Archive for the ‘Neurotic Griping’ Category

I will admit it. There is a vindictive part of me, like I’m sure we all have some amount of, that seethes with jealousy and disdain at the success of others. Being the passive aggressive Scandehoovian that I am, I of course keep my acidic comments to myself until I am with safe company. It’s a compulsive reaction from growing up in an environment that didn’t provide a whole hell of a lot of success. I don’t blame my parents. They didn’t know what attainable success looked like either. We’re all  just one more spoke in the wheel of bitter survival that’s been spinning for eons.

I know it’s wrong to covet other people’s accomplishments. Those accolades belong to them. How they came about their successes is none of my business. Yet, sometimes, deep down, I just feel irrationally cheated, like “How come they managed to pull that off and I didn’t? What am I missing that I can’t do what they do?” If I really wanted to be honest with myself, I could do a mental checklist and find all sorts of shortcomings in how I run my life that I’m either too lazy, too stubborn, or too afraid to change. But it’s so much easier to just sneer at others and say “They’re puttin’ on airs.”

If deep down in your gut, you think someone came about a perceived success through devious means, go ahead and sneer. But if success came from insight, preparedness, organization, and just plain doing the work, make a concerted effort to give that winner their just due. Resenting that other person for succeeding where you didn’t doesn’t affect their accomplishments, but it certainly undermines your credibility.

Maybe if we all spent more time appreciating what others do and glean inspiration from their achievements, rather than wallowing in our own self righteous sense of fairness, we’d all be further along as a whole. I’m going to try to remember that next time someone tells me about this awesome thing they pulled off, when the evil little shit in my head wants to just spout, “Oh yeah, how do you rate?”

So the screenplay’s done. I sent it into the writing contest. “What writing contest?” you ask. Check out TVwriter.com on my links page. Anyway, so it’s sent in and out of my hair. Now I need to return to book 4. I procrastinated on this book earlier. First I blamed it on the winter that wouldn’t die (last snow fall on May 11th). Then I blamed it on getting the screen play done by June because I payed the entry fee for the contest way back in March, and I didn’t want to waste the entry fee.

So, no more excuses, right? Except that spring is here, it’s the height of planting season, it’s warm and sunny and green outside. Things are blooming. So what do I do instead of write? I wander. I slowly walk through my garden, slightly stooped. I methodically let my gaze drift over every plant, through the beds and back again. “Ooh, this plant is budding out. I need to weed this part of the bed. Oh, I need to move that. What’s eating this plant?”

My plant vulturing this year has earned me many new green children. They are spread all around the house and the garage. My perennial bed is expanding like a brown dirt glacier, taking over the unused back lawn, spade load by spade load. That’s awesome, but I need to write.

It’s mid June. Last year, book 3 was done at the end of May. It takes time for the editors to go through the book. It takes time for me to rewrite based on the edits. It takes time to publish the ebook. It takes time to format the hard copy. It takes time to create the hard cover. (“Time Time Time to see what’s become of me…”)

But spring is so short, especially this year. Summer will come hot and humid with deer flies and mosquitoes everywhere. Heatwaves will rotate between thunderstorms with a few tornado scares sprinkled in to keep everyone on their toes. Don’t I get to enjoy this fleeting moment of fairly consistent niceness?

Today I finally did both. I moved wet, heavy leaves. I planted annuals and moved perennials. After I  took a wheelbarrow of sod clumps to the dumpster, my back said I was done. So I wandered, looked around, and said, “I need a notebook.”

The pile of leaves had been taking up a nice spot under the oak tree. I pulled up a chair and picked up Book 4 where I had abandoned my heroine months earlier. I stopped between scenes and wondered to myself when my blasted irises were finally going to open with a bloom instead of teasing me with their tight buds. Then I wrote some more. I got a good few pages out of the deal. I just need to keep it up. I need to continue, whether inside or out, keyboard or notebook.

Shit’s gotta get done. “When’s the next book coming?” deserves a proper answer.

The truly great thing about writing in a journal is you get to vent about any melodramatic drivel that comes to mind with no editing. It’s exclusively yours, which makes it liberating.

The trouble starts when you begin to believe that you’re actually channeling ingenious thoughts about life and pathos. What a shame you’re the only one who gets to witness such extraordinary pros concerning observations of the human condition.

A writer is born. Out of this self-deluded belief that somehow God appointed you to be the voice in the wilderness, you imagine yourself capable of communication with other people in a competent manner.

Never mind you’ve never truly tested this theory in reality. Never mind so many others have gone before you and failed miserably in the face of the world’s cruel judgement. Never mind the few who do accrue some modicum of success eventually fall prey to their own jaded opinions of an art that used to bring them joy.

When you write for yourself, nothing matters. It’s a completely internal process that need only provide you with a release. Its’ a safe place. It’s therapy. It’s a hobby.

Making a work of literature that is meant to have an audience that doesn’t exist exclusively in your head is just that – work. You have to pay attention to silly things like grammar and spelling. You have to edit for consistency and cohesion. You have to eventually make a point. Now, everything matters. Oh crap.

It’s this transition that kills writers. Somewhere between the blathering of self indulgence and the hypersensitivity to judgement lies a sweet spot of good literature.

Finding it can be an elusive and daunting process. You have to locate it amidst the din of self doubt chanting, “who the hell do you think you are?” Even if you do find it, that sweet spot can slip out of your reach unless you vigilantly maintain your position no matter what life puts in your way.

The truth is the world needs writers. The Information Age has created a maelstrom of shorthanded random thoughts and regurgitated quotes that rotate the globe with alarming speed and short lived impacts. Lasting impressions of thought and reason are becoming an endangered species.

Don’t be afraid to speak up. Just have something to say.