Journal Entry Type #30: Beginnings and Endings
I feel like a have a seesaw in my head with a string attached to it. It goes back and forth from one topic to another. I call it diarrhea of the brain. Not a great image but a phrase I came up with all by myself. I have other phrases I use in life, but they won’t be included in this blog. Ever since I’ve finished my rewrite, I’ve been excited to start my next novel idea and I did a few days ago. After I was done writing a good five pages, I was still tired but wider awake mentally. It kept me up that night. I’ve been purposely not going on my personal FB because I have friends who post political stuff morning, noon, and night. As I suggested to one of them, get a hobby of some kind. I know my retirement isn’t going to be about gambling my money away, trolling the internet, and doing whatever else that doesn’t include being creative and reading and traveling if my body is up for it. I’ve thought about the wildfires in Australia and surrounding areas and how absolutely tragic it is for estimated 500 million animals already dead on the 26 million acres already burned. I’ve thought about the thousands of homes that have been incinerated and people who have died in these fires. All this damn suffering and the smoke inhalation Australians are encountering all over the place. I can’t believe people debate the futility of wishing and praying for those in need versus something like donating money or volunteering your time to help in some way. Not everyone has the ability to give money and not everyone wants to say a prayer or wish, but those that do, well let them. Aren’t there worse things than that? I get practicing what you preach and someone repeatedly saying how bad something is but sitting on millions of dollars and hoarding his or her money as if it’s not enough, yeah that’s pretty selfish. The money you make should be used in whatever way you want it, but in today’s worldwide social media, it’s an eyesore more than ever. I donate when I can and I get the principle of social influence, but there are times when pressuring people looks bad even on social media. I ended up giving money to the candidate I want to be the one to go opposite Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, but now I’m being hounded morning, noon, and night to give more money. I wish that whenever I breathed, I had money. Since that’s not possible, I don’t have the luxury to keep giving money every week of every month until November. I wish I did, but I don’t.
How does this relate to the title of this entry? It does in this way. I have great novel beginnings or so I think when I write them. I introduce a character, his or her problem, the location, and the gist of what this person is dealing with. It should capture the reader’s attention and then convince him or her to keep reading. This is what all writers want for their books. The more that reads my books, the more my hard work paid off. As I glanced over my printed copy of my rewrite, I thought I’m not that bad of a writer. There’s nothing I can do about it except wait because my roommate wants to finish reading his Stephen King book he’s nose deep into and if I could find a way for him to read it faster, I would. I want to know now, but now isn’t an option. So, I’ve learned to have even more patience. There’s a saying that no book is ever really finished and while this is fine and dandy in the philosophical sphere, as a creative writer, I want an ending because I like solid endings. It may not be the one readers want, but most novels of mine will have a solid ending. It’s sometimes hard to contain my excitement for getting something done even knowing it’s not “fully” done yet. It’s hard not to get excited at the prospect of knowing that by the time I am 65 years old because I’ve disciplined myself I will have more than a few books self-published. I don’t want to be the one and done kind of writer. I don’t want to be the writer that half asses it just to get it out there. It will all come in time and whatever work needs to be done, my first book will be self-published this year because as much as I like freedom within the writing process, I also like deadlines and this deadline must happen.
While there is a beginning and end on some level with writing, there’s a cyclic movement on another. It’s finding the peace in the writing and rewriting process and once it is actually published, not giving your soul to the criticism because not everyone will like it. But, others will like it and this is what you grab and hold onto because these days people love to be shit starters for the hell of it. It was your brain that conceived the idea, your fingers that hit the keyboard, your sanity that probably was lost along the way, and your hard work from start to finish. For the next twenty some years, it will be much of the same process for me of writing, rewriting, waiting, rewriting, making sure the formatting is correct, paying someone to proofread it by someone who doesn’t have fucked up eyes like I do, getting a good photo for the cover, and being satisfied when it’s finally done and not going back but forward when I second guess my abilities. I’m constantly sitting in the middle of many cycles and I’m for the most part fine with it. My mom will ask me if I’m happy now and then and while I’m not bouncing off the walls with excitement, I am the happiest I’ve ever been. I look forward to stepping out of my shadow and putting myself out there more in 2020 and beyond.
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