It’s Almost Camp Time

 In just a mere five days, Camp NaNoWriMo begins.  It’s just like November’s NaNo, with the main difference being you get to pick your project and word count. Your project can be anything from a screenplay to poetry to a series of short stories. You get to pick your own word count, so you can set your goal as high or as low as you need to.  I have my goal set conservatively to 25,000 words for the month.

I thought I would try to flesh out my story of my childhood during this session.  This middle ground number gives me leeway to switch gears if I want or need to.   Which I might if it all get too overwhelming.

This also lines up really well for me, with Blog Along With Effy also begins on April 1st. I am really excited to participate in this again. I joined in her September event and it did wonders for me to get my ass in the chair to write.  It helped me to keep going into October, even well into November.  December and onward haven’t been as productive so I am hoping this will get be back on track.

I have some distractions going on right now.  I will probably share sometime in the future as soon as I sort out my feelings on the matter and see where things are heading.  I could even see this being a contemporary fiction type story, but is it something I could write while I live it?  Guess we shall see on all counts.

Today’s Inspiration

(image found on Google/StoryDam. created by M. Dragonwillow)

This is another quote that I keep near by.  This one is written on an index card and pinned on my bulletin board.  The first time I read this, it hit me hard. Yet here I sit, still not doing the writing.  And yes, I do feel like the more I do NOT write, the more I am being erased.

Every day that I don’t do art or take photos, I feel like a bit of myself disappears. Every day that I don’t write, I feel my words slipping away.  Only I have the power to stop this.  Still for as much as I think about and try to plan something, I can’t find the motivation to take action.

I feel like I am stuck in the mud.  My words, I feel, are like snow flakes falling and quickly melting because it’s too warm to stick.  I’m afraid though, that if I were to have a blizzard of words, that there will be too many for me to keep up with.

I’m afraid to pick up my camera bag and go for a walk. I’m afraid that those around me will watch and judge, make snarky comments. I’m afraid that I don’t have the “proper” equipment seeing as I only have one lens right now.  I feel like it’s not enough, that I’m a fraud to call myself a photographer albeit a hobbiest just because I don’t have all the “right tools”.

It’s how I feel about writing or making art.  That because I don’t have this or that, or because I don’t (or can’t) do it every day, that I’m a fraud. And a failure.

See there’s that imposter syndrome again.  Yet there are so many that say even if you don’t do it every day, if you make art – you’re an artist. If you write – you’re a writer.  If you take pictures – you’re a photographer.

This is an inner battle, not just with myself but also with the voices of those that live on in my memory that told me I wasn’t good enough.  I will probably fight this battle every day for the rest of my life.  But it’s one I hope to win one day. And then, maybe just maybe, they will finally be silent.

Inspirational Quote

(image found via Google and Twitter)

I keep this quote next to me at my desk as a reminder that I should be writing.  Obviously, I’m not always successful at it if you look at my post list.  But I have some good runs here and there.  This is one of those quotes that make me want to write my story. I haven’t been very successful there either.

I hear those voices in my head, the voices of those who caused me pain and told me I was worthless and good for nothing.  It may not be their words, but it’s in their voices.  The “who wants to read your crap” “no one’s going to believe you” “your words have no meaning, worthless, useless” and those are the mild ones.

I used to think just talking about things that happened was hard.  But writing about them.  I think that is even harder still.  I’m still in the thought process on it, how I want to go about it. But I have arguments with myself about it all the time.

‘You should write it, it might help someone.’  ‘No, I can’t my story means nothing.’
‘It’s done, it’s past get over it.’  ‘I can’t, my wounds won’t heal but maybe if I write it they will.’  And on and on, round and round it goes. If I’m not fighting myself, I’m fighting with them…the voices of my past.

Then I think, WTF you’re 48 years old you don’t have a story. But I do.  Don’t I?  It’s not as traumatic as some survivor stories out there.  But I have been through and am trying to heal from was traumatic to me.  Am I supposed to let the level of trauma sway my decision of whether or not I should write about it?

Round and round the wheel goes. The battle within rages on.  Is my story worth being told?  I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll never know.

 

Fear – Of Too Much Or Not Enough

Found this image today.  Silvermoone shared it from her Instagram to her Facebook page. It really hit me.  It was one of those light bulb moments.  I never heard this theory before, but holy crap does it ever make total sense.

I shared this image on my Facebook timeline today, because I know so many people that deal with this fear on a daily basis. Sometimes it feels like it could be minute by minute even.  I know I struggle with this fear all the damn time, it really does feel like it changes minute by minute depending on the scenario and who is involved in said scenario.

I said it was like walking a tight rope. The feelings of fear of not being enough or of being too much.  And for the most part that is true. But as I am writing this post, I realize it can also be like a pendulum.  Swinging back and forth between too much and not enough.  I mostly walk the line of “not enough”, but there are times when I try to speak my truth or stand up for something where I fear being “too much”.

The more I try to be enough, the more I lean towards too much, the more it seems people want to stuff you back in a box and tell you to hush.  Or they tell you how  wrong you are or that you don’t know what you are talking about.

If I am honest, I am down right scared shit to be me.  The tight rope, the pendulum…they are overwhelming.  I don’t know how to be me.  I don’t know who I am.  I’ve spent my entire life being told I’m too much of this, not enough that.  When I’ve tried to “fix” that I was then told that I’m too much that, and not enough of this now.  There was no “happy medium”

That has left me feeling worthless, useless, no good.  It has left me not knowing who I am or what I want because I’ve always had people telling how awful I was. Been told I should never have been born. That I was an accident.  Can’t help but make me wonder if my mother didn’t try to get rid of me. My father was convinced she made herself fall off a ladder to induce a miscarriage of what would have been my younger sibling.  I can see where his theory had validity.  My mother didn’t “just fall”.  We’re talking about a woman who would stand precariously on furniture to do some task or sit on a window sill three stories up to wash the outside of a window.

I was raised and told early on that I was no good, not enough. Too much to handle, even though I was quiet as a mouse and could play quietly for hours alone. In all my relationships, it was always me that was not enough or too much for my partner.  My ex felt it was his duty to “fix” me and make me into who he thought I was supposed to be.

So yes, the fear is not one or the other. It, I believe, is the fear of being oneself.  The pendulum swings violently back and forth as you battle and struggle to be yourself. Or try to find that balance on the tight rope between too much and not enough. Is there such a thing, a happy medium?  Or is that settling and compromising to make someone else happy because they can’t handle who you are?

I don’t have the answer. All I can do for me, is try to figure out who I am and conquer the fear. Let the cards fall where they may. I think the truth of it is, is that you need to do you, be you and not worry if you are too much or not enough because you will never be able to please everyone.

Lost Words

There are so many things I want to write about, both on the blog and on paper.  My mind gets so overwhelmed with it all, instead of remembering things I often end up forgetting them. Part of the forgetfulness is the brain fog I tend to experience.

Like this morning, I saw a movie trailer for “The Book Club”.  It looks really good, great cast. I was describing the trailer and naming the actors and suddenly I went blank. I could see the actor’s face.  I could tell you what TV show he played in and his character’s name. But for the life of me, I could NOT remember his name!  After several minutes it finally came to me.  Though sometimes, I’m not so lucky.

Just the other day, I was trying to jot down some notes about one of the characters that’s poking at me. I came to a particular point I wanted to note about her. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t not find the word I was looking for. It was just right there, on the tip of my fingers so to speak, but I just couldn’t grasp it. I’ve never been one to lose my words, so this is quite frustrating.  I think I ended up settling on a word, but still not the one I was trying to pluck from my brain.

As a writer, or a wanna-be writer, not being able to find your words is so frustrating.  Yet, as frustrating as it is, it makes me want to write all the more.  Is that just crazy or what?  I don’t know what to make of it.  Maybe it will help me think better, clearer.  Or maybe, it will just drive me up a wall LOL.  Either way, I want to write.

I want to do what Diana Gabaldon did.  She didn’t set out intending to be published.  She wrote Outlander just to see if she could even write a novel. And now here we are, waiting for book 9! I think the experiment was quite successful.  Me, I would just like to see if I could write one book from start to finish regardless of how crappy it turns out, regardless if it ever gets published.  I won’t lie, seeing my book in print would be pretty amazing.  And once upon a time, before I discovered a love for art and photography, I truly wanted to be a published author.

Maybe a part of me still does, what to be published that is.  I’m not looking for fame and fortune by any means, but making enough money to take a trip to England and Scotland or maybe to the land of my ancestors would be nice (or all of those places).  If I’m honest, I lost the desire to want to be publish when my Ex would grill me on ‘how was the little book coming along’.  Or trying to tell me what kind of book he thought I should be writing.  And all his plans for the money I would make.  He took the joy out of it for me. Maybe that’s why I’ve struggled with writing so much?  I never even considered that as a possibility until just now.  He stole my joy!  Not just with writing, but with so many things.

It’s time.  Time to find my joy again, in life and in creating.

Hello March!

So, I totally spaced that yesterday was the first of the month! Had every intention of writing a post on the first, but…….yeah.  I thought that was today.

I tried to spend some time yesterday with the characters that recently introduced themselves to me.  I don’t have much from them yet.  I probably just didn’t spend enough time. Every time I tried to get something fleshed out, I got interrupted.  I did manage a few notes  at least.

I think the first set I was working on will be part of my Camp NaNoWriMo project.  I’m not sure yet though.  I haven’t set my project in stone yet, but I think what I have in mind is what I will go with.

I’ve been tossing around the idea that maybe I could do “my story” in fiction form.  I’m thinking that maybe if I approach as a story I might be able to fill in those blanks with actual memories.  If I color code the story as I am writing it, it would make it easier to go back and find the places that need to be filled in with real memories.  It’s just a thought right now, we’ll see what I decide to do if and when I actually start writing it.

I never really thought about how hard writing about yourself, even if it is just for yourself right now could be.  When ever I have tried before, it was all very basic and to the point.  More like I could have done bullet points instead of writing out paragraphs.  I know I can do better.  I’m just afraid of  what I will unlock in my mind that I have tucked away so deeply.  Part of me wants to just say forget it, and part of me wants to drive forward and explore what’s there. By diving in, I think I can maybe finally face things and heal from them.

And that’s the key….it’s time to heal old wounds.