The Seeds of My Writing Heart

"I think of the life I was fated to – as a woman and a mother – as my big luck. Although I don’t believe a writer has to personally live an experience to write about it or to emotionally intuit the feelings and thoughts related to that experience, motherhood – the process of giving birth and caring for an infant — enlarges and changes one’s view as a writer and as a citizen of the world. What we write about, what we vote for, what we protest against, what we work towards are all influenced by giving life, not taking it."
~On Being a Woman, A Writer, and A Citizen of the World
Alice Hoffman’s Keynote Speech at the PEN Hemingway Awards at the John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, MA
March 30th, 2008

I may not have begun my writing as early as some, but once I started on this path, I'd argue that I felt just as strongly as those starry eyed elementary kids scribbling away in notebooks dreaming of writing. For me, my writing journey began after I gave birth to my first son.  After he arrived it was as if my life was turned upside down only to grow into a completely new, fuller life. I was blind-sided by how whole my life had finally become. I lived and breathed in a way that I never even imagined was possible before he was even a twinkle in my eye.

For me, to give life is one of the most moving, compassion building experiences.  Not only was the change within me the seed of my writing beginnings, but motherhood still actively effects all my writing. I feel depth and understanding toward others in a way I never had before my son came and I see opportunity and potential in a very warm and real way that I never had before he arrived as well. And, when you think about it, isn't that the very core of writing?  For me, the very best works I've read are about people whom you can feel and hope for  An author creates an argument for their characters and when they are successful they present us with people whose fictional story beats with life, whose actions we bite our nails over, hoping for the best.

My little ones are the same way.  I live and breathe for them. I feel that love and connection with them, the kind where I know I would die for them if that need arose.  My sweet children will always be my priority.  I drop the pen when necessary to come to their needs, be they spiritual, physical, emotional, or whatever.  In fact, this is part of why I took a hiatus this last year, so I could be with them in ways I hadn't been able to for awhile.

Now, having had a chance to be away from writing, I feel it calling me back.  It's interesting, because after all this time away, I almost can feel that very first drive I felt when I began writing in the first place.  The more I think about it, it all comes back to the creation of life.  Though the choice to begin writing was the beginning of a difficult but enjoyable journey, it's because of the depth I've felt from having given birth that I really feel a need to share my stories. I have my little rascals to thank for this frustrating but fun path I've chosen.

I can't figure out why that just seems so fitting.

Anyways, how about you? How do your connections with people in your life effect your choice to be a writer?

Random Appearances

Still buffering...

...speaking of Netflix's connection availability, hello.

I haven't been around for awhile, you say?  Ah, I've been busy.

Anyways, as a part of that, I've had a realization.  (Actually, I've had a lot of brain thudding realizations in my life--that's the kind of person I am; I walk around in ignorance until truth happily slaps me in the face and I can't do anything but accept it.) Last year, I had a crucial writing related realization about myself.  I'm a self-sabotaging over-attempter...or something of the sort.  This is key to the whole dilemma I am about to explain.

Oh. A self-sabotaging over-attempter? What is that, you ask?  Well, I set myself lofty goals.  You know. Change the world. Help initiate world peace.  Publish a book.  Keep a blog.  Then, I haphazardly go after them--wholeheartedly of course. Also, of course, if you talk to me in person, I probably would never admit that I want to change the world.  Normal people don't talk about that.

Moving on.

I have to admit, that last goal may not be so lofty to many of you out there. But there are the little guys like me who really haven't (as much as we've tried) figured out how to keep on with a blog (something about there not being any random antagonists taking over the blog post plot, which seems be a key entertaining part of when I do my novel writing, or something.)  Anyways, it's the little goals that get you to the higher ones, right?  Well, I find myself digging deep and heavy into those goals until I can't stop dreaming about it.  Or, in this instance, I read and analyze, live and breathe literature.  Then I go and roll around in an English lit degree.  Then I chum it up with other literature people such as authors, other aspiring writers, literature enthusiasts, etc. (See this post for unsuccessful attempts.)  Then, once I'm thoroughly drenched in ideas and intentions, I flop. Translation--I run out of whatever was gunning me on, I can't grasp the muse fueling me so previously, or whatever.  Whatever it is, it slips away. 

For those of you out there who have an analyzing nature like mine, you might have a psychoanalytical explanation for what I'm doing.  Yeah, the giving in to failure before the opportunity to be disappointed presents itself.  This is something I've seen a lot of in the writing world actually, among writers who've yet to get published.  However, as much as I've seen it, and even do it myself, it doesn't mean I actually am trying to be a failure. Ah, life's ironies.

Maybe your thinking that I've got the emphasis all wrong here. Maybe I'm putting on myself unrealistic pressure to perform, to fill a need that doesn't ring of the right priorities? I mean, yes, I want to create something great but I've gone round the whole bout of affirming that, yes, I am a successful human being without having published a novel.  I don't need recognition to validate my worth. That's not part of my drive to write. In fact, I've gone through that round of thinking for the past year and still have been wracking my brain for a solution as to why I contradict myself.  Okay, yes, there it is.  A whole year. I've been on a writing hiatus for that long. (Uh huh, yikes.) (Does it show?)(I miss using parenthesis--does that show?  While I'm at it, I'm not sure that I've ever done entirely well applying writing technicalities such as correct grammar and/or punctuation, but you're going to politely overlook any mistakes, right? Right.) Moving on.

Anyways, it isn't until reaching a more thorough understanding of myself after this hiatus that I see that as much as I might have once reached for some sort of validation through writing, I don't want to get published for that reason.  I want to get stories out into the world because, well, I go back to those other lofty goals again, the main one being that I want to change the world. I'm not one of those writers who writes to thrill others.  I don't write for basic entertainment of the mind.  I write because of those very realizations I've had, and I hope that writing about them might help others gain a glimmer of what I've learned from life.

(my favorite quote)

No, I don't think I'm Gandhi, filled with life changing proverbs, but I know I learn from what I read.  I, too, want to create something that joins the vasts of literature that uplifts the human collective experience. It doesn't have to be comparable to literary greats. Maybe something simply enough to pay humble dues to those who gave me something to read, learn from, and enjoy.  Kind of the literary version of that old Christian commandment, 'do unto others as you would have done unto you'. I want, therefore I create.  Didn't Carol Shields say, "Write what you want to read"? Basically I think I now break it down to universal karma--wanting to write good works, because I've read good works.  Is that so much to ask?

So, again, we come back to my realization and frustration (big goals and inability to accomplish them, despite years of hard work). I'm conscious of my actions and yet I can't just sit down and complete my stories, despite following all the traditional how to's --butt in seat, plan to plot, or consciously don't plot, write when it flows and then come back later. For that last one, I don't ever come back.  However, this is what I want to do--I want to write and better the world. (Seriously, is this too much to ask to be able to do?)

I just don't know how I am going to do that.  I mean, as far as I've gotten with many of the stories I've written (and I have many, many stories in the works), I've yet to finish one.  Seems ridiculous, right?  Even the clunkiest, most inexperienced of aspiring authors have completed novels, doozies either hiding in a dusty box under a bed, or trembling in their hands as they try to pawn it off on yet another unfortunate family member, though ultimately fated for the circular file.

(How many bins would the unsuccessful works of writers everywhere fill?)

But, no, I don't even have a completed beginner's story to loathe and hide (unless you count the ones I made in elementary school, complete with illustrations--and I can't really loathe a story I made when I was a little child).  Even though I haven't finished any of my novels yet, I still dream big--I want to get that story out.  I'm not thinking of much, here.

 Maybe I could write just one simple story that so subtly helps one person in their life the way authors and stories  have done for my life.  No, not maybe.  At least that.  I'm not even conveying here the depth of this desire. This need to get a story out and touch another life is like a fiery NEED. As I mentioned before, I have taken a break for a year and as much as I try to stay away, writing still invades my mind like it is woven into my core. This part of me wants to touch the world through writing and yet I can't even finish a dang story!!! ---->Insert passionate fist-shake.<---->

This past year I've also come back around again to question myself.  Who am I to think I can change the world?  I stated earlier that I'm an over-attempter.  Maybe that is the wrong wording. Yes.  If anything this year away from writing has taught me not to question myself. Saying I'm an over-attempter this way is like calling it a negative to want to do good or attempt to do good things that are not easy. We are each unique, with desires that only we can carry through. My path may not be like anyone else's, but that doesn't make it wrong or unsuccessful. Also, to question self is a dangerous road leading, when unchecked, to personally proclaimed defeat.

I guess all I have left is to leave my old paths behind and simply move forward.  There is a magic in believing in yourself, in allowing yourself to hope, dream and, well, just do. No matter where that path takes you, That is Frost's road less traveled.  Maybe I am trying to steer my lifeboat too much, where in reality, all we have is an oar to row with and no map to tell us the actuality of that path, but that we either can try or not. Also--don't you worry. These won't be the last of overused metaphors. ;) They're crappy like worn-out old shoes but it doesn't mean they don't get the job done. (Cheers to literary laziness at it's best.)

About my writing dilemma, having thought this through over the past months, I sit here now with a new beginning.  This is 2013, the year that succeeded the rumored 2012 world destruction (and yes, I figured life would still roll on this year, unlike the Mayan fanatics).  This is another year that I can go after my goals.  I've gotten to know myself better this year and in a way that perhaps I couldn't have had I otherwise been spending so many hours focusing on writing and other literary indulgences. In a way, as much as I am frustrated to have spent so long going after this goal without success to this date, I feel cleansed.  I can see the progress I have made and what I've learned.  I know that a published story does not equate to success, either, but is instead a roll-of-the-dice concoction of good circumstances and accumulated hard work on the parts of published writers (and sure, a lot of other stuff, but we don't need to worry ourselves over it now that I've gotten to the positive moral here).

Anyways, I guess I'm patting my own back here.  I have to allow myself to dream big, and do what I have to to get there (none of that self-serving, Hollywood-ish backstabbing, survival of the fittest here), even if that means taking breaks from writing, huh? In the meantime, I think I am going to get back to blogging, even if it is, again, just for random appearances. ;) I do what I can when I can. Kind of like Netflix computer servers.

Happy 2013 new year.  Cheers to looking back and seeing the joy in the journey. :)