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Humble beginnings.
Is that not where most people say the best stories start? With the girl (or boy) coming from the family with nothing except the love they hold for each other in their hearts. The girl (or boy) goes headfirst into whatever is required of them, because they know it is the right thing to do. They know that they have a chance to make something of themselves, to give themselves a name, to show the world that they are not just the same as the cookie-cutter people around them.
I am that girl.
My family is traditionally Baptist. Every member of my immediate family is a Christian, although the eldest has strayed a bit. My mother and my father taught us to love and trust in both ourselves and in God, and my sister has taught me so much about life. My family has not always had the most money in the world, and in fact there were some years when I wasn't sure we would even have a Christmas. Just a year ago, we had to struggle just to have one real meal in a day, not counting school meals.
Regardless, my family has always urged us to pursue our dreams.
A framed photograph of my father's has the following inscription on it:
"A dream fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12
Whenever I look at the photograph, I remember every ache, every itch, in my body that is telling me to write, to get my words down on paper. I remember the way I was inspired to write my very first story that I never finished, and the way I got so angry with my brother when he "accidentally" wrote over it with something else. When I was 9, I wrote my first Harry Potter fanfiction, and it is so horrible that it makes me cringe to think about, and yet I love that little story because without it, I would not be the writer I am today -- not even halfway close.
I remember the joy I feel whenever my fingers fly across the keys and I feel words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and stories coming together. I remember sitting with my dad in restaurants and brainstorming, and then sitting in a coffee shop with my best friend, figuring out the nuts and bolts of a novel that I believe has bestseller potential. I see myself as an author, of holding that one book in my hand, and feeling that heady rush --
-- and then I am reminded of how far away I am.
Except I know that it does not matter how far away I am.
All that matters is that I keep trying. All that matters is that I don't give up on NaNoWriMo this year, because the feeling is unlike anything else in the world. It is an uphill battle, trying to keep myself going, and sometimes it feels like I am going up and succeeding in my dreams when I am really going uphill the wrong way. I end up trying to make my writing perfect, which is impossible on a first draft. That's something I have to realize.
And I do.
Writing piles of crap is sometimes the only way to go about things, just as trudging up a steep mountain to get to the top is the only way you can see where you really are. And if you go about it with nothing but the fluff inside your brain and your birthday suit, then I'm willing to make a fool of myself. There is nothing more humbling than realizing that you can't go about anything, let alone writing, with extra baggage weighing you down and making you try to be perfect so that you do not mess up again.
Being overly cautious is often unhelpful. Just like you can't go up a mountain with a hundred pounds of gear, you can't go into your writing with a ton of baggage and no place to put it. Sometimes you just need to put everything away and let yourself go. Sometimes you need to remember your own humble beginnings, remember where you came from, and know that sometimes it is better to just be free to run up that mountain.
So why not run up the mountain stark naked, screaming with pure joy?
--
This entry was written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
therealljidol. Hopefully you will vote to keep me in. I had a lot of trouble with this entry, but I'm fairly happy with what I came up with. Hopefully it's enough to pull me through. :)
Is that not where most people say the best stories start? With the girl (or boy) coming from the family with nothing except the love they hold for each other in their hearts. The girl (or boy) goes headfirst into whatever is required of them, because they know it is the right thing to do. They know that they have a chance to make something of themselves, to give themselves a name, to show the world that they are not just the same as the cookie-cutter people around them.
I am that girl.
My family is traditionally Baptist. Every member of my immediate family is a Christian, although the eldest has strayed a bit. My mother and my father taught us to love and trust in both ourselves and in God, and my sister has taught me so much about life. My family has not always had the most money in the world, and in fact there were some years when I wasn't sure we would even have a Christmas. Just a year ago, we had to struggle just to have one real meal in a day, not counting school meals.
Regardless, my family has always urged us to pursue our dreams.
A framed photograph of my father's has the following inscription on it:
"A dream fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12
Whenever I look at the photograph, I remember every ache, every itch, in my body that is telling me to write, to get my words down on paper. I remember the way I was inspired to write my very first story that I never finished, and the way I got so angry with my brother when he "accidentally" wrote over it with something else. When I was 9, I wrote my first Harry Potter fanfiction, and it is so horrible that it makes me cringe to think about, and yet I love that little story because without it, I would not be the writer I am today -- not even halfway close.
I remember the joy I feel whenever my fingers fly across the keys and I feel words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and stories coming together. I remember sitting with my dad in restaurants and brainstorming, and then sitting in a coffee shop with my best friend, figuring out the nuts and bolts of a novel that I believe has bestseller potential. I see myself as an author, of holding that one book in my hand, and feeling that heady rush --
-- and then I am reminded of how far away I am.
Except I know that it does not matter how far away I am.
All that matters is that I keep trying. All that matters is that I don't give up on NaNoWriMo this year, because the feeling is unlike anything else in the world. It is an uphill battle, trying to keep myself going, and sometimes it feels like I am going up and succeeding in my dreams when I am really going uphill the wrong way. I end up trying to make my writing perfect, which is impossible on a first draft. That's something I have to realize.
And I do.
Writing piles of crap is sometimes the only way to go about things, just as trudging up a steep mountain to get to the top is the only way you can see where you really are. And if you go about it with nothing but the fluff inside your brain and your birthday suit, then I'm willing to make a fool of myself. There is nothing more humbling than realizing that you can't go about anything, let alone writing, with extra baggage weighing you down and making you try to be perfect so that you do not mess up again.
Being overly cautious is often unhelpful. Just like you can't go up a mountain with a hundred pounds of gear, you can't go into your writing with a ton of baggage and no place to put it. Sometimes you just need to put everything away and let yourself go. Sometimes you need to remember your own humble beginnings, remember where you came from, and know that sometimes it is better to just be free to run up that mountain.
So why not run up the mountain stark naked, screaming with pure joy?
--
This entry was written for
therealljidol. Hopefully you will vote to keep me in. I had a lot of trouble with this entry, but I'm fairly happy with what I came up with. Hopefully it's enough to pull me through. :)
