Dec. 31, 2001
In all the 27 new years that have come and gone, I have not once made a resolution.
For the most part, I thought they felt a little negative because you hear more often than not of people making resolutions that are just made to be broken or don’t seem so important. You know the ones – lose 10lbs, quit smoking, stop being mean to my brother, exercise at 5am each day, read War and Peace etc.
This year, however, I’ve decided that I’m going to make one.
It’s not so much of what I’m not going to do, but rather, what I am going to do. And what I am going to do this year is not hold back.
This new feeling of bravery started in mid-December when something inside just clicked. When I realised that I by writing, I was a writer. And how much of a writer depended on how much I wrote and what I did with it. That feeling of accepting who I am and being comfortable has allowed me to relax and focus on moving forward, instead of spending time question if I have the right to move forward.
I think of all the time from April until December that I held back, and all the opportunities that passed me by because I was afraid or the friendships I missed because I was too scared to sound stupid and hit the reply button. I think of all the paintings that I never started because I was too scared that they’d be stupid and all the writing bits I threw out because I was afraid that someone might read them. That’s not what I am about and that’s not what living is about.
Now that I’m back to remembering that I won’t waste anymore time. No more holding back.
Dec. 22, 2001
There will be no updates to the site, no day entries or portfolio’s launching until January. It will be quiet around here as I take time out and go away for the Holidays.
Before I do, I wanted to break from the regular “journal entries” and say a quick Thank You to each and every one of you. Yes, even you, the first time visitor.
In April 2001 I took a dream, some webspace, and a leap of faith and here I am. A writer that is surrounded by countless means of support, wonderful friends, and a dream that’s become a reality.
All your emails and your sharing of stories and experiences has affected me in ways you’ll never know. So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for letting me feel so lucky.
If I could have one wish for you this holiday season, it would be that whatever is in your heart to do, you begin it. That any dream you have becomes a reality in 2002. Because it can.
Dec. 19, 2001
I haven’t been holding back at all the past several days. I’ve created a scary amount of momentum and accomplished things that used to be just ideas floating in my mind. I’ve finally spent time working on my portfolio, I’ve been working on launching two sites, and I’ve been writing like mad for another writing project whose deadline is January 01st. I’ve been doing and doing and doing.
It feels bloody fabulous.
That’s not to say that I have put in 13-hour days or broken any records for the most amount of work in one hour – I haven’t. In fact, one day I didn’t do more than hours worth of anything, let alone writing. On that particular day, I couldn’t do much of anything at all, so I didn’t. But the next day when I thought about all that I could do, I did it all.
I’ve just felt so completely liberated since I examined things and figured out where my head was. The clarity has been the best Christmas present I could have ever asked for. I realise now that things are just so simple, so easy to see. I think my fear was manifesting everything into a big complicated mess. Fear is a bugger like that.
That’s why I created that poster yesterday. I truly believe that if you want to be a writer, the only thing you have to do is write. There is no path to follow, no test to pass, no course to take, no lifestyle to follow. You just have to write. Plain and simple.
The quote by Edison along with creating the poster yesterday has just given me back my friendship with freedom and allowed me to write as I need to. No more reading every book on how to write, no more playing tricks to get me to write, no more trying to create schedules that don’t work anyway, no more talking about writing or how I feel about writing. No more fear of failing or not living up to some kind of imagined expectations. No more fluff. Just writing.
When I mentioned this to Chris he said to me, “Sounds like you finally meshed the two.”
“The two what?” I said.
“Your life and your writing. You’ve been keeping them pretty separate.”
“Writing is my life.” I said back to him.
“No,” he said, “It’s been your job. You’ve treated it different. Your personal, kick ass, simple, real logic that you have in your every day life hasn’t been applied to your writing life. You’re always full of confidence but when it came to writing it seemed to vanish. You seemed to vanish. But it looks likes now how you are in your every day life and how you work in that is being applied to your writing. You’re writing now instead of you trying to be somebody who writes.”
I hadn’t ever thought of it that way but I can completely see it now. Before I had felt that just simply writing wasn’t enough to make someone a writer. I thought I had to do “writer” things and follow a “writers” path so I tried to create some kind of form and function to follow. I tried to give power to myself via someone else. But the truth is, I was a writer all along for the mere fact that I wrote.
I don’t, however, feel like such a dumbass for not realising that any sooner. After all Dorothy didn’t find out either until she had gone on a huge colourful journey too.
Dec. 18, 2001
How to Be a Writer by Alex Beauchamp
Dec. 17, 2001
I’ve had in my mind, a huge project. A project that involved lots of work, effort and being brave.
It was to create a website that showcased other women who were on the same path as myself because I have received so many emails from people who have said how grateful they were to find someone else trying to find their way. I wanted to share with them that I’m not the only one out there – there is a lot of us out there.
About 5 months ago I created the domain name for it. I started to tinker around with creating the website. But nothing ever really got done – despite the fact I truly believed in this. No matter how much I talked about it or thought about it, nothing ever developed into something real. It always remained just an idea.
When I kicked my arse the other day, I finally got it all done. I realised I was holding back on beginning and finishing the project because I was so afraid of it failing, or people not wanting to participate in it, or the audience not wanting to see it. But the other day I just realised that if I can do it, I need to do it. I have to try, even if it fails.
I ended up working like mad for a couple of days creating the Visit the Site – Another Girl at Play!website, figuring out whom to contact and gathering email addresses. Once I had done that there was only one thing left to do – write a proposal, contact other people and invite them to participate.
To me, that was the scariest thing ever. It was one thing for me to just know about it and be OK with it, but it was a whole other bag to let others know about it.
But I did it. I wrote up the proposal and sent it off to people I thought would be perfect.
When I hit the “send” button and the email went on it’s way, I felt both excited and scared. Excited because I was finally doing something rather than just keeping it locked away in my mind and scared because I could get a lot of rejection. When something stays in your mind, only you can reject it and that’s a lot easier to control. Making it real takes courage, I know. You have to be able to get rejected and say, “Ok, that just didn’t work out. Next!”
So with that attitude, rather than sit and focus on that site and what could happen, I decided I had to just release it and let what happens with it happen. There were other projects I needed to work on and moving forward is always a good direction.
Then as I was working on other things, the emails started to come in. Slowly but surely, people were saying yes! People were telling me they were excited. People saying they’d love to participate and knew of someone else. A buzz started to happen and the fear started to slowly melt away.
Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done on the site, but it looks like it will happen.