Hey all.
This might sound sort of arb, but this week’s post is about
writing. I’m writing about writing. I’m only doing that because currently I’m
doing Nanowrimo, the challenge whereby you set yourself the target of writing a
book in the month of November, and your target is 50,000 words in the month.
This is pretty cool because even if you only get to 40,000, or if you get to
60,000 and your novel is still not complete, you have yourself a pretty little
start to your BOOK, and having a start to a book is better than having no book
at all. And a book is something isn’t it, it’s an asset, specially if you get
it published. It’s sort of like an asset you can create out of nothing, if you
have a flair for writing, the same as a painting or a piece of art is.
But writing is more than that, and this is what brings me to
the point of why I’m writing THIS post about writing. I could be barking
completely up the wrong tree, but my suspicion is that a lot of you readers
have a lot on your mind, and maybe, limited place to vent it. That’s the point
of these posts, to try and show you that there is someone to listen, that there
are more people than you may realize who are going through the same thing, and
although they may not have answers, the fact that there are people that are going
through it provides solidarity.
Writing HELPS. Any kind of art form helps. It’s therapeutic.
You might be feeling very very angry, for example to your dad because he is
anti bisexuality, or your brother may be homophobic, and they may be making it
incredibly uncomfortable for you to come out, or incredibly difficult to find a
peaceful and harmonious way of living. And letting it out in a creative way is
something constructive to do, as opposed to slamming your hand through a
window, or – worse probably as you may
have medical bills – into the face of your father or brother. Splurge that anger onto a canvas with bright
red paint with hues of orange and yellow, or cry your sadness into that water
colour with shades of navy, baby blue and purple. Share your HAPPINESS, too
with bright colours and vibrant images.
But it’s writing that I really want to go into here, and use
my own example. I’ll be honest with you. When I approached Freedom Requires Wings,
I was just coming out of the shadow of being super messed up by someone who had
let me down badly, in a lot of ways. And
also, things have happened in my past that have left me feeling like a complete
twat that doesn’t really have the right to be on this planet at all. Have been
seeing a shrink, and she is great. She helps, A LOT. But there are days when I get angry, sad,
frustrated – and there’s no viable way of letting it out. I can’t scream at the
kids. Unfair to take it out on my hubby. And internalizing it? Not so much when
you’re 37 and overweight. It can bring on a heart attack or something. You might
like self combust and leave a big mess for everyone. So none of those options
are good, and let’s say the shrink is not available and your friends are sick
of hearing you go on and on about the same thing for weeks, no, MONTHS, on
end. So you settle down with this Nanowrimo
thing and you write, you pour your heart and soul and ANGER into what you’re
saying. And hey – by the end of it, you’re left with 2,000 words of not so
shabby writing written with passion and emotion, and there it is. Your passion
and emotion is on the page – ready to be a part of something which COULD make
you rich and famous – but if it doesn’t, it is part of something you’ve made.
Do you see where I’m getting at with this? You’ve MADE something, something
which can benefit the world, out of your pain and passion. And you’ve turned
the bad energy into something amazing. So get creative. Get writing, get it out
there! I’m pretty much going ape with writing this month. If it’s upset me or
hurt me or made me angry, I’m writing about it. And in so doing I’m filling up
the pages of a potential book, even if I don’t publish it, the book is there
for me to decide what to do with in future. And the slingshot kick back at you
thing about this in my experience is that I write MUCH better when I’m
emotional. When I’m level pegging, it’s all good, but I struggle to write for
shit. I don’t know if that’s true of
you, but if it is, take the good out of the bad, and when you get sad or angry
or down, write. It’s good for the soul. And you might make some money out of
it. There’s a silver lining in every
cloud, even if it’s being able to create better art or writing when you’re
highly stressed out.
The other thing I wanted to chat to you all about is
Thanksgiving. We don’t celebrate it here in South Africa. But I know quite a
lot of you would surely be from the States and would surely celebrate it. And
what I want to know is this. Do you put a lot of thought into what you are
actually thankful for, when it comes to Thanks giving? We all have something to
be thankful about.
We do… we may feel like everything is stacked up against us.
But there’s a thing called The Glad Game I want to introduce you to. Don’t
laugh. I read about it in a book called Pollyanna which I read when I
was little. It was written by Eleanor H Porter. The way the game works is this. Pollyanna and
her father were very hard up and had to rely on the charity of others. And she
got a Christmas box one year from the charity, and instead of getting a doll
for Christmas like she wanted, she got a pair of crutches (thank goodness today’s
Santa Shoebox guys vet what goes out in those boxes). And then as you can
imagine this was a challenge. What is there to be glad about when you get
crutches instead of a doll for Christmas? (Answers on a post card). Well of
course it’s to be glad that you don’t need them. Challenge yourselves to try this for just a
day – always find something to be glad about in every situation.
Follow @FRW
