trying to be honest

written on 09.august.2004 in my writing journal (as opposed to my personal journal):


I think that perhaps I do not love writing enough to make a career of it. This is a very scary thing to write because for years, I've been telling myself that that is what I'm going to do. Perhaps it's just the grueling word-count requirements I set for myself that [make] me want to throw away the pen forever. I get to [sticky] places, boring places in my fiction, and I just can't go on.

But now, NOW! I'm enjoying this, pouring out my thoughts and even sounding halfway intelligent (though perhaps not logical). Maybe it's just the goal, the aim, that intimidates me. Maybe it's just this whole, bustling career-minded world that has confused me into thinking I have to have a career -- one specific thing I'm physically or intellectually good at -- to keep me busy.

Maybe I just can't keep up with the world of today. Maybe my call to write comes sporadically and occasionally... like right now.

Maybe someday I can use these thoughts, and arrange them into something that can benefit others.

Or maybe what I've been experiencing isn't that silly theory of writer's block. Maybe there is no writer's block. Maybe it's just that sometimes I get the writer's itch, the writer's call, something. And when I don't have that, maybe God wants me to be doing something else.

Like cleaning house.

Like loving others.


I may be going through a change. For all these months -- and years -- I've been telling people I'm going to be a fiction writer. But maybe I'm something else altogether.

There may be a fragment of fiction writer in me. But not always. Not right now. Because right now, I'm a journal writer, a thought writer. And some days, I'm not a writer at all.

a dream

I want to be a writer. I really do. My next blog may seem to speak in direct contrast to that, but you'll just have to deal with it. That's how I am.

getting myself out there

Blogging is so public. It's like setting a piece of myself out there for anyone to snatch, tear to pieces, cry about, or... perhaps... sympathize with. I realize my imperfections will be glaringly apparant. (Oh, there's an unnecessary adverb against which Stephen King speaks so furiously [oops, there's another] in his somewhat vulgar yet helpful book, On Writing.)

In spite of the implications of "getting myself out there," I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm going to try to be honest.

passage

passage <pas' ej> n. 1 a passing; specif., a) migration b) transition c) the enactment of a law 2 permission or right to pass 3 a voyage 4 a means of passing; road, passageway, etc. 5 an exchange, as of blows 6 a portion of a book, musical composition, etc.

:: Webster's New World Dictionary. Pocket Books: NewYork, 1995 ::