Summertime Sadness, Wintertime Woes

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The point of this scene is to illustrate an erratic, near-psychotic break man who's spent his life chasing a past that never existed and never could have.  As logical, well-adjusted readers, we are smarter than Jay Gatsby because we, like Nick Carroway, know you can never repeat the past.  Right? But, what if that's not it.  I mean, deep down, we all believe in the green light just as much as Gatsby, don't we?  Regardless of our goals, be it fixing a past mistake, becoming someone we hope to be, or fulfilling a commitment we're only mostly sure we can fulfill, we have ideas of what tomorrow SHOULD be like.  It's absolutely impossible to go to bed in a world where you can't believe you'll achieve more tomorrow than you did today.  I might have blamed my generation if it weren't for Jay's validation, but the hardest part of life is getting yourself up and doing it.

I'm sure I don't need to spell out why Facebook or a binge Netflix marathon of Mad Men is so much better than sitting down at a desk to do work.  Aside from the obvious (because Jon Hamm is hot), there is that constant devil-voice whispering "if you don't bother, you definitely can't fail!"  The future is horrifying, basically.  Our whole lives we've been told to "grow up" and "figure out who [we] are," but what adult is grown up and knows who he is?  Am I still just too young?  I don't know about that, but I can say for sure, that no matter what the occasion, there is always something more enticing than putting myself out on that page some days.

Lately, I've been hearing the words, "this cold weather is really putting me in an off-mood.  I just don't feel inspired to write."  I can't help but retrospectively criticize this excuse.  Am I in an off-mood?  Sure.  Is cold weather the sleep potion to my Romeo-and-Juliet-live-happily-ever-after?  Absolutely.  Is that a good enough excuse to lose myself in cyberspace until the "real" world demands I make an appearance somewhere? Doubt it.  The fact is, that I can make excuses all day, every day, no matter what the weather.  

I suppose the issue here, as it tends to be with me, comes down to time.  Just like Gatsby, we beat on against the current - ceaselessly searching for the past and the past of our future.  We all want to become someone someday, and committing to that idea out loud represents a problem we may never be able to fulfill, unless, "of course we can [repeat the past]" as Gatsby declares with absolute conviction.  Of course we can.  

Writing is like eating cake

So, it's been about two months since I declared the right to call myself a "writer" (can I say declared the "write"?!?), and between the bouts of anxiety and laziness, it's been quite an interesting one.  

Being a "writer" is a bit like having my cake, eating it, but obsessively getting on the scale every hour for the next 3 days just to make sure I haven't done too much damage.  

Some thoughts:

1. Blogging is difficult.  Not only because of the classic "I don't know what to say" (because, let's be honest - when do I not know what to say?), but rather because there really is a fine line between aid and distraction.  I've set a goal for myself to write SOMETHING every day, and I've done a pretty good job at it.  I'm now trying to increase how many hours per day I spend writing, and there is just so much more to do on my novel than on my blog because my blog isn't even really a thing, yet.  I didn't want to get caught up in this until my book seemed to have taken better shape.. which leads me to number 2

2. I've finally started to answer the most fundamental and impossible questions in novel-writing: How on earth do you even get something like that started?  Every time I (and I assume anyone) tell someone that I've begun writing a book, 99% of the reaction that I get is "Oh wow I wouldn't even know how to begin!"  Arrogantly, first time writers like myself toss our heads and laugh at this pedestrian worry.  When you're born to be a writer, the novel just flows out!  It's all about following your calling!  Of course, the reality behind this facade is that we, too, are crumbling around ourselves and actually want to break down and be like WELL ME EITHER!  Saying that, of course, isn't an option, because who would be mad enough to start a journey unguided without even the smallest inkling of how to do it?  Writers.  Writers are mad enough to start huge projects with no idea of how to do them.  Some of the sagest advice I've gotten from many writers is that you really won't know how to write a novel until you've completed one.  This makes perfect sense.  Frustrating sense, but I do understand it.  So, that brings me to the point: I've finally worked out how to begin to shape the pages upon pages of writing into something that resembles a novel.  I've overcome the issue of back-editing handwritten story, and it's all about finding a process and letting it come.  Needless to say, while that isn't actually much information, I'm quite proud with this new step.  

3. I have successfully completed a short story, which a friend of mine, Tim Lawton, has published on his website, Spiders in a Jar, a website where he showcases his own work (which is fantastic) and has just begun to showcase the work of others.  I am pleased to say that my story is the first of what I hope will become many.  Go check it out!

More to come, hopefully in the form of both blog posts and stories.  

This is where it began...

Today is my birthday. It's also the first day of my life - officially - as a writer. Of course I've spent my entire life writing, from the "book" I wrote in 2nd grade through my days as a grad student and beyond, but I've never been prepared to really BE a writer.

Well, today is that day. 

My story starts out much like that of other artists. I always had a passion and a talent for [insert artform of choice here], but I spent much time trying to find out what I wanted to "do" with my life and denied my pleasures for a more "responsible" career path at the urging of my parents and teachers. For me, for many years, that was medicine. I became 1st aid and CPR certified by the age of 12 and then became an EMT in high school. I took honors science classes (but definitely not math... forget math.  Math is the worst), but the honors and AP English classes still dominated my schedule. In college I was pre-med, but also took on an English major. Eventually, something clicked at the end of my sophomore year. I was doing perfectly fine in those science-major science classes, but they were HARD. Was this really what I wanted to do for the rest of my life? Struggle to stay above the pack, study 25 hours a day, kill myself to MAYBE be on my own in medicine in 10 years (of course, I wanted to be a surgeon). Not a chance. I dropped my pre-med option like it was hot, tossed away the MCAT books, and "came out" as the closet English major that I really was. No more "I'm an English major... But I'm pre-med too! [insert awkward self conscious excuse here]."  Nope, now I was just an English major. 

This wasn't my true coming out, though, because I choose what I thought was a more practical route - academic English over creative writing (which I now know is probably no less of a risk. At all). No, my true coming out is right here, right now - this moment where I've left my boring-but-safe office job and declared myself "a writer."  I won't hide behind a pay check just because it means I can afford food and a roof! Oh, no. You can't make me! Nope, right now, it's stomach-in-my-throat, leap-off-a-roof in the hopes that I land on something soft, or a time paradox wipes the universe out and I get to start all over again. That's where I am and I couldn't be more excited. 

So, this was where it began, this is where I was when it started, and this is what will be my [modern] American life.