“Today is a defining day in a long, long, journey. Today is the day leading to the day I finish this thing.”
-patient reminder from My inner middle child
ME SITTING DOWN TO WRITE:
*Suck in a breath, puff out my chest, breathe out quickly*
*steely look of determination* *engines rev*
*echoes of past conversations with characters roar from the grandstands*
LIGHT TURNS from RED to GREEN
*Kick into gear* *Putters and kicks back*
*Engine Cringes and kills itself*
*Everyone else is speeding away from the line*
… Everything goes deadly quiet. Suddenly the flow of energy vanishes into thin air as the vehicles around me pace off into the distance, looking more and more like a…
A cluster of fish, swimming in a perpetual circle until someone falls out of sync, sometimes impacting the flow of everything else disastrously. Each circling in on the hope of, at some point taking the lead, never by too much, but by just enough to be something talked about.
The view is different from here. The motion is still mesmerizing and exhilarating because I can still taste the thunder of the track under me and the roar of energy from the vehicles on all sides of me—a mustang in a pack of mustangs. But suddenly, I see more than I can hear and feel on the outside, and it was equally pleasant for opposite reasons.
I take a deep breath; suddenly unaware I am still in the starting block. Suddenly, I’m going at a different pace, surrounded by and then lost in the new inspirations offered by a birds-eye view.
Just as suddenly, I’m thinking of the final scene from Donnie Darko, where he is laughing like a maniac just before he gets crushed by some anomaly and… in some way saves the world by doing so?
*frown into the screen* Distractions…
I look at the document I am about to jump into, and I realize I didn’t flinch over the start whistle. I stutter-stepped because it was daunting. I’ve started to create something that is, in some ways, curating me. It leads me to find interest or necessary research in areas I would otherwise never know existed.
Anything to understand my characters better. Whatever it takes to like them more and loath their characteristics less. The extra mile would be nothing compared to the accomplishment of being able to see things from their view, no matter how unrelatable it had seemed at the beginning of my quest to pen their stories. What a careless way to walk into such a battle…
I am coming to a point in page number and concept that has been the furthest edge of my spinning. Something always happens when I walk my character to this point. Some huge life event. Some loss, some train wreck that gives me a reason to step away and then have to re-evaluate the view I’d seen my story through because after stepping away and coming back, the landscape I am creating from has changed. It’s fantastic to witness.
It’s almost like I have to talk myself into starting each morning the last week. Not because I’m not hungry for progress, but because a part of me is like, what else could I possibly lose to gain this ground? And then I realized this thought bomb and others like it sabotage my focus, and it affects how I write, what words I choose, how I witness my characters’ interactions. I benefit from stepping away to get quiet and allow my thought pattern to shift before I touch what I’ve been cultivating.
“I get it, but no more of that junk food. This isn’t about losing. It’s about gaining, and sometimes, I must appear to lose one thing to gain ground in another. I may have to trim and prune and allow branches and leaves to tear away when need be.”
The pep talks are strong in this one. I genuinely love my inner writer, my inner child, and every version of myself that keeps me company while I am on this hunt. They always help me to see from a playful side of things. Even in the mundane, they find inside jokes to toss around. It’s important I cultivate the reflection and harmony I desire between myself and my outside world, on the inside first.
An inside world it is… The connection I form internally connects me to every other living thing to the same depth and consistency. It’s intimidatingly beautiful to imagine that every animated creature I come across, is an extension of creation stemming from the same material as myself to a large degree and yet, so so unique. Each carries potential toward being uniquely outstanding, an entire universe with a connection to countless others. No wonder so many entities benefit from keeping humanity distracted.
I stumbled over the saying, you are what you eat, a few years back while cleaning. The age-old cliche found me through the combination of some commercial and the thoughts keeping me company while I vacuumed, unable to skip the ad right away. Together they struck a chord with this, you are what you eat, saying, giving it deeper meaning to me.
I am what I eat. So why wouldn’t I feed myself thoughts of abundance, joy, love, peace, nurture, compassion, and other hallmark tainted values that I genuinely enjoy as a seasoning in my life?
I love the zest of accomplishment. I appreciate the spice of pain and the milk or cream that soothes it. I remember overcoming heavy impacts and learning to heal through intuitively following the guidance telling me to be kind to myself, to reassure my better nature, tend to my wounds, or tear a particular thorn from my skin before it causes a mental infection.
… Time to stop distracting myself.
*Affirmations for the Day*
The story unfolds beautifully from me. It flows from my heart to my mind and out of my fingers with such ease it feels as though it is coming through, not from me. I am in tune with my characters and love them, their unique defining factors are amazing to me.
I follow them through the journey seamlessly, weaving their energies together in harmony with the way that each trope might convey. I am surprised and excited by how I experience my internal landscape as I cultivate these characters from stone. Breathe life, and golden light into them, animate them.
Today is a defining day leading to the day that I complete this project.
For feeding a starving author…
I Thank You for Your Belief! XOXO