Tag: writing

The Next Chapter

ChrisLeave a comment

The oddest things have happened over the past week or so. For starters, I was flipping through an old notebook (circa 1998) and came across the name of a character that I had created but never done anything with. I really liked the name, and after mulling it over for a bit, I ended up having a new character come to life complete with a backstory, a current story, and a mental picture. I pulled out a blank notebook and ended up writing an opening scene that flowed cleanly, in a way that I don’t remember experiencing in a long time. I could see the scene in my mind’s eye and hear the dialogue between the characters, and it was like all I had to do was transcribe it. Other scenes and plot elements kept popping into my head, and all I can say is “thank goodness for the voice-to-text Memo app on my phone” – otherwise there’s no way I would have been able to write or type it all to capture it.

A couple days after that, I watched the 11th episode of The Sandman on Netflix – the one with Calliope the Muse. It occurred to me that the final part of the episode where Calliope was finally freed took place in August 2022, and it made me smile that maybe it wasn’t such a coincidence after all that I found that notebook not long after the episode aired. I have ended up writing more in the past week than I have in the past year, and it feels good.

The other thing that happened was I came across a free download on Audible called “How to Stay Focused: 10 Untold Remarkably Simple Techniques to Control Your Mind and Stay Focused” by Stephens Hyang. It really hit home for me and I have tried to start using the techniques in my daily life. I have felt unfulfilled at my current job for quite some time, and I haven’t done anything tangible about it because I’m afraid. I’m not bad at my job, and it pays well, so I’d be dumb to abandon it and jump off into the unknown where I’d likely fail because I don’t know how to make my passions marketable. I have talked myself into the fear so much that it has become a major obstacle (and rationalization). But when the audiobook started talking about “You are what you think” and how the thoughts that run through your mind shape and become your reality.

I’m a positive person in general. But I also have major self-esteem and self-doubt issues, and they have stifled me long enough. Between the “How to Stay Focused” audiobook and the “Start Here” series of podcasts by Mel Robbins – particularly the one about “Writing Your Next Chapter” – I am more encouraged that there are options out there that will let me find a fulfilling and motivating job for my next act.

I know it won’t be an instant change, and I have a lot of work to do on myself in order to change my mindset, because I have been in my comfort zone for a long time. It scares me, but it also excites me, and I’m looking forward to seeing what ideas come up for my future.

Just Write.

Chris

Obviously I haven’t been as consistent with my blogging here as I could have been. There are lots of reasons excuses, none of which are really good. Fear is the largest one, fear that what I write isn’t good enough, isn’t interesting enough, isn’t important enough. Isn’t “enough” enough.

Today I came to the realization that it doesn’t matter. If I want to write, then I should write. And if I want to get better at writing and tap back into the creative flow that I used to have, I need to write. Just write.

It has been a weird past few months, culminating in an almost existential crisis this past week where I seriously wondered what I was doing with my life and what my purpose was. So many of my family and friends have jobs where they directly help people – educators, medical professionals, counselors, therapists – and I feel like my job doesn’t matter. Sometimes I don’t think it even matters to my company, because so many of the things I’ve worked on over the past few years have been canceled before they were complete. It has made me feel a bit lost and wondering if I should find a new job where I have more impact. I don’t need to change the world, but it would be nice to feel a personal satisfaction with my work. Except the jobs that I am drawn to are not ones I could really make a living doing… at least not comfortably. My current job may not be where my heart is, but it is financially secure.

It’s really easy to say “money isn’t everything” or “money shouldn’t be the main concern” except I have seen what happens on the other end of that mindset and I am not willing to risk that. I am my own (and my only) safety net. Cutting it because I’m feeling bored or unfulfilled at my current job is not a good long-term plan.

Maybe it’s not a question of finding a job that fulfills me and provides satisfaction, but maybe a hobby. In many ways, writing used to be that hobby. Twenty years ago I would bring a spiral notebook with me to work and write in the cafeteria during lunch and on break. I still remember the feeling of surprise and revelation while writing a scene from “Renegade” and discovering Joshua knew that Vin was innocent. Joshua saying “Shame, too, them hanging an innocent man and all” came out of nowhere, and it surprised me as much as it surprised Vin. It was one of the times I remember feeling so drawn into a story that it just flowed.

Unfortunately around that time is also when I began over-thinking my writing because I realized people were actually reading it, and I discovered that the cast members from The Magnificent Seven were aware of my website where the story was posted. The thought of Rick Worthy reading my interpretation of Nathan still has the power to make me cringe. I started worrying about “what the audience would think of it” and self-edited to the point that I lost the feeling of flow. Writing became more a source of anxiety than an escape, and eventually I stopped.

I still have stories in my head, plots in my notes, stories I’ve thought of over the years that I would love to get on paper, but have let the anxiety of “what the audience would think of it” keep me from putting them down. If I can let go of that anxiety and find the flow again, maybe that world-building and writing will offer the satisfaction that I’m not finding in my job right now.

The only way to find out is to just write.

Identifying An Audience

ChrisLeave a comment

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

– Cyril Connolly

I haven’t posted anything in a while because of crippling self-doubt issues. They’re not new – I’ve had them for about 20 years, when I suddenly started realizing that people were reading what I wrote and I was afraid that they wouldn’t like it.

I used to do creative writing. I used to write fan fiction. I’ve had stories rambling around my head for as long as I can remember, but around 2000 I stopped putting them on paper (or on the computer), because suddenly I cared about what other people thought of them.

This week I was binge-watching Criminal Minds on Netflix and one of the bookend quotes by Cyril Connolly really hit home. I had stopped doing something I liked because of others. I started focusing so much on what they would enjoy that I stopped focusing on what I enjoyed.

The Connolly quote made me realize that if I wrote for myself, I would always have an audience. And if I enjoyed doing it, if I enjoyed taking the worlds in my head and committing them to paper/screen, then I could revisit them whenever I wanted. Like I used to do. And if other people enjoyed them along the way, then that was just gravy on the biscuit.

So this WordPress may end up having various pages popping up here and there as I revisit the worlds in my head and pull the stories out. My challenge to myself is to write them for me, without second-guessing myself about what anyone else thinks of them.

They won’t be perfect… but I’ll bet they’ll be beautiful.