I did it! I signed up for National Novel Writing Month. Fifty thousand words in the month of November. You know me, I have the gift for gab. Until I need it. Then I shut right up tighter than a vault. My lips are sealed. I'm great when I don't have to be.
I must be insane.
Also, I have an intense fear of rejection. What if by some grace of god I manage to write these
50, 000 words and then upload them and I am ridiculed, laughed at. What if the real writers take their toys and move to the other sand box? Obviously, I am an imposter. Ugh!
I have talent. At least I think I do. And whether I do or I don't, I adore writing. I am at peace when I write. I feel like I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing when I am laying out words. It almost doesn't even matter what; a letter, a story, a poem; you name it and I love to write it. It is heaven. But I have absolutely no training. Some days I am hard pressed to remember the difference between a verb and an adverb. I suck at punctuation. And my sentence structure would probably make a grade 6 English teacher weep. Seriously, I was not concerned with how words worked when those lessons were being taught only that they did and I loved them.
Clearly, I am insane.
So far, I have written just over three thousand words. Every time I sit down to write, I read the whole thing from the beginning. I agonize over my choice of words. I have a dictionary and thesaurus open all the time. I have no idea how to build character or set the scene or form a plot. I let the words bleed from my brain through my fingertips and into the keyboard. I am flying by the seat of my pants. And I am loving every minute of it. But I am terrified.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
I Will Not Give Up!
He-ey! I'm still here, my dearest reader. I think about you often but waste far more of my time on facebook than anywhere else. My IQ may have suffered slightly.
In truth, I've been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I was taking an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety that was doing diddly-squat for me and my life is always full of exciting things! I arm-wrestled my GP for a new prescription, I was going for Wellbutrin, he wanted a clear diagnoses -Was it anxiety or depression? Or both and which was worse?- (with a husband in the military and the best procrastination, my medical records are scattered all over the damn country) and so sent me back to Kelly, a therapist I had begun seeing some time ago to manage my anxiety and then fell out of touch with, and referred me to a psychiatrist for a full psych evaluation. I had a panic attack at the mention of psych eval because my family's mental health history reads like a who's who of the madhouse. I finally accepted that I wasn't going to get anywhere with my new doctor -did I mention he was new? Yup, live in a semi-isolated locale and you tend to get a new doctor on the regular. If you can get one at all.-until I co-operated. And so I've begun therapy to manage my anxiety again. I plan to stick with it this time. My doctor relented a little and changed my prescription after I wrote down all of my symptoms and personal history and had a session with Kelly. He still wants the psych eval. My next post may come to you from the Ward.
Is there anywhere else in the world where a patient can research a drug and then suggest it to their doctor other than North America? I find the practice odd. Not odd enough to not do it, obviously, but odd nonetheless.
Have I told you that my daughter is a lesbian? Yup. Wouldn't otherwise be important really, unless you are trying to date her, but it has a car in my roller coaster and so I'm telling you. We've known for years. The "coming out" to us was difficult for her. After a difficult conversation in which I thought I had said all the right things when she was around 13 she began to pull away from her family. I've never thought of homosexuality as anything other than normal. It was a part of my life when I was a child, several of my nearest and dearest are, and so I never questioned whether it was right or wrong. It just was. And so it was a non-issue for me. It was a bit more of an adjustment for her Dad but honestly, it took him a hot minute to accept it. And all before she willingly came out.
After a number of very difficult, rebellious years, our relationships are nearly normal ones again. I think this is as normal as I'm gonna get. Hell, this is a normal I had imagined as a kid but never dared hope for, so I'm good.
Like I said, homosexuality is a non-issue for me but I have become hyper-sensitive to the reactions and opinions of others. I become rage-y when I hear ignorant thoughts voiced, I'm damn near murderous when I read the uneducated and small-minded opinions of people I am related to or acquainted with, and I am sad and tired of seeing my little girl affected by it. I've already had to wipe away tears caused by young ladies who wanted to partake in the bi-curious trend and have managed to break my girls heart. I want to gouge out eye-balls when she gets stared at in the women's washroom. She attended her first Pride Parade a few weekends ago and remarked on how liberating it was to be able to walk into a public washroom without judgement. Let me repeat that: She felt liberated walking into the fucking toilet! I was at once ecstatic for her and bone-weary at the ignorance and idiocy.
And here I am, at my point: I am worried sick that, at the graduation she has worked damn hard to attend next weekend, some bigoted asshole is going to say something regarding her suit. Because she is not wearing a dress. It wouldn't be her. She is wearing a light grey suit, fuchsia pink shirt (to match her date's dress) and pink and cream striped tie. I won't go ghetto. I won't even give in to a severe tongue-lashing because I don't want to embarrass her. I will teach her discretion is the better part of valour, dignity is worth way more than a few seconds, or even minutes, of satisfaction.
But I fucking hate that I have to worry about my daughter's night being ruined because we live in a world where hate is still more prevalent than acceptance.
This blog? I'm not even going to bother trying to make promises to you! We know each other well enough now, don't we? I want to write, I love to write! I've just lost the motivation to write anything more complicated than a facebook status.
In truth, I've been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I was taking an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety that was doing diddly-squat for me and my life is always full of exciting things! I arm-wrestled my GP for a new prescription, I was going for Wellbutrin, he wanted a clear diagnoses -Was it anxiety or depression? Or both and which was worse?- (with a husband in the military and the best procrastination, my medical records are scattered all over the damn country) and so sent me back to Kelly, a therapist I had begun seeing some time ago to manage my anxiety and then fell out of touch with, and referred me to a psychiatrist for a full psych evaluation. I had a panic attack at the mention of psych eval because my family's mental health history reads like a who's who of the madhouse. I finally accepted that I wasn't going to get anywhere with my new doctor -did I mention he was new? Yup, live in a semi-isolated locale and you tend to get a new doctor on the regular. If you can get one at all.-until I co-operated. And so I've begun therapy to manage my anxiety again. I plan to stick with it this time. My doctor relented a little and changed my prescription after I wrote down all of my symptoms and personal history and had a session with Kelly. He still wants the psych eval. My next post may come to you from the Ward.
Is there anywhere else in the world where a patient can research a drug and then suggest it to their doctor other than North America? I find the practice odd. Not odd enough to not do it, obviously, but odd nonetheless.
Have I told you that my daughter is a lesbian? Yup. Wouldn't otherwise be important really, unless you are trying to date her, but it has a car in my roller coaster and so I'm telling you. We've known for years. The "coming out" to us was difficult for her. After a difficult conversation in which I thought I had said all the right things when she was around 13 she began to pull away from her family. I've never thought of homosexuality as anything other than normal. It was a part of my life when I was a child, several of my nearest and dearest are, and so I never questioned whether it was right or wrong. It just was. And so it was a non-issue for me. It was a bit more of an adjustment for her Dad but honestly, it took him a hot minute to accept it. And all before she willingly came out.
After a number of very difficult, rebellious years, our relationships are nearly normal ones again. I think this is as normal as I'm gonna get. Hell, this is a normal I had imagined as a kid but never dared hope for, so I'm good.
Like I said, homosexuality is a non-issue for me but I have become hyper-sensitive to the reactions and opinions of others. I become rage-y when I hear ignorant thoughts voiced, I'm damn near murderous when I read the uneducated and small-minded opinions of people I am related to or acquainted with, and I am sad and tired of seeing my little girl affected by it. I've already had to wipe away tears caused by young ladies who wanted to partake in the bi-curious trend and have managed to break my girls heart. I want to gouge out eye-balls when she gets stared at in the women's washroom. She attended her first Pride Parade a few weekends ago and remarked on how liberating it was to be able to walk into a public washroom without judgement. Let me repeat that: She felt liberated walking into the fucking toilet! I was at once ecstatic for her and bone-weary at the ignorance and idiocy.
And here I am, at my point: I am worried sick that, at the graduation she has worked damn hard to attend next weekend, some bigoted asshole is going to say something regarding her suit. Because she is not wearing a dress. It wouldn't be her. She is wearing a light grey suit, fuchsia pink shirt (to match her date's dress) and pink and cream striped tie. I won't go ghetto. I won't even give in to a severe tongue-lashing because I don't want to embarrass her. I will teach her discretion is the better part of valour, dignity is worth way more than a few seconds, or even minutes, of satisfaction.
But I fucking hate that I have to worry about my daughter's night being ruined because we live in a world where hate is still more prevalent than acceptance.
This blog? I'm not even going to bother trying to make promises to you! We know each other well enough now, don't we? I want to write, I love to write! I've just lost the motivation to write anything more complicated than a facebook status.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)