Fictional Tendencies

Sometimes there’s no right way to start something. Sometimes, there’s no wrong way. Most times starting something is difficult. Rarely, is it easy. You can force out your creative juices, shake off the dust, and hope that what starts out as horrible or sub-par turns into something adequate. But, if we’re honest with ourselves, a majority of the time we’re waiting.

But what is it that we’re waiting for?

Time? Space? Money? Support? Acceptance? Permission? Energy? Inspiration? Whatever it is that we’re waiting for, I can bet that the answer we give ourselves is an excuse. It’s an excuse that I’m guilty of giving.

I have five writing projects in my head right now and you know what I’m doing with them…nothing, they’re in my head accumulating additional idea and thoughts and random tangents. I’m waiting for time and inspiration, which is a fanciful lie that I tell myself because I don’t want to face failure or rejection. I’m afraid and I’m using that fear as an excuse.

I have the means to start and complete these five projects, so I should. I’m not waiting on anything or anyone but myself. If anything, these projects are waiting on me.  For the sake of publicly holding myself accountable, these are the projects I have acquiring space in my brain:

• A post on January progress with books read
• A post on February progress with books read
• A post on the Akata Witch and Akata Warrior books
• Continuing to work on Chayse and the world of Remedium
• A writing exercise that I may or may not post (I’ve started this project, I need to finish it)

Waiting can be good, sometimes. It’s not all bad. Sometimes waiting allows for clarification and acknowledgement that the idea, story, project or whatever you’re working on is worth the effort. Granted, there are circumstances or life events that are beyond our control that require us to wait, and that’s okay.

With this post I’m reminding myself to grab hold, take charge, and not wait for something to happen when I’m more than capable of making it happen. With that thought in mind, I’m pulled back to my first post here, Fictional Tendencies: The Beginning, specifically the quote from the book A Perfect Union of Contrary Things that reads as follows:

“If you have the means, the knowledge to create something and you don’t, shame on you. If you’re able to be good at your job, to raise a child, to plant a garden, whatever, it’s your responsibility to do it – not only for yourself but for the world.”

Take action. Stop waiting. Your journey starts with a step, where are you headed?

Life is filled with adventures and journeys and many a wondrous and complex events, feelings, emotions, thoughts and surprises. It’s no wonder that we humans get overwhelmed with our lives, even though we are mostly responsible for what we fill our lives with. While out on one such adventure I spent a good portion of my time taking pictures; most of them are for my eyes and my families eyes only, after all, they’re our cherished memories. There are some pictures that I was particularly proud of, while others I didn’t think anything, one way good or bad, about them. They are pictures and they captured what I saw. But here comes life, in the form of a close friend, to hit me with a surprise.

The following images I shared with my friend Carl over at Photographic Central and his was response was, “Nice pictures.” Nothing more. Nothing less. And honestly I was a little taken aback. I was expecting a different response. No, I’m not sure what type of response I was expecting but I was hoping it was more than “Nice pictures.”

Now that’s not to say that “Nice pictures.” isn’t  a decent compliment, because it is. It is my fault in expecting, or hoping, that he would see what I see. Maybe he does or did. Maybe he didn’t. I shared some pictures I was proud of and that’s what matters. Whatever you decide to share be proud of it. Don’t expect anyone else to see what you see. Differing opinions are okay. In fact, they are more than okay, they’re great. Ultimately I believe differing opinions have the opportunity to promote and create growth; both personally and artistically.

Carl and I tend to push each other…a lot. We motivate and inspire each other. Sometimes we know whether or not one of us has inspired the other. Most of the time not. We’re men that want to be better men. We strive to be better, to be the best. Do we fail, yes. Do we keep “driving, and striving”? You’re damn right. We have a silent agreement of sorts. A pact.

I sent Carl a link to this blog to let him know, “Hey, not that you need me to tell you this because I’m sure you already know, but I’m still working on my goals and making decent headway.” I sent him a link to my HERE…WE…GO… blog post. If you clicked on the link you’ll see the featured image, a black and white shot of the open ocean.

My intent was to only share my progress on my goals, nothing more. I wasn’t expecting his response to the image; “Awesome. Love that image too. Really love it.” His response made me do a double take on the image. I threw that in there, the image, because I thought it was a “Nice picture.” Nothing more. Nothing less. But Carl really loves it. Why? I went back and looked over the image and kept asking myself, what does he see that I don’t? And here we are, a day later, and many minutes (possibly hours) spent going over the image that Carl “really loves” and I’m still thinking “What am I missing?”.

The answer is nothing. I’m not missing anything. Pictures. Art. Stories. Images. Everything operates on its own level, its own wave length. What works for me might not work for you. What you find awesome I might find below average. And guess what, that’s okay.

So wherever you are on your journey, whatever stage you’re at with your novel, your canvass, your photography, your art, your creation, wherever you are…that’s where you need to be. It’s okay to be a work in progress, we all are. It’s okay for a friend or family member to not see what you see. Keep creating. Keep moving forward. Allow yourself to be open to the possibility of differing opinions. Embrace life’s little – and big – surprises.

Expect the unexpected.

Your journey starts with a step, where are you headed?

Recently returned from an eight-day adventure/family vacation/journey I’ve come to appreciate my life a little more. My family and I went on a four-day, which really means four nights and the fifth day you return to the original port of departure, Disney Cruise with some great friends and their family. We went to the Bahamas. My main focus of thought with this blog post is appreciation. Appreciation in general. And appreciation for everyone’s story, whatever that may be.

While on the cruise one of our ports of call was the port of Nassau. We took a tour around the island and soaked up its rich and violent history. We heard stories about its corrupt government. Its horrible social and economic status. But, of course, we also soaked up its beautiful people.

Towards the end of the tour we were taken to a beach. While there an older local woman approached us. She was “hustling” her trade, braiding and beading hair. We declined for the moment as we were trying to get settled. As our time on the beach passed my friend’s daughter asked to get her hair braided, which of course triggered my daughter to request the same.

Now, I don’t quite remember where I heard it, so I’ll paraphrase here but I remember hearing or reading something about how everyone has their own story and whatever it is, it is an important one. Maybe I read it from a Neil Gaiman Tweet. Or maybe I read it in an introduction of one of Neil Gaiman’s book. Or was it John Crowley’s? Either way, I remember reading or hearing the about the importance of stories.

When it was my daughter’s turn to have her hair braided and beaded I asked the woman if I could take some pictures of her. Forgive me, but I forgot to ask her what her name was so for the sake of this post I’ll refer to her as Bahama Mama, because she was in fact one.

Bahama Mama tells me that it’s okay for me to take pictures. I thank her. My daughter is complaining about how much her braids hurt. I laugh and tell her, “I told you so.” And Bahama Mama says, “Hush child.”

Keep in mind, we could have her hair braided on the Disney ship but why give them more money when you can give directly to the community itself?

Bahama Mama is talking about how she’s out walking the beaches everyday hustling. Island life isn’t all you would think it is. She’s getting older, she’s 55. She’s anemic, she needs new blood. Her daughter is lazy and doesn’t work. She, Bahama Mama, has to take care of her 5 grandchildren. She can’t do this forever. She’s tired. Her hands hurt, braiding and beading hair for hours on end is hard work.

I sit there in the white sand listening. I ask questions, so does my daughter. Bahama Mama shares what she knows. She shares her story. I thank her.

This is Bahama Mama.

Your journey starts with a step, where are you headed?

Well, here we are two days into the new year and I’ve already came out swinging. I attacked one of my scary goals from my GOALS FOR 2019 article. Well, I tackled half of one of my goals, the goal to Submit at least 2 Short Stories to Magazine of books of Collections of.

Yesterday I noticed on Fiction Writing, a Writer’s Group on Facebook, a new post about the next “Of Words” volume. If you’re interested you can go click on the following link, Fiction Writing and joint the group. You’ll have to answer a few questions. Once you’re in, go to the “Announcements” section and scroll through the requirements.

If you already have a story, 1,000 words or less, ready and the story revolves around “Games” than by all means head on over to Scout Media and fill out the Submission Form.

I might be getting a little ahead of myself, I haven’t submitted the story yet. But I did write it, tonight. While at lunch I cranked out around 500 words of the story and emailed home to myself. When I got home I finished the story at 999 words. Currently, the story is being, or will be, read, reviewed, edited and suggestions will be offered. When I officially submit the story I will post about it here with the Title of the story and any additional thoughts of feelings I have on the process.

Thanks for reading.

Your journey starts with a step, where are you headed?

Here it is, the first day of the new year. So many questions to ask ourselves. What to do? Where to go? Who do you want to be? What do you want to create? Where have you been? I know where I’ve been and I would like to think that I know where I’m going, but I’m also aware that life usually has other plans. Looking back on 2018 I can say I’ve accomplished most of the goals I set for myself. Could I do more? Sure I could. We could always do more.

Let’s look back, a little more in depth, into 2018, the goals I set for myself and my thoughts on those goals:

1. Write more: I certainly did. I would say that the months of October and November were particularly filled with plenty of writing.
2. Read more: Yes, I read a lot of book in 2018. My guess is I read somewhere north of 16 books. I arrived at that number because I have a “Books that have been Read” stack. Unfortunately not every book that I read last year made it into the stack, they’re in other stacks.
3. Submit short stories for publishing: I can proudly say that I submitted one story. It wasn’t published but that was a big first step.
4. Continue to develop my story for my novel: Yes, I’ve slowly added to what I already had going into 2018.
5. Continue to develop my story The Garden: I started this story sometime last year and that’s where I left it, where I started. I still have my notes on it so maybe this could be a goal for 2019.
6. Blog on a “surprise” adventure that I hope will inspire and drive my writing forward: This one didn’t pan out. I was waiting for a gift to arrive but it didn’t work out that way. That’s okay, maybe one day.

Five out of six goals accomplished isn’t perfect, but it’s something to be proud of. Life has its own plans so you might as well set goals that can be accomplished and set yourself up for success. But don’t be too easy, make sure to challenge yourself. Looking ahead with 2019 I plan to do just that, challenge myself. And I’m scared. And that is a natural response but I also think it’s a vital component to growth, both personally and as a writer.

Without further ado, my goals for 2019 are as follows:

1. To Create. Whatever, Whenever. Wherever. (No that is not a reference to a Shakira song)
2. To Write more.
3. To Read more.

The above three goals will be my short-term goals. They’re easily attainable and they are goals that I can always fall back to for support or a boost of confidence or inspiration. These are goals that I can constantly work on regardless of what life is throwing my way at any given moment.

The goals that I have set for myself that are scary goals, they are a challenge or will be challenging are the following:

1. Work more on my Work In Progress (WIP) story. 
2. Enter a competition. I hesitant because I need to look into this venue further but the idea of this type of competition intrigues me. Plus, it’s a minimal monetary risk to take. The Short Story Challenge
3. Submit at least 2 Short Stories to Magazines or books that are Collections of.
4. A surprise blog post. This will be dependent on a few things but I’m sure it will happen. Stay tuned.

If I’m working on the first set of goals, this set of goals shouldn’t be an issue. Not really. Here’s to stepping outside of my comfort zone and living a little.

The next set of goals are on the creative side, yes, writing is creative but the following goals involve creativity outside of writing…well, for the most part.

1. Build a bookcase.
2. Photography.
3. Draw or Sketch.
4. Excercise, Mountain Bike and Hike. This might not sound creative but I believe stepping away from whatever you’re working on and doing something different, getting outside, getting the blood flowing, helps the creative juices.

I think that about covers it. What are your goals for the coming year? Whatever they are, remember it’s okay to fail. Keep trying. Nothing is ever perfect. Do the best you can. Practice makes perfect. Be happy. Be helpful. Be love. Be.

Thank you for reading.

Your journey starts with a step, where are you headed?

Nebula Embrace

After a storm,
Sometimes,
I want to be held
Like the clouds hold the mountains.