Writing

Hello all! Busy week this one was (bad Yoda, I know), so lets get on with this week's post!

I have not been able to do a whole lot more than work this week unfortunately, not only on my regular job (which is the one that barely pays the bills) but on my other job: writing. Writing, for a large part of my life, had been an outlet to the inner struggles I was going through at the time, or just wanting to tell a short story, a small snippet of a poem or simply constructing a massive world filled with unique characters. But over the years, the need to write and the reasons behind it have changed the way I have changed as well; I would like to think that mature is the right word to describe the process, both in my work and in my life.
I have tried to balance what I call my office life and my home life. Both require their fair share of attention to detail and dedication. I have been more involved with my home life with the arrival, five years ago, of my daughter, followed two and a half years ago with the arrival of my son, but life is sneaky and cunning, and just when you think you have things under control, it yanks the carpet right under your feet. Just when I felt I had gotten to a stable point in my life, destiny had other plans for me.
Suffice to say, I had to dedicate much more time to my office life, time I did not know I had, time I did not want to give, and alas, time that became crucial in the never-ending process of growing up, of doing what is needed to get done. But something funny happened as well, something that I did not expect at all. My own need to create, to write, to read, began to evolve as well, and it now understood that the little time I had free, HAD to be used productively, had to be used wisely. And the process of becoming a better worker, a better father, a better husband, a better son, a better friend was not in the way of becoming the only thing I was meant to do ever since I was borne: to write.
Accepting the need, accepting the overwhelming necessity to write, to tell the stories I have thought about for so long was the easy part, it turned out, because now that I knew my purpose in life, I realized that I had no real inkling as to what it entailed: in other words, I had found the light at the end of the tunnel, but I had no way to get there, the tunnel was blocked, my mind was blocked. I had too many ideas floating around in my head and I wanted to write about each and every one of them. I wanted to write the way I read: furiously and not in any particular order. That would not do, and I knew it. So, one lazy Friday afternoon, my very good friend @CspiderMx suggested that I needed to dissociate the two roles I played as a writer: one was the narrator, and the other one was the writer. You see, I think that like every aspiring writer your worst enemy is sitting right next to you, he looks like you, he talks like you, he acts like you but in essence he is NOT you. He, is everything you hate about your work, every insecurity you have as writer, he is everything you hate about you life, he is the frustration that builds at work and the mocking laughter of defeat. I think we all have that monster lurking around inside our brains, just waiting for the opportunity to pounce on the thinnest thread if self-respect and confidence and destroy it. My worst enemy has been the lack of discipline, the lack of organization and of being the world's most obsessive editor.
But things changed once I followed my friend's advice, oh yes, things have changed in indeed. Why? Because I felt free. Once I donned my narrator's hat, and was not keen on worrying about every word used, ever verb and every adjective...I began to write. I decided to stay true to a single story, to a single story arch. I would write my contest stories but I would focus my energy and time to a single story arch that will become my first novel. I am almost done writing the overall arch of the story, and it has been a very helpful tool to only worry about the story, I will write the chapters and divide the story soon, but now I know where it is going, I wont have to adlib in the middle of it, at least I don't I think I should.
But to what end do I want to write stories? Because I want to be famous, rich and accomplished? Make no mistake about it, I know this is a very competitive market and I have no delusions of grandeur about myself and about my writing. First and foremost, I want to write for me, I want to be able to read my stories and to share them with anyone who wants to read them. I also know what I want to write about, and why. Do I want to become a writer? No, because I already am one, in my heart and in my soul, where it counts. Do I want to earn my living writing? Yes, yes I do, but I will hold on to my day job for the time being, if you don't mind.
I know what I want and where I want to go from here, so maybe, in the near future, I will begin sharing some of my stuff via this blog.

See you all next week!