I am turning over a new leaf.
While writing about fantasy worlds every day, it’s easy to get caught up in dystopian landscapes so sinister and closely parallelled to our own I sometimes have to stop and reset my mindset.
Lesson One: Develop YOUR own Routine, and let no man, woman, or child tell you otherwise…
After years of practicing the art of maintaining my sh** in throes of it, I’ve begun to form my own values, boundaries, virtues, personality, and voice, all while exploring characters in storylines that take me to the borders of humanity and the world as we understand it to be. Into symbolism and their more intricate meanings.
Recently I’ve developed the theory that I didn’t truly know myself until I started to experience more and more of what I am not, and turning back to appreciate the simpler things that I choose to be in order to share them with those who are brought to me. A technique that has helped me to see them more clearly, instead of seeing my own traits reflected back toward me.
Lesson Two, Part A: Growth and Routine
When I first began the hectic journey of mastering my writing voice, I asked for balance and in return, for the plea, a regimen of self-care has begun to develop within me.
My self-prescribed morning practices remind me of what matters most to me daily as it adjusts my focus. Routine’s matter and mine include; plants, roasted beans, the man I love, a little sweat. Topped with a chapter from the most beautiful love story of all times and meditation, all before eight in the morning, Bam!
That’s who I am at my very best, having someone else to keep me in check is a huge bonus, I’ve learned longterm relations bears good consequence in otherwise chaotic circumstances.
Lesson Two, Part B: Try to see things in pictures, the entertainment is free…
To anyone with an active imagination, or if you are simply looking to improve as I am, I highly suggest taking words to the next level, painting pictures over your mind before trying to find the right ways to descript them. Picture your thoughts as brightly as you can, before trying to be insightful over a certain construct. This is how I’ve found some of my best story strings and profound character schemes, Does anyone else do it this way?
Lesson Two, Part C: Growth Requires Humility
Somehow I feel surer of myself with each failure I claim, and truly it is about how I see myself in spite of my perceived shortcomings. When I worry about what others might think, now that’s when my personal devils find me! Reminding myself I am only human and underneath all of my primping, I function the same as every other one of them…
This can be comforting but ultimately, I have to remind myself my goal is to rise above some of what comes most easily, it’s easily confused for what should occur naturally, if I was in a perfect environment with the perfect things surrounding me, I like to think I’d also shine brightly, to reach above what comes easily is to find the best of me.
It isn’t the act of not finishing that reflects poorly on me, it’s the miss use of time taken toward a method of learning where a lesson was never achieved that reflects less refined qualities. In my book, mistakes define one of many ways I’m not meant to make my own version of the light bulb.
Lesson 3, Part A: Always remember progress can be made by playing
The best business deals are made over dinner, drinks, and entertainment. If I can’t have fun with my pen I won’t pick it up, I’ll throw on my shoes and run and run, until I have no more vinegar left, you’d be surprised what can be found inside when all resistance has left a worn out mind
Lesson 3, Part B: Always maintain your faith in ‘Me’
Remember you are here for a reason, witnessing the same change of season as almost 8 billion others living on this speck. If things seem overwhelming zoom in or out in order to remember what life is really about. Find the ways you can make positive changes on any scale.
This technique has been life-changing. No matter what, I’ve begun to believe as long as I’m breathing there is still a chance for me to advance, if I make it through one day, I can make it through the next. If I can find a way to maintain my feet the worse days, the best are guaranteed to be more sweet.
Lesson Three, Part C: Stay hungry until you get where you want to be
I have found that when I go hungry I appreciate the food I do take. And anything more than Ramon noodles (I suggest adding eggs) or oatmeal with honey, or nothing is something to savor.
If I can resist the ‘hangry phase’ I know I’ve leveled up my own character in some ways. There are days when I am less productive I have to take a moment and realize I often seek to find that trait in others to make myself feel better. Nothing to feel guilty over, but once observed it can be retraced, laced in more creative ways to spend my attention.
Lesson four, Part A: Live by love, every day
This one, uck, so easy to say, believe me, love doesn’t always come easy, can leave me in crumpled clothes and candy wrappers with the best of them.
Realizing love isn’t always what we want it to be, that using my heart properly is more of a project, an exercise helping me to realize how difficult I can be. The process of trying has led me to a deeper understanding of humanity and the triviality of my existence is only relieved by the impressions I leave behind me.
I’ve begun to see how silly my little dilemmas are comparatively trite in the grand scheme of things. I don’t have to pretend to be a man, run from lions, or cross an ocean in search of lands end, in fact, I can google map just about any physical location in a matter of seconds…
I’ve found seeing from this view elevates compassion in a way no text can touch on. The method of being is exponentially enhanced by little acts of doing.
Lesson Four, Part C: Spend Time With Those Who Are True and Believe, to the Point of Invested In YOUR Version of ‘Me’
If you haven’t found it, be open to it, don’t approach the subject with disbelief in it’s existence, like lost keys true love only happens when you stop searching and start looking for your better self.
Sometimes when I am writing I won’t interact with others outside my significant best friend for months on end. Together we work on our projects, he motivates me, so maybe that’s step three. Find someone who sees similar currencies, who seeks their own goals on the same level as you.
My other half is an electrical engineer by trade, so go figure he sees energy everywhere. But his expertise didn’t start there, he’s been building rockets since he turned eight, made his own sugar fuel, we built fireworks on our first date before I convinced him to jump into April water in the frozen hills, naked and miles from where he had parked. Needless to say, there were sparks.
The Elon plus Tesla his names even Nick, he is perfection in my opinion. A genius so humble he doesn’t have to pretend, I am so lucky to learn from him. He grounds me when I would otherwise be static electricity bouncing between oceans, seas, and cities.
The theory of the rock and a butterfly suddenly struck me right in the heart with him. He builds the things he sees, bringing previous models to their knees, he teaches me humility in that I will never be as brilliant in mathematics as he. But because of his love, I am allowed to witness it vicariously.
It’s important to see the spirit of those you spend time with. If you’re going to fall in love why wait for time to pass?
Do it hard, and do it fast, if you wish to make it last. Love without regard to what might be on its underbelly, believe me, relationships have the ability to bring out the best and the worst in me. There are a million moments I’ve been sure he would leave me. But his loyalty has saved me as much as my vulnerability and faith, together these traits have helped to achieve the relationship status I’d only imagined.
I’m not surprised that my adult life has been riddled in lessons, I’ve loved them since I first learned to read. My mother, God bless her, took the time to take me under her wing, and extend her own intelligence to figuring out what to do with my mess.
I am dyslexic, and by six, when what was once ‘the sweetest lisp’ wouldn’t go away, I found at the sound of laughter, I had far less to say. I could mesmerize stories but words would mess with my tired eyes, I think that’s why they are double the normal size. I always look like I’m surprised in childhood pictures.
To make matters more interesting, I had a huge gap between my teeth, and besides that my curls, didn’t make sense to me. I was a quiet, sweet-hearted, ugly duckling on the outside, but inside I knew so much more. I love to listen and see things, the symbols in our church weren’t lost to me.
I learned to read because I desperately needed friends, I even found them in our chickens. They found me again in the stories my mom and sisters read to me, leaving me ever hungry for beautiful words. It took me a while as a child to figure out the art but once I did I became ravenous, no great story was ever enough. I found my fixes glittering over the shelves of libraries for me to check out, and use, although I don’t think I ever abused them, I used them religiously to teach me to be who I wanted to be, I didn’t much like the narratives playing around me, to noisy.
I found my answers in hobbits, and the Good Book, in fairies and hidden nooks. In little houses lost over prairies. Then in riddles more advance, I tried my hand at murder mystery and romance.
With good books, life is never bland… I would sometimes even get myself grounded later on just so I’d have an outlet to read on.
One day I realized, not so long ago… Writing and reading is really all I know, the craft has gotten me where I’ve needed to go, from the shallows to drowning in the depths of my own humanities. Life always brings me back to books.
Whenever I’ve had enough of feeling low, I look to other’s stories to show me a way, maybe not mine but if they can find theirs then surely, I will too.
The words that stuck, spoke to me so much more sweetly than the environments around me. Suddenly beyond the shield of better characteristics I’d collected from my heroes, I felt more unstoppable. Everything outside of their direction seemed so noisy, a space filled with little wants that wanted others to want them more than all the others wanting them to want them in their lives fweew.
Kids. My family lived a pretty unconventional existence, from homeschooling for most of my childhood, to growing up on a farm with more siblings that the class I eventually graduated with (okay that’s a stretch, class of 12, family of 10) and then moving to the cities in search of the direction that always seemed to evade me, there are too many things to find interesting, dedicating all ones’ attention eternally toward a single one seems a frivolously slow death, a martyrdom I would rather avoid. Thank goodness, and Jane Austin and Nancy Drew or my love life might have felt that way too.
Go big or go home, love me all or love me not one bit, lukewarm is the opposite of bipolar so those of us that have the ability to fluctuate will slowly gravitate toward gone rather than sit in a warmish tub.
… That should be a T-Shirt
I’ve always been stubborn and since I started this blog as a way to release my personal narrative, I want to stay on that track. I can be summarized by the topics I follow, from day to day the subjects stray from one thing to the next, painting themselves into a complex web until inevitably at the end of my search the micro topics have exploded into a string of words, collecting under the umbrella of a plot based on all of the concretes I’ve just placed together.
While reading through biographies of all the greats that lived before me I’ve found this trait to be engrained into almost every single one of them! From J.R.R Tolkien to Orwell each of them was plagued with an endlessly curious list of interests. This fact has given me so much hope in the face of no cookie cutter shape quite fitting my desired direction.
So point of post be aware of what you wish for, when I was washing bar glasses and whimsically losing myself in daydreams of writing fantasy I had no idea that would lead to a spiral into chaos and the evolution of the story manifesting into every facet of my life until I called uncle and stopped running away long enough to sit down and get to know my characters.
Take time to let love repair you, that’s the conclusion I’ve come too. And who knows, tomorrow may change some detail of that statement but I’ve found no other way to joy than love, and if you don’t feel it, maybe it is because you are wanting it to much and giving it too little.
When famine strikes, Meditate, daydream, go for a walk, listen to music, podcasts, videos you connect with. Characters who connect you to who you really are, and who that being would wish to be.
Everyone finds their own way, and this has become a huge part of my process.
Thank you for spending time with me on my journey. As any writer knows, the path to a good story often leads the teller through a dance with darkness. As most of you writers out there can attest, the road is sprinkled in loneliness. When I’ve looked up, there’s always been light leaking in, but it’s my duty to lift my own head, no one else’s.
The Inkling 