The Value in Nothing Left to Give

   This is a story about a girl who one day woke up to find out that she was suddenly twenty six years old with and husband and a son living in an unfamiliar home full of boxes because they (her and her family that appeared overnight) had just moved in... and truth be told this little girl had always been rather lazy. Looking around her new quarters she quickly realized that not much had changed. Not in regards to her natural tendencies and abilities anyway.

   The night before this shock to the system she had been scrolling endlessly through her ridiculous number of open tabs on her two different browser windows that were simultaneously buzzing out the faint "Choose me! Look at me!" song she had grown so familiar with... when something caught her eye and made her heart sink. A post on some strange social media site or another by an artist she had admired for quite some time. Someone who not just created art but lived it... who had made mention of her upcoming birthday. Her twenty. fifth. birthday. The one that the girl doing the scrolling and browsing and reading had experienced already, the year before. Only one year before. Not two or ten or five... but one felt like more than enough. Because the girl was in fact reading, not writing. On writing she waited. Waited for the right topic or inspiration or input... that same damn trap. Again. A. Gain. How? Why?

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   This is another story. A story about a guy who gives and gives and gives. And gets frustrated. And sometimes says hurtful things without thinking about it... because he cares so much that his heart has to put up barriers to keep itself from exploding in his chest. Who woke up yet another morning to an unsatisfied wife. A sorrowful woman who had in her this radiant light but instead chose to mourn every moment as it passed by. He wondered why she didn't notice that everything they have between the two of them, all the things that she now seemed to despise... he bought because at one point she said she wanted it. Maybe not with words. But with her eyes or a hint of the smile she withheld from him much of the time.

   She began to tell him one night how she was broken, after he had carefully, with every last word he had in him, told her all the things she made clear that she was longing to hear. And instead of rightful disappointment or hurt he reached out and healed her. He forgot for a moment about his walls and he chanced explosion... it was the perfect amount of electricity to jump-start her hardened heart. And though it depleted him for the moment it was a good exhaustion... to finally see her exhilarated over words he didn't think he had. For they had been hiding cleverly behind those heart walls of his. 

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Creating Characters in a World Worth Saving

   Sometimes I think that it's necessary to live with a certain amount of sadness in order to be a creator. Other times I get indignant over that line of thought asserting loudly within the confines of my own mind that it's a fallacy that one must be tortured to be an artist. Things being mutually exclusive is actually quite rare if you think about it. You can hear thunder and not see lightning but if you are close enough to lighting to see it, you will hear the resulting thunder at some point however faint it may be. Unless of course you are deaf.

   Or something like that anyways... I am no expert on weather. In fact I am far less intelligent that I'd like to think that I am... and have others think that I am. But I am also far more intelligent than I feel many people give me credit for. And this is where much of my sadness comes in. It comes in regards to peoples perception of me and my abilities. It comes in the dissonance between what I know lies within me and what I gather of peoples impression of me... because of my lack of action. They don't know because I don't share. They don't see because I don't do. I just think. Think far too much, and spill far to little.  And due to my lack of practice in the making external what is internal, when I do, it isn't eloquent enough to be fully comprehended. Not like when I write. Although that could use some work too... but this thing called talking, it is my biggest downfall... if we're not counting connecting, because I'm far worse at that. At least I think I am...

   And so there it is. All still about what I think versus what others perceive. Too much time spent analyzing my own introspection. Too much thought focused on myself.

   I'm feeling pushed again, as a writer to go a new direction. At the same time as traveling the original one that I did not stick closely enough to, I confess... I need to get out of my head and write about others for a bit. Create characters. Maybe explore the people in my story that aren't me. Because while mine is the story I'm telling, it's really for the benefit of the supporting characters. Isn't that what life is about? What fun is being the hero of your story if you don't develop the characters that make up the world you are supposed to save?

   The time in my life finally came when I felt honest in identifying myself as a writer. But now it is time to shift from a journalist (in the sense of a personal journal or diary) to a novelist. Someone who sees others as stories as well. Not just herself. This worldview I've been looking through is feeling a bit narrow. And as it turns out the hand restricting my air supply is my own.

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