside.

I hid how angry I was–with random acts of rage and frustration–from everyone.

It wasn’t until I was older that I began to understand my anger, but I’d never truly had it under control, it would just be pushed down and ignored until it blew.

When it blew, watch out.

The first time my then girlfriend, and now wife, saw it for the first time, she didn’t no how to respond, it scared her, not because the anger was directed at her, but because she didn’t know how someone who seemed so calm could explode in that manner.

The anger at my parents for how they acted towards us after they separated didn’t help things. I was only eight and only knew my dad was kissing some other woman and my mom another man, nothing was ever explained to me.

When my son turned eight and my wife and I were still together, I felt like I’d conquered a childhood demon, a minor one, but still a demon.

Their divorce was a catalyst in my life. One of those moments where life changed, and I changed.

Before eight-years-old, I stood up to people who’d bullied my sisters and got good grades, afterward I was the one bullied and I no longer cared about my grades. Both of these had an effect on the relationship I had with my parents, something which I don’t think they understood then, though I believe my mom understands now.

It’s been 30 years since then, and I’m going through another catalyst, this time a different better one.

After pushing my anger down, I’ve begun to deal with the eight-year-old I was, and we’ve been talking about how things can move forward with who we are, and not be the angry little boy.

This began with TM.

My break earlier this year was 30 years in the making and though I cried more than I screamed on that day, I’ve come to understand myself better with TM. I’ve learned that my parents didn’t know what the hell they were doing and that though they were young and didn’t seem to care about me at eight, they do now.

With TM I’ve learned that the angry eight-year-old is part of who I am, and that journey has come to an end in the calmness I feel with TM.

I know that I can’t get back the 30 years I lost to anger, but I can live in peace with the person I am now, and I have Transcendental Meditation to thank for that.

I’m a better person than I was five months ago when I wanted to kill myself, and I know that my life is finally hit another road, which I’m following faithfully, keeping my head on the things I want to accomplish in my life and that, in the end Peace is better than being an angry eight-year-old.

Writing Through the Falling Ash

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Searching through the files of our lives, they must look like the deleted technology of a long-lost civilization, long burnt down, crashed and falling to ash.

We watch the reel, enjoying the moments of joy and cringe at the moments of self-realization.

Each of these moments have created who we are, the wrinkles, age and that odd grey color in our hair which we swear wasn’t there yesterday.

These moments are unspoiled by time, life and the things we’ve done since.

Through the years of tears, and every one has a year of tears, no one’s life is perfect.

Staying in a reel, we see watch the life we had, and think about the things yet to come. The loves, loss and the disappointment.

There’s nothing more disconcerting than not being able to see these things. Pulling these files from their roster, some collecting dust, others fresh from the other day, none of them are bad, they just are what they are.

Leading our lives through years, days and hours, each new thing we discover is different, but it may feel the same.

We have the same feelings, but different. The same pain without consequence or the laughter without the joke.

There are some of these which lead to our goals and our strength.

Running through the life which never changes, or appears not to things don’t fall away.

These things add caution and fire to what we want. Going  through, we see the difference of who we’ve become, what’s fallen away, what our foundation has become and where the ash has fallen.

Writing and finding the Honey Pot

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The laughter, pain and confusion of the day rolls by. We’re seething with what we’ve seen, but we put that away, stare at a blank screen and write.

Daily we see things, things which we’re sick about, confused about and sometimes, scared about.

When we see these things we could be worried about what it will do to us. Whether it may cause us mental harm or if, and this is a big if, whether it will affect our writing or on the off-chance, it may do things which could bring out the worst in us.

These are the moments we should be taking notes.

These are when our environment is giving us cues into the labyrinth of the world. This labyrinth hides many things, but sometimes it leads us to creativity, great wonderful ribbons of creativity filled with long writing sessions and awesomely incredible characters.

Our notes, whether written or jotted down in the folds of our grey matter, are the things which lead to the creative honey pot, and like Winnie the Pooh we should bury ourselves in the honey pot, finding every little piece of honey until we’re full.

The honey pot comes more with each time we take these notes, and it continues until we don’t need the notes anymore and we’re just experiencing the things around us, but our subconscious is taking notes, which will be unlocked in our writing session later.

Finding the honey pot, and getting our fingers into the warm, gooey wonderfulness keeps us writing every day.

Without the honey pot, we’re left with a blank page, nothing more.

The more we write, the more the honey pot comes into play and the less we realize we’re pulling from it, but afterward, when we’re reading our stories, that’s when the realization of the honey pot hits us.

It’s always there, but it comes more often when we’re writing regularly.

The best thing to do is get out, experience things, live and do the things you’ve wanted to do and never hold back from what you’ve wanted to do. Then you’re free to find the honey pot and it will appear when you least expect it.

Dig in, find the honey pot, take notes and write, and when you think you’ve written enough, write some more.