People Make Me Nervous

Every person around me, man or woman, friend or stranger, makes me nervous, whether they talk to me or not. My heart races, the blood starts pounding in my head, chills run down my spine. My breath grows shorter and faster. My throat tightens leaving me feeling like I am almost out of air. I feel like I am running even when I am standing still.
I know this all started after a bad period of people breaking my trust. I let what those people did and said get to me. I let it change how I saw the world and the people surrounding me. Now I am lost deep in this daily panic, which is very bad for a writer. I have to get over this but I don't know how.
This blog post is my sad attempt to pull myself out of this. I am forcing myself to sit here in a library full of people until I have finished writing today. I am just itching to go home and relax again with a good book.

A Pen can change the World

I could be anything but I think I will be a writer. I will write books and articles that bring theology and God into people’s lives, Even if they don’t know that’s what I am doing. I can write in subtle traces of theology that slip into people’s minds and souls almost undetected. I can also throw in a blast of theology so big it shakes a person out of their comfort zone. I can do all this with just a pen. I can affect people’s emotions around the world without ever leaving my apartment. I will bring God to life for people all over the world. Once more people see the world and its people in a theological way they begin to understand the problems of the world better. One must understand the problem to change it. One must understand the world in order to change it. I hope to help people understand with my writing. With my pen I can help change the world. 

Another Day of Work and Pain.

Today i went to the library to work on my mid term paper which is due tomorrow. I am still new to this library so i just picked a table on the main floor. After an hour of working on my paper the pain in both my head and my body got to be too much. I became madder and more depressed as i tried to push through the pain. I did not see the solid hour of work i had just done. All i saw was an unfinished paper and me in too much pain to finish it. The battery on my computer died and so i slowly put all my stuff away so i can start the painful walk home. The problem was i was also in too much pain to stand. After two failed attempts and the depressing thought of being alone during such a time, I managed to get up. I walked home, cried, texted Matt, and fixed myself crackers and a glass of jasmine tea. after both the physical and emotion pain went down i called the library. The guy i talked to told me about how the 3rd floor was quiet with long tables and plugs at each table. I am sitting at one of those tables now. After writing this long message I am going to have to get up and walk around for a bit. I am starting to hurt again.

Unnecessary Stress

I read article after article trying to find something good and meaningful to write about. I stress over the outline, trying to make sure each word is in the perfect place. This unnecessary stress has been building up on me for many months. Stress from this blog stress from life in general, building up block by block until I stood in a small windowless room. I was locked in by my own fears. Mostly fear of getting hurt or not being good enough. Well now I am beginning the long process of tearing down the walls, brick by brick.

I was reading another one of those articles just moments ago when I can across this line.

“To get into the travel mindset, you have to treat every day as if you were traveling! Always be open to new experiences, people, food and activities. Branch out of your comfort zone and take daily risks. Unsettle your routines and live like every day is an adventure.”

It suddenly hit me. I use to enjoy every little detail about life and now I barely even see them. That quote is the embodiment of my goal. I want to get back to the point of being able to enjoy the simple act of blowing bubbles or the smell of a summer rain. I want to feel all emotions, good, bad and downright heartbreaking. I will take the good with the bad because there really is nothing worse than the numb nothingness I find myself in lately. 

Mozart Said It Best.

When it comes to describing how the flow of inspiration hits me, it was Mozart who said it best.

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I can't sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."   Mozart.

Advice from the Past

Once a very good friend of mine said “I always imagined you as a late afternoon or evening writer.”

 He himself was a late night writer and playwright. Sadly he has passed away. Often I have moments when I wish he could give me advice.  It is during these moments that I remember the miracle of Facebook.

 About a month after his death, I was obsessing about schedules again so I got on facebook and found this little piece of advice.  “I always imagined you as a late afternoon or evening writer.”

It had been a year and a half since he first typed those words.  As I looked back at all the schedules I tried to make I noticed one common theme. I was always writing sometime after dinner.

He was always right and still I kept trying to change my own flow.  So now I have an alarm set on my phone to go off at 9pm every night.  I have to have a start time or else I will sleep through it if I have a migraine. Even if I sleep all day I know I will still get at least an hour of writing done each day. I start at 9pm and write until I am tried again. I usually always get at least an hour in. 

Living in the Past

Daily Writing and Editing

What is Great Literature?

Do you have to Sacrifice things to be a good writer?

A simple promise, A small gift

I know this is not any of the articles I plan to write but even this small paragraph is important. This is step one of a promise I made to someone thousands of miles away from me. I promised that I would write one blog post every day, even if it is only a small paragraph about my day. I love all of my pen pals around the world for the simple joy they bring me, letters. Yes I know I write only emails to some and emails and letters to others, but it is still different then writing a letter to someone you can see or call every day. When I write to my pen pals I am allowed to travel. Every email or letter is a little glimpse into another world. I do not become a tourist standing in front of a place or mountain. I become a traveler let into the home of a friend. That to me is a gift that I both give and receive every time I send or reply to an email or letter. I have received postcards and letters that let my creative mind fly across the skies to another city or country where I feel welcomed like an old friend. The art of writing letters may be dying but at least I know that with every letter I am breathing more life into the art. This and many more small paragraphs to come are a gifts of language as well.    

What are my financial goals?

I need to make $1200 a month plain and simple. The not so simple part is finding a way to make that every month without working a dreadful 40+ hours a week. I am just not made for that kind of work, mentally or physically. First and foremost I am a writer, no other possible job, hobby or career matters more than writing.  If I can write and sell one 500 word article a day for 6 days a week, then I would have my $1200. The problem is migraines and people never leave me in peace long enough to focus. It takes me a minimum of three hours to write one article. That is one hour of research, one hour to write, and one hour to type. Each time my focus fades or is interrupted another hour is added on to that time. Every day it seems like there is never enough time to finish my work as well as what everyone else wants me to do. With each bill that must be paid, I realize that my time and my money are quickly fading away. I know what needs to be done but without money I don’t see any way of getting it. My time matters to me. My writing matters to me. My writing and my time matter much more to me than money. I may never be rich. I may spend my entire life in a camper, writing but at least I would be happy.

My life in recap.

I think it is time for a quick recap of what has happened lately in my life.

I failed classes in both the fall and spring semesters at Thomas More College in northern Kentucky. I was having too many migraines and just was not able to focus. So I decided to take the fall 2012 semester off. My plan was to work at the museum and work on getting better.

September 23^rd was my last day working at the Speed Art Museum.   They closed for three years to renovate.  During my last month working at the Museum, I looked for jobs in between all the migraines. I didn’t find anything but then again, I didn’t expect to. Who is going to hire someone who can’t get out of bed two to three days a week?

I applied for unemployment and went home to wait. By that point I was really starting to like the time I had and the idea of being a full time writer, though I knew I needed more discipline. My days were spent enjoying breakfast with my dad while we watched Anderson Cooper Live, taking my dad were he wanted to go that morning, and having the afternoons free to work on my to-do list or whatever else I wanted to do. I loved it and I still do.

My health got worse when I developed serve acid reflex and chest pain as a side effect of a medicine I was and still am on. My system will not accept even on day without this medicine.  I realized that there was no way I could ever find a job to support myself with my health like it is.  So I applied for SSI and Section 8.

Two days before I was to get my first unemployment check, I received a phone call from a very rude man, telling me that I would not be getting even the $30 per week I was expecting. The reason? I was not applying for full time work.

Now I am beginning into a new life as a full time writer who suffers from migraines. My parents know I want to write but I have not completely spelled out my desire to not work a part time job while I write. Somehow I am managing to live fairly well on only a $19 a month income from where my truck was stolen in June of 2011.   

Why Do I write?

One of the blogs I follow, The Write Practice, has fifteen minutes writing exercises on almost all their posts. The latest blog post I read was called Do You Want to Make Money at Writing?” At the end of the post there is a fifteen minute writing exercise where you spend some time free writing.  The paragraph below is the result of 15 minutes of free writing inspired by the blog post, with some editing of course.

I have to admit that there is most likely to always going to be a small part of me that writes for money. As time goes along I can feel that part of me getting smaller and smaller until one day it will be barely noticeable. As I get closer to finishing my bachelor’s degree my confidence in myself, my skills and my complex budgeting system grows. I have been able to catch a plane to New Orleans for a four day English convention when all logical people looking at my account would be wondering how I paid for the gas to drive back home to Louisville. I keep track of every penny that goes in or comes out. Somehow I have managed, by the grace of God, to do amazing things with very little money.  My friends ask me over and over again how I do it but I can’t tell them anymore then I can tell you.  The simple fact is that I do not have the slightest clue how I do it. Please forgive me for that. The only thing I can tell you is that I value my time much more then I value my money. If I learn more I will let you know. 

If you are a writer, fiction, nonfiction or poetry you should read the blog post.

Do you write for money or for yourself?

This is my river

This river is mine I have swim here every minute of my life just at my mother and father did and their mothers and fathers before them. My mother told all my brothers my sisters and me to watch out for the humans hooks but Adam never listened. He liked to race around eating the worms bit by bit but one day the humans got him and I lost my friend. That was why I was alone at the top of the falls when the human girl stepped in my river. I wanted to be alone and she almost stepped on me and then she slipped. The current was fast and carried her away over the falls. I don't know why but I followed her. I guess I felt sorry for her.

Why you should always carry business cards with you

I always carry business cards with me because I never know who I am going to meet. I would hate to meet a writer or publisher and not have my business cards. Every person who I meet and talk with could be a potential client or a potential reader for my blog. Whenever I meet someone I always have my business cards in my pocket or in my bag so that if we start talking about writing or my blog I can give them one of my cards. I don’t just go walking around handing out my cards to everyone I know. I talk to the person and if it seems like they might be able to help me or if I might be able to help them that is when I give them my card.

A Walk in the Night

The mountain stands tall and proud. She watches over me in her grace. The moon rises from behind the mountain every night. In the pale moon light the forest comes alive all around me.

            The owl wakes to say "Hello child of the night, nice to see you again"
I stop and bow my head to his wise glory. As I walk deeper into the forest I know that I am climbing higher but the mountain in her loving grace keeps my path easy.

The wind wraps itself around me like a grandmother greeting a grandchild come home again after a long time away. "Welcome back to the night my child"
The wind stirs the leaves at my feet to reveal the hole I almost stepped in.

The forest around me and the mountain under me whisper "Watch your step child"
I step around the hole, protected and safe in the night under the watchful eye of the loving mountain and forest. I smile knowing that all of God’s Nature is watching out for me.