June 30, 2001
I’m excited, I’m thrilled, I’m living on the edge of anticipation. And not because I’ve got major publishing deals coming up, or because I’ve completed my first novel or money is overflowing. I am excited because I think I have gotten my head out of my ass.
I thought all the recent fear, confusion, restlessness & feeling of being overwhelmed was because I had chosen to write.
It wasn’t.
Writing, as a career was the only right choice I have made in a long time. I knew in my heart that was the right thing, and the entire world was opening up for me to also show me that this was the right decision. And, I had, in all honesty, accepted writing and wanted to learn and grow within it. At the same time I had chosen to write, all these other things started to happen in my life. And all these new things started to overload me, confuse me, and frustrate me. And rather than work them out or admit I couldn’t cope with it all 100%, I blamed everything on my writing career. I blamed everything on my new decision to do what I wanted to do. I took the easy way out.
Since I had blamed my writing for all of my negative emotions, I ended up not writing anything. I didn’t even want to write in my journal or jot a note down for the grocery. For the past two weeks, I’d been completely unproductive, but I wouldn’t admit to it. I’d just blame the situation, I’d blame my decision, I’d blame everything except myself, my actions and my decisions. And I started to hate myself for that, because I usually when I have a problem, I confront it and move on. But I wasn’t doing that; I just kept blaming my writing career instead.
By doing that, life was hard. I was always in a battle of some sort. Anais Nin once said, “The effort to live never wore one out as much as the effort not to.” All my excuses and all my attempts at fighting life had worn me out and paralysed me creatively.
Today, that changed. The past few days I had, without really knowing it, been surrendering to everything and owning up to what was really going on. I spent the last few days just accepting that I haven’t been writing, rather than trying to pretend I had been working hard at it. I stayed in bed if I had and told myself it was ok if I had to sleep or rest or think. If I needed five cups of tea I had it. If I had to feel pitiful I did. I went through all the emotions I’d been trying to bottle up. I didn’t fight anything. I let it all out.
Then I made a list of all the real issues going on right now in my life and then dealt with them one by one. That gave me a sense of accomplishment, closure and then freedom. There wasn’t anything left to hide behind, and the truth was told. I realised that writing wasn’t what I was afraid of, it was so many other things. Blaming writing was just the easy way of avoiding everything else.
I feel like this is the turning point I was looking for, the realisation I needed to make. My writing, my creativity, my art, will be different now. It will move forward without question.
About time.
June 26, 2001
Some people have said to me how fortunate I am to know what my passion is. They say to me that they would follow their calling if only they knew what it was. How lucky, they say, that I don’t have to figure that out.
I agree, but it wasn’t always that way. I had always wanted to be a writer. When I was younger I would do nothing but spend hours writing stories and English was always one of my best subjects. When I was 10, I knew I wanted to use my words to only showcase the wonder of the world around me and use my ability to influence people and empower them.
However, as I got older, I let go of writing. I never entertained the idea of really being a writer. I was raised to get a good job and become responsible – writing didn’t seem to be the way to do that.
Last year, I was going through the phase where I wanted to know what my calling was, as I kept hearing so many people talking about this. I wanted to find something I loved and figure out a way to turn it into a job. I wracked my brain over and over and couldn’t figure out what it was.
It wasn’t until February this year, on the plane back from Europe, that I discovered my want to write. Although I had been doing some small work on the Internet since 1997, I wanted to take it to a new level, because, I realised, writing was my passion.
It took me from then until April to get up the courage to do it.
If you don’t think you know what you’re here for, if you have no idea what moves you or stirs you, if you can’t figure out a job that you’ll love, chances are, you just haven’t removed yourself from your current life enough to see it.
Because I truly believe each of us knows what our passion is, and what life we really want to lead. The trick is just to let the life we want to lead, become the one we do lead.
June 25, 2001
I’ve been living moment to moment lately. Actually, let me rephrase that – I’ve been living hectic moment to hectic moment.
I’m moving in two weeks, in the meantime I’m packing like mad and then going crazy because I can’t find something. My husband has started school in the evenings again after being out for two years, and now I have to make that adjustment. I have overseas guests coming in two weeks. I have deadlines approaching for writing, I have cleaning to take care of, errands to run, household bills to catch up on. I’m writing in what little time I have but it doesn’t seem like I’m writing anything good – my brain seems too fried.
I feel like I’m so overloaded, so busy with “things” that all I want is some quiet, some time to myself, some time to discover art again. I feel like I need one week by myself somewhere on some kind of artist escape. I want to devote nothing but time to reading, to learning, to playing, tow writing. I want to spend a few days with some other artist just to connect so I won’t feel alone. I want some time away from reality, just to get myself grounded.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful.
June 17, 2001
In order to write I have to be busy and involved with life. Sitting silently in a tucked away corner brooding does not give me great material. I am, after all, a writer and not a rock star.
This past month has not let me down. I have been busy with one thing to deal with after another. I’m moving and have two weeks to pack up two years of living in this flat. I have writing to do, articles to submit. I have emails I have to respond to. I have cleaning that needs to be done and organising different things that have to happen. I have to sign up for an art class that I really want to take and then fit that class into my life somehow. And I’ve been trying to do it all at full steam. I am a writer, and I must write. I sometimes want to nap or sleep or take some much needed downtime, but I don’t. I feel like I could be writing or learning instead or wasting time away under the covers.
However, being so busy and trying to write like mad had taken it’s toll on me and last night I had just run out of steam.
It was only ten o’clock at night and I had literally just fallen into bed. The side of my face smooshed against my pillow, my right limbs hanging off the bed. I couldn’t move, my body was dead to the world.
However, my brain kept going. It kept thinking of a new idea, a new story, something new to write and share. It was working in a magical way when it should have been silent for sleep.
I debated if I should get up and turn on the computer and write all my ideas down. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I was so exhausted, my limbs were enjoying the sensation of just hanging and my smooshed face wanted nothing more than to remain being smooshed. But the thoughts kept coming.
“I’ll write it down tomorrow,” I thought. But then I thought I’d probably forget and that really, if I were a true writer of writers, I’d get up and write everything down. I argued with myself like this for another 10 minutes and then I declared I was going to get up and just write it all down.
When I got up, I looked at the clock and it was seven thirty in the morning. And of course, I had forgotten every idea that I had last night.
I knew I should have tried to write it down last night, I thought. I felt like I had failed by letting precious ideas fly out of my brain and not record any of them. But then I thought about it. If I’m doing nothing more than exhausting myself, how much quality will I really produce? I needed to re-energize myself, and sleep did that for me. It didn’t take away anything, it fed me.
Which is a good thing too. As soon as I surrendered to the fact that I will have to sleep every day and in fact, do not posses superhero energy, I was granted some more opportunities in writing and was contacted by even more amazing artist friends. I had the energy to respond to everyone, and I even had left over energy for new ideas.
June 13, 2001
A couple of weeks ago, a friend said to me, “So, are you getting a lot of rejection?” And I said, “No. I’m not trying hard enough right now.”
I have been holding back from really trying because I didn’t want anyone to tell me that my work that I might be proud of was nothing more than rubbish. I didn’t want anyone to say to me ‘how dare you quit your secure job just to live out some silly dream.’ I didn’t want to hear that I am not a writer.
Then I decided to not care so much. If doing what you love to do is the goal of finding a job, then I know that writing is the job for me. I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather do than create. And I figure that I have suffered far worse bruising than hearing, “I’m sorry, your article doesn’t fit with what we are currently looking for.”
Once I got over my fear of rejection, things started to open up. I started to do more writing and creating. I wasn’t so concerned with first draft perfection anymore. I began to feel a little freer.
And once that started to happen, I was able to reach out to others without a fear of their reactions. I had begun to contact artists and writers whose work had inspired me. I wanted to tell them thank you or bravo for work well done. And the amazing thing was, they all wrote back. They never wrote back negative things, they never told me to stop writing, and they never asked me who did I think I was stepping into their arena.
In fact, they all gave me encouragement. They all gave me inspiration. And they all gave me a sense of normalcy in that all this confusion, fear, self doubt, sense of being overwhelmed, insecurity, madness is perfectly normal.
I’ve never had any writer or artist friends before, and I’ve never known anyone who has gone down this path before. I was feeling so alone and that I must be some kind of fake because of all my insecurities or non-published works. I would never have imagined that people who have had artistic success could ever feel this way too. I was so naive that thinking that because I held admiration for them, that they must always have artistic success and not the same struggles that I have.
It was such a comfort to get encouragement back from others who are like me. It just seemed to calm any jitters I had or answer any questions I had felt about if this is the right thing to do. Their email, their encouragement, has meant more than anything I could ever put into words.
I think that is why documenting my journey on this website is so important to me. Because I want people to know that even when things are hard and frustrating, it’s ok. That if you can stick to your dream and ride out the rougher waves, you’ll get something wonderful back in return. That if you’re willing to try that perhaps that sometimes is enough.
But I think the most important thing I could share is that success comes in all different forms and not overnight. And the trick is to figure out when you have it, when to wait for it, and when to keep trying.
And when I’ve figured that out, I’ll let you know.