The Botched Birth of a Maddening Thought.

I’ve been using this blog quite poorly, and haven’t been editing every little thing.  One of my favorite writers and researchers uses his blog as a pre-game for seeing if the idea will take, and what people would like or be interested in reading, which helps him in navigating the seas of book-writing.

Forgive that, I was using the blog as a guinea pig, thus you as readers as guinea pigs, and so I wasn’t editing it much.  Sometimes ideas need to get out, and sometimes forcing some sort of social pressure on Self assists that getting-out. Although few humans have made the choice to comment, there does seem to be some interest in what stories I have to share, based upon the frequencies of visits in the last year.

I am a fairly paranoid person, and I think too much.  This has been more of a handicap than an asset to my life purpose, but I now see that is just one perspective, and a rather negative one at that.  I have stories and injustices in my head constantly screaming at me to be acknowledged and shared.  Most of these stories are darker than what is easily conveyed in conversation, and so they have been sitting in my head for a decade or more eating away at my trust of others.  Well, others have helped in the waring down of my trust, but that is not the issue here.  I cannot go on with all the stress of my life and also hold and contain these stories inside my head.  It builds up too much anger, and it isn’t healthy to keep these tales hidden.  The tales are too large for a blog, and I would prefer not to have a ‘serial blog’ unless I have no other choice.  For now, a book will have to do.

This requires considerable encouragement from anyone who considers me or my voice of any value.  It is the first 20 readers who change the course of the writer’s path, which makes your interest very valuable and important to me.  I need encouragement, as for me beginnings have always been difficult.  I was the last kid to remove the training wheels, and I’ve never been blooming with the rest of my peers on the standard path, which makes me second guess myself all too often.  

I prefer to read nonfiction, and fiction hasn’t ever been my favorite thing to read, because most of it isn’t very good.  Lately, I’ve begun to realize that dark psychological murder mystery and conspiracy thrillers will more likely be where my mind will wander each day in weaving tales, and that is a good medium for me to explore in the writing of a novel.  I have an outline for a story centered in my tiny mountain town, Green Mountain Falls.  It will be perverse, it will involve justification, and it will touch base on deeper issues I observe in our culture, namely the abuse of the innocent by persons holding power.  This will be the core of the tale, as I do not wish to waste my life writing unimportant stories that will perhaps bring home bacon but not have any cultural criticism involved.  

I will begin to use this blog as a means of forming and shaping this idea, discussing the writing journey, its obstacles and joys, as well as getting smaller stories out which may not be suitable for a thriller.

That is all.  Thanks for reading, if you are doing so.  I will keep you posted on this idea, and give you snippets of the story so as perhaps you will reveal to me if there is interest in you or in others for such a tale.

Lessons In Losing A Father.

My Dad used to help me write all my papers. It didn’t matter what age I was or what grade I was in, each paper was important in his eyes. Each paper brought my dad the ability to be the teacher he always was; each paper was a lesson for me to become a better writer under his tutelage.

I was always a procrastinator when it came to writing. It never really mattered what it was about, I’d wait until the last day or two to write it. This even happened with a 20 page independent research paper in college. No matter what, I couldn’t get inspiration to write until there was intense pressure. This was difficult when it came to getting help from my dad.

I can’t count the times he would be up with me helping me the night before a paper was due. He’d often type what I had written shorthand for me, and help me with grammatical errors and shortening of my verbose wording. There’d be times I’d be writing, and he’d go to bed and ask me to wake him up when I needed help with the editing - sometimes I’d be waking him up at 2 and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have a panic attack, and he’d help me calm down and write a couple sentences to get me flowing, and I’d flow into my own words with those initial footholds.

In those dark hours before dawn, Dad would sit in our basement in his robe, the coffee-machine percolating upstairs, going over my paper and telling me what I needed to change and what I didn’t need to fix. Sometime’s I’d object to his editing, but he usually had a logical point to the editing, and it helped me see my writing from a different perspective.

When the paper was complete, my dad would often let me go to bed and sleep in, and he’d call me in as sick until the paper was due, or he’d let me come home early sick after turning it in so I could get some sleep. I got to get rest, but he’d get dressed in his dapper suit, put on his Polo cologne after his shower, and head to work. He’d work until 6pm, and then come home on not much more than two or three hours of sleep. He’d go to bed at the regular time, and get up and do it again.

I never really saw all of this as love or sacrifice until he was gone. I never understood how tired he must have been until I hit thirty and realized how vital sleep is the older you get. I always thought he was editing my stuff because it sucked and he was disappointed in me. I’d feel that way until I got the A-grade, and then I realized I wasn’t so bad after all, and that he was just helping me get better.

I haven’t been able to endure a college writing course because of Dad’s help. All other writing-specific teaching has been empty and boring for me; it doesn’t really challenge me like Dad did. Each time I try to take one, I find the holes in the teachers opinions and tend to drift offline. Since Dad died, the classes remind me of him, and I get overly emotional with the grief I’ve never seemed to heal. I’ve dropped out of three lower division writing courses, and intentionally received an F-grade due to an utter lack of drive in completing the one course I stuck through. I tested out on these courses with my SAT/ACT scores, but somehow colleges always find a way to squeeze the students of more bucks when it comes to core requisites.

A big part of why I am writing this blog is because of Dad. He was an exceptional poet and a great writer, and he taught me all I have really held onto in writing. He was into the wordage of what he wrote, and he’d often write with words that I had never heard of. One of Dad’s most cherished possessions was his Oxford English Dictionary. Their station in our house was in the restroom or on the table where my dad would have his coffee. I’d catch him going through it weekly, reading aloud the words to memorize their meanings. He loved the English language.

Several days after he had died, he visited me. I was crying in the bathroom, unable to get out of a bath that had diminished from hot to tepid. I had to be back in college in two days to make my Boulder rent, and I didn’t really have it in me to be a good student then. I felt his soul enter the bathroom, and heard him say, Jenny, don’t make the same mistake I did; do what you love to do, pursue your dreams, and you will be all right. You will make it if you follow your heart. You will be okay. I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I will always be here.

I can’t really explain the logic or science behind that experience, but those words have guided every choice I’ve made since then. I don’t really like institutions or science without conscience, so I stopped studying at CU and didn’t finish my degree. I don’t really enjoy a life without creation, so I started chasing the dreams I wanted to chase, like blacksmithing and drawing and writing. I’ve been living off the inheritance I got from my father’s death, and it wasn’t ever as big as some folks thought, but it was enough to let me find out what I wanted out of this life and try to myself again. Most people don’t know what they want at thirty, but I do. Most people don’t take the time to listen to their heart, but I chose to. I had to because of the hard lesson of death. I had to listen because of my dad’s sacrifice. He died after living a life to fill the needs of others, and he lost himself along the way.

So, what lesson can be gained from reading about the experience of one who has lost a parent? Remember to not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your security or your families security. Remember to grieve when you need to and not to bury it - you deserve the time you give yourself to grieve. Remember that some actions parent’s do seem like disrespect, but they are really done with loving intent, and parents haven’t really been parent’s before. Remember to choose whatever it is that fulfills your higher purposes and aims, because at the end of life, if you don’t, you will regret it with every fiber of your being.

I love you, Dad.