Wednesday, February 19, 2014

A Girl and Her (Writing) Goals

My personal New Year's resolution this year (other than continue operation get healthy with David) was to quit lamenting and whining about wanting to write and just do it.  For me this means overcoming my hang-ups and insecurities and unlocking my mental block.  What kind of hangups am I dealing with?  Since I'm feeling less than creative (the sci-fi monsters and mythical creatures allude me), the things I have to draw from to write about are all from my life.  Seems easy enough, right?  Wrong.  I get so hung up in having to have things factually accurate, or that something I write is going to hurt someone's feelings.  So instead of writing, even just for my self, I haven't been.

Well, it's time to stop making excuses.  First of all, if I'm writing about my life it's going to be events shared how I remember them or interpret them.  They don't have to be factually accurate.  Secondly, most of the people I'm writing about are not really friends anymore.  I'm not going to go out of my way to say hurtful things about them so I just need to let that go.  The people close to me that I would write about know I would never say anything hurtful about them or paint them out in a negative way.  I need to stop letting that hold me back.

The advice I see from writers to aspiring writers is:  

  • write what you know
  • write every day

What do I know better than myself?  With this in mind I am embracing those two bullet points.  I am writing stories that have helped shape who I am today, and I am writing almost every day.  I'm sure my 3 whole readers have noticed I've been posting with a little more frequency this year (I realize it's only been a month and a half).  My current goal is to post at least once a week, which I'm hoping will keep me writing.  My long term goal is that at some point I will let go of fear of criticism and put myself out there.  I'm taking baby steps in that direction.  I have made a new blog I'm cross posting to but have not mentioned yet (Cosmic Tumblers), which I'm going to look at linking up with my Google+, and maybe twitter, and see about posting "hey I posted" stuff to my Facebook.  I'm going to try to start commenting on blogs I follow, and maybe see if I can get someone (*cough*Sara*cough*) to do some nifty blog art for me.  Some day maybe I'll feel creative and brave enough to try one of the nano writing things.

And that brings me to today.  David has been, and always has been, supportive of my desire to write.  He is always the first one to tell me to do it, and that I can do it.  If he believes in me, than I can totally do this.  The big exciting thing is I've been writing.  I've made time in the morning, and I try to take some time before bed to just sit and write.  I'm finding that every day it is getting easier, and I'm noticing that I'm writing more-as in more pages per sitting- as I keep at it.  So far it's been pretty great.  I've noticed I feel less agitated and more at peace.  I've been visiting all kinds of memories.  Some good, some not so good.  But as I write about them, I feel less hung up on them or tormented by them.  I've got some rough tales to share, and some really happy ones too.  Please stick with me.  And don't be afraid to give me some feedback if I have some painful to look at typos, or if you think I'm being too mean.  Also just saying hi is cool too, it all keeps me going.  Thanks for letting me just throw stuff out there, and being there to read it.