I feel like I'm way behind with everything, but I also feel like I've been up to a lot, and some how I'm still accomplishing something.
Here's what I mean, the beginning of the year (was supposed to have) started with writing poems, tarot, and writing for this blog in general. Shortly there after, I picked up a book, because literally every writer/author says you have to read A LOT to write, and I'm beginning to see the truth to that, while reading tarot cards stopped being for 'me' and became plot ideas, story lines and character backgrounds for something else, a lot of somethings in fact. Guess this is where I point out it's hard for me to stick to one thing. Anyways, not that it sounds like much, I've got a little bit of everything going on, mostly centered around writing, and am close to finishing my third book (which is a lot for me).
I guess that's what I've really been focusing on, reading and writing. I can't remember wanting something as badly as I want to be an actual writer. How badly I want to make it a part of my life, to be my life. I'm over wondering if it sounds silly or not. I may not know much about my family history, which I was discussing with a sweet Druid previously, but I know my writing comes from my dad's own passion and I need mine to go somewhere. For the both of us.
The current book I'm reading is called "Thunder and Lightning" by Natalie Goldberg. It came highly recommended, and though I'm a few pages from the end, I cannot describe how completely inspiring it has become. I started it with the attitude that she has no idea how hard it is. How hard it is to live in the middle class, to not make enough to even be considered so - to live in poverty, to have the government screw you left and right and every time you think you're getting somewhere, you're kicked right back into a never ending abyss of darkness. It is thanks to my dad though that I can accept all my own faults as my own and that I am the only one that can change them. While I'm completely aware that most companies, schools and hospitals and the lot are out for money and really provide no well being for anyone, I know there are still good people too. People who work hard and love and give a damn about what they do.
Natalie is one of those people, the ones that really care about what they do, going out and seeking answers, inspiration, the reasons to why and how and connecting with the students she teaches. This was, is, such an uplifting switch from Chuck Palahniuk's book "Diary" about an artist who wanted love and happiness and was doomed to the life of an artistic genius and a terrible cult-like lifestyle. I think I was so out of sorts when I finished the book because I was so attached to the main character, Misty. I saw myself in her, and I broke over and over for her.
“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, Diary
There's a point to that quote, but I'm not going into it, and I have no intentions of forgetting it any time soon.
A few of the books and comics I manage to have read lately (before the new year) have left me angry, but I guess I cannot always have some happy ending.
I don't know if I expect anything out of writing... Natalie starts "Thunder and Lighting" with a warning. The first sentence reads,
"I have not seen writing lead to happiness in my friend's lives."
She goes on to talk about her life writing, her practice with Zazen... how she spent weeks with his master before she realized she was depressed. Then, she goes on and talks about a friend that she did all sorts of things with to cheer up and it was writing practice that got her back into the groove. I guess what I've taken from this, is that while it's hard to write, to structure a novel and put your heart and soul out there on the marketplace for the literal world (to consume should they want too) is that writing is some sort of beast within us. It tells us when it wants to be let out, either with a loud roar or a hungry growl of some unfulfilled desire, some guttural cry spewing words over pages that may not make sense until later. Eventually, every beast is sated for awhile, full... accomplished. Then we're left with a longing for that high, that wild side again.
I might not be some artistic genius, and I might not be great at writing, but be damned if I don't try and sit down and get something out every day, if I'm not sneaking scraps of paper used as test tickets for my machine at work because I've got what I think is some amazing idea, or sentence to start something with. I'm constantly looking for inspiration, like that blizzard we had here the other day that once I started writing what I was seeing, I was connecting it to things from when I was younger and growing up. There's that old friend that's suddenly back in my life and a mess of history that has me out of sorts, or the lovely Druid I mentioned before who writes poetry like I've never read before - I like poetry a lot but it's hard for me to feel truly moved by it unless it happens to be something by Edgar Allen Poe.
I fully believe that one day I will hit my stride, and that everything in the meantime are notes and practice and little diary entries and scribbles on the portrait that is my life. I fully believe that tarot and witchcraft, and reading, and taking in all the small things have really helped me grow in the last year, and with hoping I'm going back to school in the next few months, I can only think it's all uphill from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment