August 04, 2001

Someone asked me recently if I’d written much.

“Oh yeah!” I said. “I’ve written 3 novels, 52 magazine articles, 2 short stories and some liner notes.” Unfortunately, it’s all still in my head and not down on paper.

It’s not that I don’t want to write it all; I do. But lately, I’ve just had no motivation despite the fact that several deadlines are looming. Deadlines I have to make if I want to keep my momentum and start my way into being published. I don’t want to let these opportunities go by, but slowly I am.

I tried to look at all the reasons why I’m procrastinating or simply just not doing this. I came up with a lot of really good psychological garb but I think the main fact is that I’ve just run out of steam.

That’s the hard thing about working for yourself or working at home is learning time management or being disciplined, at least for me. I worked like mad for a few weeks and then I wore myself out. My brain doesn’t even want to write a grocery list at this point let alone an 800-word article.

Now, I’m the boss. I decide when I work and how I work and how long I will work for. Sometimes this is a good thing as I work myself to death and produce some fabulous work, other times, I’m far to easy on myself and I let myself get away with too much, like now. I feel like I need some one to whip my arse into shape. I wonder if there’s anyone for hire?

I know it comes down to me just doing the job I need to do, but it’s hard. It’s not like another job where you can just zombie through it. With this job, I have to use all of me to write something, and when I’m tired or just not in the mood, that can be a little hard.

Something had to be done, however. I have to figure out how to discipline myself somehow. Just sit down and get it done.

This is where having a laptop and a desert island would be handy.

August 01, 2001

A lot of people are curious as to how to financial make it if you chose to live out a dream or live your passion. For writing, there is no steady paycheque if you’re doing freelance work and especially if you’re just beginning. I will be published shortly, however, a couple of them are not paid jobs. It’s more for exposure and experience. Money, from my work, is definitely not rolling into the bank – yet.

I am, however, fortunate in that Chris’ income can support both he and I comfortably. Being with him means I can afford to have freelance writing my full time job. If I was on my own, however, I don’t think that would be possible because rent has to be paid, food has to be eaten, lights have to be on, and clothes have to be worn. That costs money. And if you’re living as a freelance artist with humble beginnings, that can be a problem.

For others who want to live artistically or follow some other dream, the fear of not having money can discourage them from ever living out their dream.

It shouldn’t.

Perhaps you can’t quit your “real job” right now and become a freelance artist at home, like I did. I understand. But you can still have the word artist somewhere in your title.

I was reminded of this by a fellow named Dai Giang. He is a true artist, a painter. His works have been written up in major magazines, he’s had showings of his art around the world. He’s well known and quite respected.

Art, however, isn’t his day job.

He works at the last company I worked for. A company that manufactures outdoor gear for backpackers. And Dai Giang works in the least artistic part of the company – the manufacturing floor. He makes the same things over and over with heavy machinery. He doesn’t create there, he doesn’t have anything inspiring around him, and he certainly isn’t an artist in there. He’s a manufacturer.

But when you see his art, you’d never know. When you see his art, you see his passion, you see his dreams, you see what he lives for. Manufacturing just pays the bills. That’s not who he is. Below is who he is:

In America especially, you are defined by your job. In America, you’re supposed to get the best job possible with a great paycheque and a nice title. That’s why people get sent to universities, so they can get an impressive job. They don’t get sent to learn, they get sent so they don’t have to be burger flippers. Because in America, if you’re a burger flipper, you must be young, or stupid, or a slacker. If, however, you work in a fancy office with men in suits, chances are you’ll get more respect and people will think you have brains. In America, your job defines you. And that kind of thing can have people feeling trapped.

At my last job, in the office world, I felt that defined who I was. In order for me to realise I define myself, I had to leave it. I couldn’t call myself a writer until I felt that’s what I was working at full time. Looking back, however, I realise I was a writer all along, and that no matter what else I choose to do, I will always be a writer first. I define me. I chose my title. Not some corporation or the general public.

I think, for me, taking the time off to write, to believe in it and feel comfortable with calling myself a writer, was what I needed. If I ever felt the need to work or volunteer outside the home (which, perhaps soon I will, I need to be around others and be busy) I won’t ever worry about losing myself as a writer. Because no matter what, that’s what I am, and always will be.

July 30, 2001

Chris & I were visiting my family recently and they asked how work was going.

“Whose work?” I asked.

“Well, I was asking Chris but you could answer that too, I guess.”

“My work is going really well,” I said slightly proud.

“Oh really? Are you writing anything?”

“Yes, and I’ve got quite a few projects that I’m working on and they’re rather exciting,” I said, trying not to reveal too much.

“What, like published projects?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Really?” they said in disbelief.

Even though I declared that I was going to write for a living, even though I told them in detail what my plan was and that I was going to achieve a goal, I don’t think they quite believed me.

If, however, I said I was going to climb the corporate ladder or strive for ‘x’ position in the company, or by 2002 I would have the biggest title one could imagine, I think, they would have understood that and believed me when I achieved that.

Writing hasn’t been seen as a profession in my family. And, to a large extent, still isn’t seen as such by the rest of the world.

That’s a large reason why I haven’t shared with them my website yet, or my publishing offers. It’s not that I’m afraid of their reaction, or even that it would be negative, but I think that right now, I need support and encouragement, and above all, the belief that this is possible. I need people who when hearing that I’m writing, have their ears perk up and their eyes open up and say “wonderful!” I need to hear that what I’m doing is worthwhile and real.

The hard part with regards to my family and some friends, is that they really think that I’m at home watching t.v. with my feet up. That I’m calling myself a writer to hide from “the real world” and that perhaps I’ll tire of this and go out and get a “real job.” This, they think, is just another one of my crazy schemes.

I’ve been corresponding with Keri, who is a fabulous illustrator, and she told me that she works harder now than she ever did in any office job, and that in fact, she’d like a weekend off one day. I understand that. For me, I am constantly writing. Each step I make outside gives me material to write about. I am composing articles in my sleep. My brain isn’t ever stopping and I can get up at sunrise and write until it’s dark – without realising it. I work so much harder now, because my job now, means so much more.

I feel that the way my family, and some of my friends view my work is like a double edged sword; on one hand it inspires me to work hard to prove them that I am a writer and that I can be published and get paid for what I write. But on the other hand, the fear of failing and hearing them say “see, now just go back to the office jobs” keeps me from writing.

I suppose that is why I am just keeping a little quieter around the people who don’t view what I’m doing in the most positive way. Because I have to do what I have to, and I don’t feel like defending it. I’ve made my choice, and now it’s time to show that it was the right one.

My idea is that when my first published article comes out this fall, I will send them each a copy of it, and say “I told you so. And this is only the beginning.”

Because really, it is.

July 26, 2001

The only way to really achieve your dream is to work hard and have a little patience. In the land where you can buy or do anything 24/7, patience can be hard.

It’s not that I thought I’d have overnight success, and it’s not that I thought I wouldn’t have to put out any effort, but I don’t think I realised all that living out a dream entails.

You think perhaps because you want it, and it’s in your heart to do it, that it should be easy. If you want to be a rock star all you think you have to do is have a little bit of talent and great hair and someone will sign you. You think if you want to be an actress all you have to do is get that one part and you’re set for life. Wanting it will help drive you, but it’s not enough to get you there.

Perhaps, people get discouraged from living out a dream or passion because they realise how much work really needs to take place. They think, “this should be fun, not work!” and that just because it’s your passion, you shouldn’t have to lift a finger.

The truth is, sometimes you lift more.

I’m currently working harder than I did in any office job because this matters. What I put out is me. What I write is a part of me. It’s all my reflections, experience, my passion, my heart. My work is 100% me. In my last jobs, I would throw numbers together that was somebody else’s, or collate other people’s papers, or staple mindless chunks of paper together. That work wasn’t me and so it didn’t matter.

Now, it matters and that can be a frightening thing if you’re not ready.

If you are ready then the fear will eventually subside a little and the rewards will start to appear. When you live the life you want to lead, and have to job to want to do, then everything seems more worthwhile. Not necessarily easier, but worthwhile and to me that is enough.

Even if I’m not getting paid for overtime.

July 24, 2001

It has been three months since I gave up my 9-5 world. Three months.

On the day I left my job, I wasn’t too sure what would happen. I didn’t have set out goals, I didn’t have a timeline, and I didn’t have any reference of what should or should not happen. It was all wide open.

Looking back now, I see I spent the first month or so being paralyzed by fear and self doubt. I didn’t make any progress writing wise because I was so completely afraid. I was fighting myself every day. I wanted to be a writer, I had chosen to be a writer, but I hadn’t convinced my brain yet that I was.

In the second month, I think my brain and heart met somewhere and started working together. My writing went from being a little idea, to being something real. And instead of being so overwhelmed and confused, I focused my energy in one direction. I focused on learning to write for magazines.

The third month was the biggest transformation for me yet. It’s when I looked at the big picture.

Instead of just focusing on how to write nice words on paper, I focused on how to transform my life on the outside to match what I was feeling on the inside. On the inside, I was feeling alive, passionate, colourful, creative, happy, joyful, excited. I was just bouncing off walls on the inside.

However, on the outside, it was all the same. My lifestyle, my home, my friends, were all the same as when I was living in the 9-5 world. I had to change that. I felt that if I was going to keep believing that I was a writer, I had to make it look like I was a writer. If I kept telling myself that I belonged in the art world, I had to be brave and make it look so. I think before I hadn’t committed to making the outside match the inside for fear that if I ran away from writing, I would be left with surroundings of a writer. It was almost like a commitment I couldn’t make.

But, now, I was ready. So I painted some furniture a bright raspberry colour, I bought some artwork that I had loved and hung it on my walls. I made my office brighter and more alive with all my supplies at hand. I brought my colourful books forth instead of keeping them in a closet. I’ve somehow managed to become surrounded by the most amazing, wonderful people because I reached out to them and they responded in a positive way. I’ve been to art fests, I’ve gone to listen to live music and theatre. I’ve painted and put my work up on the walls. I’m painting the apartment in dangerous colours. I’m wearing a SuperHero bracelet that is big and bold and beautiful instead of quiet, little, muted beads. I’m sitting in cafe’s sipping mochas and writing in a little notebook, by myself

This transformation, of matching how I feel on the inside to the outside, has been for me, the most amazing thing thus far. It’s really helped to solidify who I am right now and what I want. I don’t think I could have done this in month one, or if I had, I don’t think I could have appreciated it and done it from the heart.

I once found a poem, that shows the learning curve of what happens in life. And I’ve found that it’s pretty fitting to the changes I’ve gone through.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters. By Portia Nelson

I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep Hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit.
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V
I walk down another street.

When I began my journey, I felt hopeless and lost. I kept falling into that same damn hole all the time. Sometimes I didn’t’ want to get out because although it felt horrible, it was familiar. And familiar can be comfortable. But, at some point, I looked around. I knew that’s not where I needed to be.

And then one day, after having enough of that hole, I found another street. And how amazing this street is.

July 22, 2001

I was talking with someone the other day about how I had recently changed careers. I told her how I was, for the first time in my life, doing a job that not only was I good at, but also loved. I told her how excited I was each day at the prospect of writing.

“I’m envious,” she said to me. “I would like to have a job that I was good at and loved. But I don’t think I could give up the security I have right now or put myself through all that stress. I’m far too scared.”

“Me too.” I said.

“You’re scared?” she asked in disbelief. “But you seem so happy and when you were talking to me about it, you seemed so confident.”

“I’m scared everyday,” I said. “Every day is different. I don’t know if I’ll be able to write that day or if I do, if it will be any good. I’m scared of people’s reactions to me when I say that I write-not all of it is positive, you know. I’m scared that the love and passion I’m having for all of this right now will fade in time. I’m scared that I might have to be an office girl again one day. I’m scared of sounding corny or above myself. I’m scared of my pen running out of ink when I start to write down the most brilliant thought ever. I’m scared of the mailman delivering me back my writings with a big NO marked on them.”

“For someone who has so many fears, you definitely seem very brave,” she said to me. “I wouldn’t have known you had fears. You hide them pretty well.”

I do now, I thought. I had to make peace with the fears because I learned that they will always be there. Mark Twain once said, “Courage is the resistance to fear, not the absence of it.” Fear is always going to be around, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Fear can be useful at times, as long as it doesn’t paralyse you or prevent you from doing what you can do.

The fear won’t ever go away, but my giving into it has.

July 15, 2001

When you can get the ball rolling, it doesn’t seem to want to stop. The trick is, to getting it rolling in a positive direction.

Before I took the plunge of doing what I wanted to do instead of doing what I thought I should do, I had so much fear and self-doubt inside of me. All I could think about was the “can’t do’s” because my mind wasn’t open enough to think of all the “can do’s.” I couldn’t imagine ever leaving the life I had, despite the fact it left me empty, angry, and unfulfilled. I didn’t think I could ever do what I wanted because I couldn’t get past my list of “can’t do’s” and “won’t happen.” I could never make it past the overwhelming sense of fear I had and so I never made attempts at changing my life’s direction because I was afraid of so many things – especially of failing. I wasn’t able to recognise that by being untrue to myself, I was already failing.

My mind just focused on the fear and the negative. Even though I wanted to change my job and follow my passion, I had no idea how to see the “can do’s” and “will happen” because what I wanted, seemed to impossible.

However, when I finally made the decision to quit my corporate world, jeopardize what people thought of me, and give up security, the impossible started to happen. And when the impossible started to happen, my mind switched gears and I started to think that if this could happen, then why not that? My mind started to become filled with can do’s and will happen. At the beginning, I’d have maybe one new idea or want each day, but that one thing would snowball into 5 more things, and soon enough, I was full of ideas, aspirations, new friendships, positive vibes and opportunities I didn’t know were there before!

The fear had been building and building and it had built itself so high that it was hard to see anything on the other side of it. And in the beginning of living out my passion, the fear was still there, every day. But each day, by fighting it and making small attempts, I could see over the fear and see the good ideas and the new ways of doing things on the other side.

So many people never make attempts and follow the life they should lead because they don’t have all the answers up front. If they could just make one small change, one attempt, the ripple effect from that would be amazing. I’m proof of that.

July 11, 2001

There is always something to learn if you’re willing. And currently, I’m more than willing.

I have been to my local bookstore and purchased various books on writing – specifically how to write for magazines. I took some time awhile ago to focus on what I wanted to write for and I decided that I wanted to test my writing skills for magazines. I think I was either on target or incredibly naive when I came to that conclusion.

The books I’ve bought, however, have been helping me to understand what it takes to write for a magazine. I think I have the basic skill and good ideas, I just have to learn how to polish everything and how to get into the business side of it. I am looking forward to this challenge; it seems not so much overwhelming as it does perfectly normal.

So my last few days have been spent reading and learning. I’ve decided to put myself into a basic home schooling routine where I learn, study and test myself. One thing about living out your dream is when you decide to do it, when you really decide, you heart feels so open and so blessed you don’t necessarily see all the work involved. That is probably a good thing.

I am, however, quiet enthralled with all that I’m doing, even if it’s new or scary or I end up feeling just a little stupid at the end of the day. I feel like this is what I should be doing now, instead of this is what I want to be doing. I’m not sure when the subtle shift happened, but it did.

July 10, 2001

I didn’t know that box existed or I would have opened it up a long time ago. But today I discovered it in the pile with all the other moving boxes. Finding this one was like finding buried treasured. I wasn’t supposed to have it, I didn’t even know it still existed. I can’t remember ever having it, but I did.

It was a box filled with my school year books. It was filled with my baby book and pictures I had made when I was younger. It was certificates, letters and cards from my childhood. And most of all, it had all my old journals from when I was 9 and all of my old writings.

Piles and piles of writings I had done. Short stories, poems, novels, everything was in this box.

Sifting through it all was a very strange and emotional and experience, since I had no idea all this existed. It had been my belief that I had left this all behind in another country – the last time I had seen any of this was more than 10 years ago. But now, I was holding a story I had written when I was 10, and that was the strangest thing in the world to me.

Seeing all the writing I had done, “just for fun” made me realise how important writing has always been to me. It’s only been in my adult life that I hid it, for reasons too many. Reading my journals, all I listed was that I wanted to be a “writer when I grow up.” I had no idea I thought that way.

This box was filled with things that had such determination, such a belief of success, so many attempts and great big dreams that I was in shock. Did I really feel that invincible when I was younger? I suppose when we’re young, we all do.

In my yearbook, next to my graduation picture, I had written as my grad comment, “I will live and I will succeed. Really.”

Looking back, I know I didn’t write that with a sense of arrogance, but with a belief that anything I wanted to do was possible. Somewhere along the line I forgot that. Somewhere along the line I forgot to do what I love to do.

How lucky I remembered.