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My writing ramblings and ramblings about writing. May sometimes contain explicit content. |
| I feel like I should apologize for the coming rambles but I'm not going to since this is a journal and besides sharing all the fun stuff, that's what it's here for. So I give you a wee peek into my head right now. I changed my userinfo on another journal from actress/writer to just writer cause I feel at my core, that is what I am. A writer. I'm a good actress. I know this and have been told this. But can you be good at something that frightens you? Can you live and pursue a profession that fills you with anxiety 95 percent of the time? People tell me when I'm performing, they can't tell I'm nervous. I guess it doesn't come across but inside, I'm a wreck. I'm afraid everything I do or think up looks wrong or stupid. Mostly, when I'm in character, I'm fine but it's the preparation moments and thinking about getting up there that fills me with fear. And everytime I iamgine going somewhere or doing something acting related, I dread it. It's such a love/hate thing I can't explain it in a way that makes sense to anyone but me. I worry that if I did try to pursue that life, it would have to be on anti-anxiety medication. I don't want to be the cliche of the actress who pops pills. Writing is such a different thing for me. It fills me with such joy that only another writer could possibly understand. It's hard, no doubt but there is such a peace that is inside me when I write, (even the smutty or violent stuff) I enter a zone when I write, it's like I'm channeling something. Me. The me that I really am underneath all the fear and insecurity and dissapointments. The me that lives for nothing more than telling a damn good story. I'm not Shakespeare. I'm not Faulkner. I'm not Dickens. I'm not even Atwood. but I'm not trying to be. I'm writing what I love. What I love to read. Take it, or leave it. I feel I fit this profession like no other. I'm a solitary person. I always have been. I feel no loneliness, I don't think I ever have and have no desire to always be surrounded by people. Most people don't understand this. I think only another writer would really get it. I live for those moments I can sit at my keyboard or have a book and pen in my hand and the ideas just pour out. I've always been able to spin a yarn. I think I'm lucky then most kids and now adults have been in that I have always known what I wanted to be. I never had that floundering moment where I wonder what I'm going to do with my life. Since I was five I wanted to be an actress. Since I was eleven I wanted to be a writer. The question was never, what am I gonna do with my life? But how am I gonna choose? Cause I know the choice would have to be made someday, though I know there are those who feel I can do both. I can't. Writing is winning the race. I want nothing to come between me and my writing. Selfish. Yes but that is what I feel. I want nothing in my life but to write and have a place to do it. I want this more than a relationship, marriage or children. The idea of never marrying, never having children, even never finding someone to love romantically doesn't fill me with the sadness that never writing again does. I can't imagine not writing and I think it is that which has made the decision for me. I can live without being up there on your movie screen or tv set. I can't live without being able to sit here and writing. That may sound weird to people. Chosing to sit and write over going out and getting some but that's what separates some passionate writers from the rest of the human race. There is really nothing we'd rather be doing than writing. I want a t-shirt that says "I'd rather be writing"(smiles) I go outside to work and be sociable so my family and friends don't forget what I look like, but rest assured that in my head, I'm writing. Plots are being formed and characters created. I read a book recently called The Writer On Her Work by Janet Sternburg and it was a collection of essays by women writers on their writing lives. These are my people. These are the people who understand exactly what goes on in my head and I felt a kinship with them that no one would understand but another woman writer. I think that what also makes the decision for me is that I have so many unfinished manuscripts and unformed ideas that the idea that I won't get to write them all in my lifetime just breaks my heart. Four Winds was started back in 99 and it has taken me all this time (mostly due to laziness, I honestly admit) to get it half edited. The elation I had when I finished the first draft was like nothing I ever experienced. I was a fool for days. The idea that my next book (Dreams Of Gold-Book One of The Brass Ring Series) could take that long frightens me. There is a push in me to get my stories out. To get them written before I die. Logically, I know that there is no human way I will ever be able to write all the stories I have both in unfinished form(over a hundred in my file cabinet) and in my head but there is nothing logical about this writing monster that breathes on my back. And I illogically resent anything that gets in the way of my writing. Would I come to resent acting? I think so, I don't know. Even with my fanfiction, I see the possibility for original novels or parts being used for original novels. I'll never publish them all. I know this and yet I keep going. Keep writing cause I think if I didn't. I'd have nothing. There are those I love and care for and yet I don't think I could live even for them if I couldn't write. That sounds crazy and extreme to my own ears so I can only imagine how it sounds to those who don't have the writing monster on their own backs. Yet I embrace this monster cause he gives me peace. A peace I thought I'd lost back in 1999. So I'm a writer. Will I be an actress someday? I don't know. The wonderful thing about life is that the only thing that ends life is death. As long as I'm alive, I have possibility and opportunities for anything. Maybe there will be a day where I can feel as comfortable acting as I am writing and if that happens, I shall try again to get up there on your movie screen or your stage or your television set. But for now, I'm a writer and it feels more me than anything has in my 29 years of life. I'm me first. Before I am a sister or daughter or friend. And this me is a writer. I think that will always be true. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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