Lesson one – writers guide to complete happiness
I have known ever since I was born, that I am a writer. At seven I tried writing scripts for cartoons, mice tricking at cat into giving them a ride – The Shoebox Choo Choo, not ground breaking, but a beginning. At nine I formed my own “publishing “ company with my best friend. I would dictate while she would transcribe my every word, a series called The Ghosty Woods about a family of ghosts with a Mr and a Mrs Ghosty Woods and a teen age daughter named Ghostina. It ran to three volumes. In seventh grade I was the editor in chief of my very own magazine. In high school I had my own poetry corner in the student newspaper. In college I wrote short stories and plays based on classical works. I never made any money with anything , but I have been willing to suffer for my art. The only sliver of doubt that ever assailed me was my horoscope. I have had it done many times and they never mention writing, they are certainly wrong.
My first novel, self-published, was not a success, I just assumed I was ahead of my time. None of my writing teachers ever understood me.
Then I wrote another one, trying to make it more accessible and when it was finished I gave it to a friend to read. I had even given it a cover and a spiral binding.
She read the first chapter, all eleven pages. Then she called me to talk.
I remember very clearly that I was standing by the couch and looking at the clock when I answered the phone, it was four thirty two pm. We were still on the phone when my husband came home at six.
She had a lot to say. I’m not sure I actually heard very much of it. I will say here that it didn’t really matter that much to me that she didn’t like it. But something about the intensity of her criticism , the minutia of her dissection paralyzed me completely. I cannot write anymore without doubting my ability to judge it’s worth. My friend and she is still my friend, in her relentless pursuit of her own truth, has called into question the one thing in this world that I thought I knew for sure, that I am a writer.
Reading, writing, words are my vocation. I search in everything I read for that line, that sentence that makes me stop and say, “that is what I want, I want to do that.” I must do that or perish trying.
But now …. Oh it is terrible, I still want nothing else, even if I am no longer feel that I will be able to. And that has been a kind of death for me.
This all happened a while ago and at that time I had a series of dreams that followed me night after night every time I closed my eyes to sleep.
In this dream world I was not myself. I was as different from how I experience myself to be as was possible. Because in the dream no one liked me and I was very very bitchy. People went out of their way to make problems for me and I couldn’t get along with any one. I couldn’t keep a job and it came down to a night when my landlord kicked me out just for the hell of it. I was stubborn, I argued with him, but he pushed me out the door in the middle of the night was falling and I had no where to go and I was tired. Night after night I wandered the streets. I had no friends, no one would take me in. It was late, the street lights made paradise in the green trees overhead and the houses all belonged to strangers. One night after many months the dream changed. In my waking life I had decided something and I don’t even know what it was but in my dream I stopped complaining, I stopped whining about how people were unfair. I was simply tired and wanted to sleep, I accepted that no one wanted me. It wasn’t really okay, It was just the way things were.
As I was walking along I found a lounge chair someone had left by the curb.. It wasn’t broken or dirty just old and unwanted. I spread it out right there on the sidewalk and laid down. I fell asleep. I awoke in my dream to see myself surrounded by people treating me with respect and asking questions of me about their lives as if in my freedom from caring I had accomplished something amazing.
Confidence is neither won nor lost, but taken and given. The universe has given me mine and I take it back from those who would even without their knowledge deprive me of it. Even if I never publish a word.
“Consider to self publish eBook with all your best work for faster distribution and higher quality.”