Fear and My Story

After what I wrote yesterday, I realized it’s not just laziness that keeps me from writing. It’s fear. 

Every time I think about opening the document to continue writing my stomach knots up. I can easily sit down to spew dumb jokes out on twitter (hilarious jokes out on twitter), throw up a post on here or one of my other places I write (write0utl0ud.blogspot.com or a different blog that’s much more private that almost no one has access to), facebook posts are no problem at all. Why is making things up so scary? It’s not like I’ve got tons of people reading this. It shouldn’t be stressful. Should it? Is following your dreams always stressful? 

I guess it’s because at least one of these stories (and this is probably naivety and foolishness) could actually be something great if I could just get the thing out of my brain and onto paper. Maybe it’s the pressure I’m putting on myself to complete it and have it be perfect. I’ve got most of the plot pretty much down. (that’s a lie, the middle bit is still very…. unknown.) but I’ve got the end figured out, and the beginning already written. Prologue and four chapters. That’s a good start. 

It’s weird. The story and I are sort of at the same place. The main character is beginning his journey, but he’s stuck somewhere for just a bit longer, and he’s scared and worried about where this whole journey will lead him, and how things will end. Well, I know how it’s going to end for him, but I’m scared about whether it will go well for me. We don’t know how long this journey is going to take, we don’t know if we’ll get the results we want, we don’t know if we’ll win or lose. I guess that the stakes are higher for him. Of course, if I never finish, he’ll be stuck in limbo forever, in the Well of Lost Plots (Thank you, Jasper Fforde) and that’s a cruel fate, right? 

So I need to write. Even if I just add a few words a day, that’s progress. It’s slow, lazy progress, but it’s progress. I’m going to face my fear, and just like I did with that douche of a boss, tell it it’s fucking insane and a crazy bitch, because damn it, it’s not in charge of me anymore.`

Decide

(originally posted on my Tumblr- Brainlettings)

The more I think about the levels of mediocrity in my daily life, the more I want things -everything, really- to change. I don’t want to feel like I’m settling for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t want to constantly be hoping that things will just sort of fall into place. 

I’ve tried three different paths, education wise (and quit all three): interior design, cosmetology, and business (the last one online). You know what those three things have in common? I’m not even remotely passionate about them. I mean, interior design is neat, but I think I was watching a little too much HGTV or something. It’s not at all what I want out of life. Not even close. 

You know the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do? Since I was a little kid? I wanted to write. Even before I was into reading, I wanted to write. You know what I rarely do even though, honestly, I’m pretty good at? Write. Why? What’s wrong with me? Laziness, basically. Making stuff up can be hard. You have to make up EVERYTHING. You have to make up a person. You decide who they are, who they love and hate, their quirks and their fears. You give them a family and a history, even if some of it is only in your head to help you make the character a whole person (Dumbledore being gay, for example). You make their friends, their job, their car, their childhood memories. You make their friends lives. You decide how they talk, how they interact with people and the world around them. That’s not even the story. You need a plot and conflict and resolution. You need to create an entire world, that exists in your head alone, and then there’s a massive chance that you’ll hate it. Someone else (everyone else?) will hate it. What do you do then?

You shrug it off and keep going because this is your dream, god damn it, and you follow your fucking dream! You chase that dream down and make it your bitch.

Or you can daydream about someday accomplishing something you’ll finally be proud of while you work bullshit jobs, scrape by, settle. 

So here is where I step up and ask myself, because it’s time to decide: 

Do you follow your dreams, or do you settle?

Fuck you, laziness. I’m gonna hunt this dream down, shoot it, and have it stuffed and mounted on my wall. Let that be a lesson to you other dreams out there… people are coming to get you. And we are determined.

The hunt is on. Do you hear the trumpet call? 

Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the do

gs of war.