Post: Mental Flailings

So many ideas float around in my head that its hard to focus on one. If I'm finally able to focus on one and expand it, the expansion brings with it another avalanche of ideas. I swim through those and find the one tidbit I wanted, the one thread to pull. I pull it and the process starts again.

I'm struggling to corral all these ideas. So, I made a promise to myself a few days ago that I would write something, anything, every day. I was hoping it would help organize these ideas into a cohesive, usable format but it hasn't worked.

Why? The answer is simple. I start to write and the writing pulls the thread and more ideas tumble out. I end up on tangents that have nothing to do with my chosen subject. I try to find my way back to where I started only to find that I've lost that thread and am holding a completely new one. How does one organize, tame, such random mental flailings?

I'm considering stream of consciousness writing to see if that helps. I've avoided it for one simple reason, I cannot stand to read it. Faulkner makes my brain weep in frustration. Then again, there must be something to it as Kerouac and Thompson are legendary. I don't expect to become legendary but I would like to tame my ideas.

And yet, I'm hesitant. What's the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing that can happen is that I realize I not only can't read it but I can't write stream of consciousness either. On the other had, the best that can happen is that I tame my mental flailings and actually get some stories finished.

I need to stop hesitating.

Post: A Step to the Left

She clicks on the link and reads the blog post. It gushes about how another writer shows promise, is going places. No one gushes about her work that way. No one even notices when she publishes something. Well, except that one lonely cheerleader who tells her that her writing doesn’t suck.

She thinks someone paid that one cheerleader off.

She realizes that she is nothing special. Her work is mediocre and not likely to stand out in the crowd. And it is a crowd. Every one of her classmates turned from peer to competition as soon as the degree was conferred.

Chin up, people tell her. Nose to the grindstone. Keep hacking away and one day you’ll see some fruits from all that labor.

She does. She sees nothing. She is patient. She writes, submits, and writes more but nothing. No rejection but no acceptance either. She feels that she is yelling into a void. Making any type of progress seems like a Sisyphean task.

Perhaps her passion lies elsewhere. She loves stories, loves telling them. But there is something that she loves more, something that pervades her very being. A passion that has burned bright since her earliest memories.

History.

American, British, European, and Scandinavian history. And not just history but the stories that history tells. The myths, legends, superstitions, and folklore.  How these stories sprang from every-day events and were exaggerated into folklore, and then blown up into myth.  From fireside tales of the psycho with a hook coming to get the hapless campers, to internet-born Slenderman, to Irish Halloween origin tales of Stingy Jack, they all fascinate her.

She’s on the wrong path. That is why the blog post discouraged her. She sees her path now. It’s a little to the left of the one she’s on.

She takes a step to the left.