Hey Humans,
Exhausted here. Long family day and tons of fun. Realized only a few hours ago that I hadn't blogged yet today and, with regard to the fact that in my very last post I said I was going to try to write every Monday and Friday, well here I am!
My fingers hurt! We spent the majority of the day at the local shooting range. That, plus almost an hour on the ukulele the day before... and ouch. Calluses. Just love 'em.
So, I'm on the couch out here in my living room... and I feel like falling asleep, but I won't, because I promised...
So! I recently started Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace and I'm adoring it. Yeah, it's a little tough to get through because its a challenging read, but it's just amazing. His descriptions are so exact and beautiful... omgosh it's like living in the story. I'm so excited about reading it!
I often aspire to read more than I do. I don't read as much as I think I read. I read a lot, don't get me wrong, but I can always read more. I don't think I will ever read enough and be done with books. I don't even know if that's possible. *note: it's not.
The same goes for writing. It's hard for me to believe I only started writing like 3 years ago. Obviously I've been reading and writing forever, because um, how could I survive not doing those things? Albeit true that it is hard to write sometimes, and can be hard to find good books to read, but I still do it and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
(The term foreseeable future doesn't make any sense to me... It's like "Hang on... the foreseeable future is nothing... we can't see even one second into the future..." It would make more sense if we said something like "The Percievable Future"... but we don't say that... lol. Whatever. XD)
I am writing my second book.
Yup. That’s super weird for me to say. It's very surreal that I've actually written one book, which is being published, and now I'm writing the second?! AHH! And I have a blog. And a twitter page and followers… and, and, and! It's all weird!
AND it is also very fun. I'm enjoying it immensely. I've never been able to write things publicly! The idea of that is way scarier than actually doing it. I am terrified of reading my own work aloud. TERRIFIED. Also of letting other people read it (especially before it's finished--omgosh). I have to physically leave the room while people read what I've written. Even if it's my best friends.
So, imagine the idea of publishing a book… yeah-- it was scary. But it feels okay now! It's weird how the idea of doing something is often scarier than actually doing it. I remember a number of years ago my family and I visited a swimming hole behind the One Mile in Chico (super cool place, Hi Grandma S.!!) where a tree had fallen over the water. It was a HUGE tree and strong for being so old. It arched about 8 feet over the deepest part of the water.
It had been there so long that people had nailed little chunks of wood to it and made steps which allowed people to climb to the very top…from whence one could jump!
It was a beautiful day and we were going swimming. I climbed up and down that tree more times than I can remember. I was too afraid to jump off. Finally, I made it to the top--again, but this time I just sat there. I told myself I was not going to climb back down. This time I would jump. This time...
I don't remember how many times I said that to myself before, you guessed it…I climbed back down. BUT then the real "this time" actually came. And...I jumped.
The feeling was awesome. I had never fallen so far into water, but it was amazing. And then I swam up, climbed up the tree again and jumped over and over and over because--it was so fun!
Life is kinda like that. You can climb up and down as much as you want, but eventually you have to jump in. You have to trust that you'll land where you're supposed to. Yeah, it's totally possible you'll hurt yourself and never want to do it ever ever ever again, but there is also a huge chance that you won’t. Climb up as many times as you want to but one day you’ll make the decision to not go back down. To take the step into the unknown. To succeed. And it will be awesome.
So just jump off the tree. What's the worst that can happen? ;)
-Helen
P.S. RANT
Sigh. If you're a writer, you can relate to this, if you're not, you've probably heard this a million times:
THE CHARACTERS HAVE MINDS OF THEIR OWN.
It's true!! I have proof!! One time I was writing a story and these two characters were starting to like each other. I WAS SO MAD. I did NOT WANT another relationship in my story and these two kept messing me up! I got so annoyed in fact, that I actually got rid of the female character. It’s ok, she was new.
That was the most extreme case I have ever had, but it was SO FRUSTRATING! I was like writing away... just typing out this scene, but inwardly yelling at the characters "Is this... are you.... WHAT? Are you two flirting?!?! No! Stop it! Stop looking at each other like that!”
It was his fault too!! She was oblivious. XD
Conclude Rant.
Let me know if you agree and if you have a similar story, I'd love to hear it! :)
