I live one writing day at a time.........

Louisa May Alcott said, "I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship." My life is the ship I am learning to sail. It is through my writing that I learn about myself and the path(s) my life can take. Just like a ship sailing the ocean it has a course and a destination and so does my writing life. Each time I sit at the blank screen and begin to type I am plotting a course to reach my destiny. What that destiny is I don't know. The choices I make, the people I become involved with, how many words I choose to write each day all steer me down various paths to my destiny.

I may never reach my destiny because of the choices I make in my life that keep me away from my writing life. How many people die with regret because they know they didn't fulfill their destiny? I don't know if I will reach my destiny before I die, but I do know that I am making better choices when it comes to how important my writing is to my destiny. I use to put writing off until tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. I didn't have the courage to say "No" I want to be alone with me and write today. I was so dependent on other people to feel alive I couldn't sit still and write how alive I felt because it wasn’t my life I was feeling it was theirs. Today I can say "No" because I have found moderation in my life and my writing life. I live two separate lives.

When I didn't have the courage to say, "No I need to write today" I lived in a world of worry and fear. These worries and fears made me lose all perspective on what my reality actually was. My life was a nightmare. I was drowning in the love, want and need of and for others. It is a strange place to be to have all that love, want and need become so consuming you can't breathe. There is nowhere for you to run because their love and your need for love follow you wherever you go. In the state of suffering and suffocation I could not write.

My suffering was about the future and what I would gain or what I would lose if I said "No." As I have learned to live my life in the present in the very moment I am breathing in fear and worries of the past have slipped away. I live one writing day at a time and I make the most out of that day. My courage to write my truth and my reality is hinged on my ability to remove fear from my mind by just staying in the moment. I just have to do something for my writing life today. I don't have to worry about yesterday and what I did and I don't have to think about what it is I need to do tomorrow because tomorrow never comes.

Preparing for a future that may never come about is a way of protecting myself from exposure. If I predict an outcome then I plot a course to make my own prediction come true. If I say I am going to write tomorrow then I am predicting I am not going to write today and that is exactly what happens. I don't write a single word today.

Fellowship with other writers has kept me honest about my writing and non-writing. When I communicate with a group of writers who write as much as they can in a single day then my day reflects theirs and I write as much as I can in a single day. Like-minded people lift each other up. People not of my like mind don't understand the need for me to empty my head, to write and explore what I feel and have experienced and felt in my past. I write who I am and I discover who I am by writing what I remember of my history.

As I reflect back on my worries and fears that kept me from writing I realize that most of them never came to pass and those that did materialize my best preparation would not have been enough to prevent the episode or situation from happening. As I have grown into my writing self [through writing I can't stress that enough] my faith in my destiny has enhanced. My self-esteem and self-trust has soared. I am not talking about false pride look at me. I am talking about internal satisfaction, comfortable in my own skin, happy to be living this writer's life. I have become capable of doing for myself what I have always looked for others to do for me. I have developed a belief that I can and am achieving my destiny. All I do each day is take the appropriate action in my writing life and the pages just fill up.

I am no longer afraid to say "No" to people or to myself for that matter. There are times when it is necessary to say "No" to myself because I am imperfectly human and want to side step the discipline it takes to be a writer writing this writer's life, but the more I write the more I am learning how to steer my ship to my finally destiny. The goal is to arrive without regret. Louis L. Hay wrote, “I now choose to rise above my personality problems to recognize the magnificence of my being. I am totally willing to learn to love myself.” So here I go trudging the Road of Happy Destiny……..some of you will know where that belief comes from J

Writing restores me to sanity........

Maltbie D. Babcock wrote, "Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves." The more I write the more I begin to notice the separation between who I use to be and who I am now as I write. Writing restores me. It brings me to a place within I have always wanted to dwell. In this mecca within me I am restored to sanity. I know of my own restoration because I am able to make comparisons between the mind I use to use and the one I use now. 

I remember twenty years ago when I was unable to sit still long enough to write more than a vignette of a character. My mind was so full of chaos, drama and connecting my life to others that to write with a full mind was impossible. As I have grown in myself so has my writing grown. The more I have come to rely on myself and stopped looking for others to support me, love me, want me and care about my writing as much I do the more I have been able to give support, love and want to myself and care for my own writing.

Helen Keller said “To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” The only person who can defeat me is me. History is made up of memories of people repeating the same mistakes of their ancestors. In our own lives we make history by repeating the same mistakes. Writing gives us the opportunity to change our history though. Through my writing I can avoid making the same mistakes. I can change my behaviors so that my history doesn’t repeat itself. 

I change my behavior by writing about them until I understand why I behave the way I do. Creating characters is writing myself, my experiences, my thoughts, my feelings. I learn about myself from writing about myself. Writing myself is not planning or creating a future; it is writing so I move forward not backwards. If I write to plan my future I limit my ability to reflect and write what I know which is my past. When I stifle my creativity by limiting my thinking I must remind myself to always remain teachable and open-minded.

As I write I change through my own self-discovery. I continually let go of my past behaviors and old ideas because to repeat the past is to create barriers to my writing. If I don’t let go of my past as I write it my approach to life is one of clinging rather than freedom. Top write is freedom to not write is to be imprisoned. If I get too attached to one form of thinking, being or feeling then I limit my approach to my writing. Writing in this writer’s life is adjusting to the changes within my own mind. When I am versatile as a writer I write without suffering.

Writing is practice being myself. The self I know I can be. The self I aspire to be that has always lived within me. I cross paths with the mind I used in the past, but my new mind is so flexible such moments are merely fleeting ones. As a writer I do not see and write the world as it is. I see and write the world as I am in the moment I am writing it.  

As I grow in my writing I learn and unlearn what is me and was me. I replace my old ideas with new ones as long as I remain teachable. I seek and claim new ideas. I welcome change because through change a flow of writing material surfaces. With each change in my life and my thinking I nourish and replenish my vast library of writing material. As I keep my face towards change I nourish and replenish my belief. The belief that I am writing this writer’s life so others can identify and write their writing lives.    

Writing is a personal inventory.......

Samuel Butler wrote, "I care about the truth not for truth's sake but for my own." When I write I write my truth, my vision, my experience, my memories, feelings, thoughts, ideas. When I am writing at my best I am admitting I am human, I have flaws, I fail, I struggle, and at times I don't succeed. When I write I am acknowledging I am not perfect, I am human. In my imperfection I am filled with mistakes.

Writing is a series of mini confessions made to readers. Admitting my humanness isn't easy. Having the courage to reveal the imperfections in myself through my writing is trudging the road of self-discovery. When I write of the people in my life I am writing them through my eyes. I write how my mistakes affect them and how their humanness affects me.

Pretending is something non-writers do. Non-writers pretend they know what another feels, thinks and experiences because it is easier. Pretending is easier to write; it takes no courage. Pretending we feel something we never experienced is easier than writing what we truly have experienced. When non-writers pretend they justify, rationalize and ultimately lie. To lie is inviting because it demands nothing of us and that nothingness is reflected on the page. The price a non-writer pays for not taking the risk of writing their own experience is that they never become the writer they truly are.

Writers face who they are head on. We dig deep into the recesses of our lives and dig for material readers will identify with. Writers write of feelings, experiences and thoughts. We face our guilt, shame, we deal with our remorse and we write through our fears. Non-writers drag these feelings around with them like a duffel bag. Writers seek an alternative to such dragging every time they sit at the laptop to write.

Writing is a personal inventory of how we have lived in our life outside of writing. In writing writers admit they are human and use their human condition to create epics, sagas and classics. Writers free themselves of the bondage of self. Non-writers hold onto the bondage of self because they are afraid they won't exist without the pain. Writers get beyond the pain by writing our fears and taking responsibility for the actions and in-actions in our lives. Writers free themselves of their secrets, we accept our imperfections, and we love ourselves because others find us so difficult to love. In order to be the writer I truly am I must accept the person in me who makes mistakes and who is imperfectly human.

Writing takes courage. Cowards call themselves writers when they aren't writing of themselves. When as writers we admit to our errors; we begin to make amends to ourselves and to those who try to love us. The risk I take as a writer to face myself and write what I fear, my secrets, I achieve the personal writing success I have always craved, yearned for. As a writer I write the truth. When I was a non-writer I didn't have the courage to write the truth.

Writers are truly alive........

Sidney Lovett wrote, "Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands--a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world." There have been times in my life I was so filled with self-doubt that my writing life had no air to breathe. There were many times when I doubted my talent and how I view the world. It is easier to doubt than it is to achieve. Believing in yourself is difficult.

There have always been people in my life to guide me closer to a place of self-discovery and away from a path of self-discovery. Ultimately the choice of my path is mine. Others can guide me only if I let them. If I remain teachable then teachers appear. If I remain closed off and isolated then I attract people who don't want me to learn and self-discover.

When I think my writing life is over and I feel desperate due to the loss of self a teacher always appears. It is only through being as desperate to write, as the dying can be that I finally muster the courage to sit at the empty screen and write. My writing is a reflection of feelings and experiences that flow like music from my mind. There are so many times my fingers can't keep up with the flow of words that stream in thought.

When the courage to write finally comes my attitude about life changes; I know that it would have been easier to give up and not write at all, but I also know that that is a lie. To give up who you are out of fear and misguided direction is not easier. It is suffering. I do not have to suffer today because I can have the courage to write who I am.

My writing encourages me to be honest with myself first and with others second. I have the courage to write what I am afraid to say aloud. The more I write the more I feel and the more I feel the more I am honest and unafraid. Deep down within every non-writer is a writer wanting to be released. A writer that pushes at us from the inside out poking us to find peace, direction, happiness and to become the writer we were meant to be. Writing in a writer’s life is discovering wholeness. Not writing in a writer’s life is to remain fragmented.

As writers we are isolated not only physically from a world that buzzes around us outside of closed doors, but we are isolated in our minds. We view the world in minute details others overlook. We see and feel the slightest changes in breeze, in motion, in sound. We feel like no other human does. We seek the small while the world is focused on the huge.

In the world I feel far away. I have to listen carefully to the world in order to be a part of her. I have to listen for the words of my teacher who can be anywhere at any time in my day. I seek wisdom where others see none. I hear doors open where others hear nothing. I never know where my newest story, idea, sentence or word will come from, but I must always be open to receive the message.

I sit in my empty apartment quiet listening to the traffic roll by; I hear the breathing of my cats, the bubbling of the water in my goldfish tank. I feel the presence of life around me because I sit still long enough to feel life. A writer who writes is right sized. A non-writer who isn’t writing is wrong-sized. Nature is a place for writers to go to understand the gift they have been given. To feel one amongst grains of sand at the ocean, to feel the thunderous power of waves crashing and to witness the stars lighting up a blackened sky is to become right sized. It is only then that I can embrace my gift of writing expressively what I think, feel and experience. It is only when I am right sized that I am truly alive and writing.

Writing is to get yourself back......

James Michener wrote, "If a man happens to find himself . . . he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." It is in writing that I learn about the me I never know until I write her. Each time I sit down to write the question I answer is "Who am I?" Answering this three word question is why so many non-writers never become writers. It takes courage to sit in front of a blank screen and self-discover. The fear is over-whelming when our writing calls us to dig within ourselves to create suffering characters with a problem to resolve.

The human condition is man's greatest gift as well as man's greatest curse. It only takes the next experience to out-date the knowledge we think we have gained about ourselves. We gain self-knowledge through writing the secrets we commit to ourselves never to tell anyone. Non-writers remain non-writers because they write all that isn't close to them. They write of other people's lives they have not experienced. They write of another's dislikes, feelings and thoughts not their own. When we write what we think another person is thinking, feeling, experiencing we are not writing about who we are or about what we know. Writers who write about others don't become great writers simply because they never do the writing work required to end their own personal suffering.

Each day we sit down to write we honor our commitment to self to rediscover who we are. Every situation, circumstance, human interaction changes who we are. We search in others what has always been in ourselves. We search to end our fear for living. Editing is the helpful tool of writing that establishes trust between the writing self and the suffering self. The writer will never write more than the suffering self can handle. It is impossible because to do so would be to self-destruct.

When we edit as writers we listen to what we have honestly written about the “us” we are discovering. It is only in editing our self that we learn how to lessen our suffering. As a writer I write of experiences, thoughts, feelings in the lives of characters I create that I identify with. It is only through writing what I know, what I feel and what I think that I gain insight into my own suffering self and find a way to relieve my human suffering. 

Much of my writing life has been non-writing because I only knew what I didn't want. I became a writer when I began writing about the suffering inside me I know, feel and experience. It was when I came to accept who I truly am that I began to accept and write what I want to be. To accept myself as I truly am is to become the writer I was truly meant to be.