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 A new year, a new blog, same mess of a writer. |
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It's been a while, but since the world is a mess, I might as well take a crack at this writing thing again.  I Write in 2019 ▼ 12 Stories in 12 Months ▼  |
| Date: 12.30.17 -- Day 71 Music: "This Year" / The Mountain Goats 2017 has gone both inexplicably fast and exceeding slow. I have never been more thrilled for a year to be over. I had these exact sentiments in 2016, not knowing that 2017 was going to give it a run for its money. There has been a lot of pain, a lot of fear and bewilderment. There are many scars and a boatload of grief. It's hard not to dwell in those things. This winter has seemed harsher than before. And while technically tomorrow is a new beginning, it doesn't seem like anything will change. Tomorrow is Monday. Tomorrow is 2018. Tomorrow is...tomorrow. The one thing I can take away from this year is that I know how to survive even in the bleakest of hours. In my 30th year, I think that's what I'm grounding myself in. Maybe that survival has been by the skin of my teeth. Maybe it has made me a harder, colder person than I was before. But I survived. It wasn't always pretty, but I put one foot in front of the other. Lord willing, and the creeks don't rise, I'll do that again come the morning. If I'm to take away anything from this year, it's that. 2018 is not a year of high expectations. If anything, the path for the coming year looks steeper than before. I've set the bar of passing on the ground. All 2018 needs to do is tiptoe over that bar to make it "successful". I'm laughing right now because it really is such a low margin for success. It's funny how much I'm not even asking for it to be a year of thriving or peace. Just a little smidgen of a bit better than before. Just a little. Tonight's grand festivities include bagels for dinner, whisky for midnight, and taking out the recycling before I go to bed. So here's to everyone who has made it through another year. May your night go smoothly, and if partying is involved, hopefully it goes safely as well. Look out for one another if you can. May your Monday not be too cold, and whatever your hopes are for the new year, may they come true - soft and sweet. Happy New Year.  |
| Date: 12.28.17 -- Day 69 Music: "Venus Fly" / Grimes featuring Janelle Monae Genetics. "I'm so sorry for the genes I gave you." Words from a man who never apologizes and a woman who always is. Do I hate my parents for my DNA? Stiff back, near-constant pain, aphasia. Gritted teeth, hard sighs, fading patience. My future will involve replaced hips, removed ovaries, screws in bones. I'm not where I thought I would be. I hoped I had a little more time. With each spasm of my muscles, I hear the tick of the clock running out on my body. But hate? Not even a little. This is just the path I am on. |
| Date: 12.05.17 -- Day 65 Music: "Love In The Dark" / Leroy Sanchez (Adele Cover) - Kyle Hanagami Choreography This choreography gets me every time. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and captures so much emotion. The cover of this song is wonderful too. Not that Adele's version isn't good. There's just something about Leroy's version that captures more of the gut-punch feelings that the song speaks to. I'm in that kind of mood, so this song hits all the notes I need right now.  My sleeping issues have hit an intriguing new low. Sleep deprivation and I are old drinking buddies, you see. Sleep and I are barely on talking terms, so sleep deprivation keeps me company while I wait for sleep to come back around. One of these day we'll make up. Maybe. The feud has been going over twenty years, but I have faith we'll come to some sort arrangement or, you know, I'll end up dead. But the new thing to swing into town is sleep paralysis; this is probably as close to my worst fear of being forever trapped in my body, fully aware, without the ability to move, I'll ever get and I'm completely okay with that. Not one to stick around, it seems that sleep paralysis might be here to stay for a while. Last night, it even came to visit. Three times no less. Cannot say that I am extremely thrilled although I'm not surprised. I've been in a pit a stress for a while and that toll is finally manifesting in my body. And pain has been something out of this world that past week. Tear-inducing, I'm seeing stars, kind of pain. Mondays, man. I'm getting closer and closer to setting my NaNo (metaphorically) on fire. This would equate to me deleting everything but my notes and starting fresh. I've been sleeping (har har) on the drastic idea for a few days now as I didn't feel like I was in the right mind space to completely cut ties come December 1st. Honestly, having thought about, I really don't think I would have any regrets just trashing the whole thing. It's nice to know that I have 50,848 words in me, and that I can write them in a month. However, I don't want these particular 50,848 words with me any longer. They feel like an anchor weighing me down in tumultuous waters. If I'm going to drown in a wine dark sea that is writing, I want it to be a different ocean entirely than the one I created, if that makes sense. Little sleep. Hypercritical. Sad songs. Petrified. About ready to throw everything in the garbage. That sounds like as good of a start to the first week of December as any. |
| Date: 12.01.17 -- Day 63 Music: "The Sound of Silence" / Disturbed (Simon & Garfunkel Cover) So I won NaNo this year. First time in completing 50000 words. 50848 to be exact. I didn't expect to feel this hollow. November hasn't ever really been an ideal time for trying to write, at least for me. There have always been midterms and Thanksgiving travel plans and usually some type of sinus congestion or other ailment that made writing seem like a Herculean task. However, there has always been that little smidgen of hope that one day I get the goods. I've been hacking at this writing challenge for roughly nine years, and this is the first time I've actually crossed the finish line. And I did the thing. I made it work. And all I feel is a weird sense of dissatisfaction, more so than years prior when I wasn't even close to the 50000. Maybe it's because this past month has been full of disappointment and dread. There has been a litany of things that have gone utterly wrong that I'm paying for, and will continue to pay for, for the foreseeable future. So my writing has been me just kind of phoning it in. Everything I got done seems like a long list of words that don't really belong together. There is no coherent anything. It's just this massive amount of whatever. This feels like I typed the same three words over and over and over again. I finished sometime this morning and all I can think of is that this is not success. So I'm calling this a technical win, not a real emotional win. I haven't accomplished what I set out to do. I haven't really connected with these characters or that small thing called a plot. Had I not been a part of the Write-A-Thon (Go Team Gold!) I wouldn't have even counted what I did on the word counter at all. This is my autumn of discontent made entirely of exhaustion and keyboard smashes. So, as the bitter winds pick up outside, I'm going to do what I do best - I'm going to set my work on metaphorical fire and watch it burn down to ash before I begin again. December is now my re-NaNo month. Instead of editing, I'll be hacking and rewriting at this dumpster fodder to try and shape it into something worth the time I spent on it. Maybe I can make it work. Maybe it'll be a lost cause. Maybe I'm just setting myself up for another fail. But I need to make something out of this disaster that was November. I need make myself feel like I actually earned this "win". Otherwise, what was the point, you know? |
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Week 1: December 31st - January 6th:
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