Telling Myself to get "Unstuck"

I've been feeling utterly lost creatively lately. I feel as though I have no ideas and the ones that I do have are absolute rubbish, for lack of a better word. This probably lacks more in my insecurity as a writer, me blocking myself from any flow of thought, but regardless, it's been a couple weeks now and I'm getting worried.

Of course, I turned to google in this dark moment (yeah, I can still have a sense of humor about it!) and after reading about where some writers I respect get their inspiration, and what drives them to write, I came up with my own list. So, here it is.


HOW TO UNSTICK YOURSELF

1. Remember the "why". Remember this is how you can live another life, the life of someone else who is still absolutely you.

2. The blank page is to be cherished, for sure, but not too much that you should leave it blank forever. Get something down, damnit!

3. Start from the middle. Write the ending. Beginnings are often raw and spiky and you're probably not ready to touch them yet.

4. Think about your inspirations, but only conceptually. Write like yourself always.

5. Be curious about your own work, and never lose that curiosity. You don't have to know everything about a project when you start.

6. Please be all alone. It's better for this, most of the time.

7. You don't need to reach literary perfection every time you write.

8. Make little assignments and projects for yourself. Dumb ones, weird ones, it doesn't have to be serious all the time.

9. The only way you're gonna fail is if you don't write. Just kidding, that's not even failure, you always could still write. Just write, okay?

10. YOU ARE NOT A BAD WRITER. YOU ARE A VERY VERY GOOD WRITER. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THAT SHIT.


Voila, the list. Currently hanging above my desk. Now pray for me please n' thank ya!

summer of '14

I know it's hard to make such sweeping statements about events so soon after they have occurred. I know that often perspective is absolutely necessary. However, I also know that the rawness of experiences and the emotions that come with them is valuable, and that time can dull them, or even erase them completely. 

I guess it's for this reason that I didn't hesitate to reflect on this summer. I've had one of the most valuable experiences of my life so far where I met people I could really, truly connect with, something that is rare for me and always a source of worry. I gained trust with some people, and began to distrust others, but ultimately learned that it's important to remember that people close to you always want to help. I am not a burden, and neither are you. 

Long days I spent in the sun, with the Earth, and realized that regardless of where exactly I belong, as cliche as it sounds, I will always feel the belonging I crave in nature, even though I forget this more often than I should. The more tanned I got, I liked to imagine myself as a transparent meter that fills up with liquid light, resting, charging myself for things that are to come. Preparing for when I need to pull from that light to help myself when I can't find light on the outside. 


Perhaps most importantly I relearned what it's like to be careless, even if it was only for a second. I kicked a bees nest and dashed away screaming, I went to bonfires on the beach, I rode a bike home under the stars so late that it was the early morning, and though I still feel lonely often, and probably always will, I've realized that these types of moments are good for my soul, and make me feel more connected and alive than anything. 

Summer isn't my favorite season, in fact I hate heat and dryness, but I can safely say that it is a time of rejuvenation, and I take and recognize that as something important, always. 

la ferme

After a long and arduous Junior year, the summer is finally upon us and I can actually breathe for the first time since September. Of course, college applications are still to come, but in the mean time, I have (kind of) a two month long rest stop to re-charge and do things I actually want to do and/or care about. Among those things is this blog, but I've also secured an internship at a beautiful organic farm where I'll be working with all things plant related. I know, this is a shocker, especially to myself as I'm a complete city person, but there is something about the rhythmic work that is planting or weeding or harvesting that is incredibly calming, not to mention the physical, tangible ability to see the progress you've made. You put a seed in the ground, it grows. You shovel a pile of dirt, it's gone. It's just so wholly satisfying and zen-like. 

Okay, transitioning awkwardly into a topic unrelated to farming, I'm hoping this summer will be a summer of reflection and contemplation. Maybe introspection is the word that would cover all those bases? Regardless, though I know that I've jumped the cliff that marks the end of childhood, I'm still in the falling phase, not yet standing on the stable ground that is true adulthood, though I see it and am plummeting faster and closer each day, to use Nirrimi's beautiful metaphor. This weird chaotic place I'm in, that isn't even really a place at all, has left me reeling to be honest, and left this blog reeling a bit too. 

For now, I'll leave you, but I'm finishing up editing some short writing pieces and photographs that should be up soon. 

|||

I

(I'm going to start sharing my poetry/creative writing on here because I've finally worked up the courage. I hope you like it. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, please, please, don't copy or plagiarize or anything like that. It's just not cool. Please. All comments and feedback are welcome.)




(Untitled I)

While we were down here

Carving that…clay bank with

Digitized knives

While the piled land stems out

From its own heavenly.

And ubiquitous as small tap stones

In breathing statutory moonlight

I climbed the rope—the unfrayed one

To the top of six

Billowing white sails.

If I rear my mind, will you?

The land doesn’t roll out—

It starts its figuring.

And metallic, it twitches

Hot whips of light, through a barred window

Twenty sleeps and forty lids

Still the wracking morning. 

Blue is the Warmest Color

Last night, I made a massive pot of ginger tea (totally unpretentious), created the biggest and baddest of blanket forts (four blankets, four pillows, one girl), and settled in with Netflix, specifically, Blue is the Warmest Color, a French film starring Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos. Sure, said friend had told me it would be intense, but that didn't stop me from watching it alone on a Saturday night. Lo and behold, three hours later, yes, it's three hours long, I was sitting upright in my dark room, paralyzed and lonely and afraid of losing everyone/everthing that I love. 

I know that sounds super overdramatic, but anyone who knows me at all, knows that there is only one thing that can make me cry or feel intense emotion during a movie, and that thing is watching people feel or be lonely. In the film, and I won't give anything away, but as with anything profiling the details and ultimate evolution of a relationship, loneliness exists. This is a fact that I actually kinda learned on my own this year, but that this film solidified. Sure, there's physical loneliness which can obviously be helped by being with another person, but real loneliness is something that people carry in the deepest part of themselves, that to an extent will always be there. A thing that proximity to another human can't really do anything about.  

As far as the film goes, of course it also contains the brightest parts of being a human being in a relationship, but what I'm trying to get at is that it doesn't hesitate to crush that and show how unsubstantial it can all be as well. What I took away from it was the sentiment that often we try desperately to fill ourselves with other people, when in the end that just creates larger spaces. I often struggle with trying to say exactly what I mean, but for once, I think I summed it up pretty clearly. I wasn't really planning on making this a "review", I just wanted to share what this movie made me think about, but it is worth mentioning that it's also a beautiful (albeit very graphic) film, and completely worth your time. 

Also, learning new French curse words is always fun. 

Writing about Writing (part 1, I think)

me being moody "af" feat webcam

I know it's been awhile, but as usual, I continue to struggle with how much I'm willing to share on here, and what it is that I want to write about at all. There's something so impersonal and disconnected about shooting my words out into the depths of the internet, things that feel and seem important but are quickly relegated to just a few words among the billions that exist out there. However profound they may be, there are probably others that are more profound. Like yelling the meaning of life at a distant galaxy, where in-between those two points there are an infinite amount of other, equally valid meanings.

Anyways, as I start to emerge from the cold dungeon that is Junior year of high school and can think actively about more than the ACT's and precalculus, about a thousand other projects and ideas have started to come into play, some involving this blog, some not. As usual, I'm worried that if I begin to share poems I write or excerpts from the short story I'm in the process of writing, it'll get stolen and uncredited. Also, baring your original thoughts and idea (and soul) to whatever lurks in the bowels of the internet is pretty fucking terrifying. So, yeah.

Regardless, figuring out what to talk about on here is hard. Sometimes I feel that everything I say is contrived and shallow and lacks any and all depth. My refusal to just write stems from my own monstrous case of self-doubt and I am aware of that. Doubt that readers will think all the things I worry are true about myself, that I'm shallow, and contrived, and boring, and maybe even ego-centric though I devote so much time trying not to be. But this is the plight of the writer, isn't it? If you're writing true, you'll inherently end up creating a reflection of yourself in your writing, a reflection that shows the good and the bad, which equates to, you know, being human.

This year has been the year where I've embraced my desire, no, need to write. I've learned a lot of useless shit about writing (using curses tastefully is a stylistic choice, not a sign of weak vocabulary. try not to use exclamation points too often. vary your sentence structure. blah blah) but I've also learned some things, or rather, a thing, that has changed the way I think about writing and myself as a whole. For the longest time I think I was trying to hide from myself in my own writing. I wasn't producing anything good, it all seemed fake and forced, think playing hide and seek in a mirror-walled room, and to tell you the truth it was wholly unsatisfying. Accepting the sentiment that I as an individual will be present in my work is hard. Shrouding myself in words isn't genuine and doesn't ever create genuine writing. I know now that if I want to create, really create, it has to come from a place deep within my mind, and must be able to expand freely with no reservations.

the overalls

These overalls are the best. They have a stain which you can’t see because I folded the cuff over it, but it looks like dried blood. However, it isn’t dried blood. It’s raspberry gelato. My friend and I had just gotten cones with “une boule de glace” on them and decided to have a race up the huge steps to Sacre Coeur. It was night and warm and windy and smelled like a mixture of the dust that filters through the air in Paris during the summer months and burning sugar. We flew up the stairs with the gelato dripping the whole way up. When we got to the top we just stood there laughing at the red stains on the front of my overalls. My entire cone had practically emptied onto them. We sat down on a bench overlooking the entire city as one does at Montmartre and shared her cone. Though I have mixed feelings about Paris, I sometimes long so much for the moments that I had while I was there.