The itch to do something creative has been nagging lately. The need, really, the imperative. As an artist an\or creative individual life gets very dark and restless if creativity isn’t happening. Mood swings double, triple, quadruple. Negativity multiplies. Hopelessness bleeds into dire pessimism and nothing in life seems much worth doing. Regret takes hold and choices\decisions that had heretofore been cherished, accepted or even revered, become suspect, sordid, folly, and mistakes.
I stopped blogging months and months ago. It feels like a lifetime ago.

One of the experiences I had most wanted to catalogue went largely undocumented and I regret that somewhat. I did keep a hand-written journal to keep from imploding, to help me vent or bitch or whine to some venue without forever turning my best friends and husband away from me permanently! But I recognized even then that I was sounding like a miserable broken record and had the good instinct to keep all the crazy bullshit out of the blogosphere.

Maybe I’ll look back through all those notes and publish some gems. Probably not though.

Anyway, student teaching kicked my ass. And my spirit, and my passion. As I predicted before I began I ended up liking and doing very well in the classroom- I’m a fairly competent teacher- but the surrounding ridiculousness has soured my taste for ever working in a school setting ever again. Which is more than unfortunate because I now hold a graduate degree in said field and will soon be certified for such a career and will have to suck it up and get over myself and go teach.
Fun attitude to have while entering the job search eh?

Anyhow, I stopped blogging because I realized it had become one big bitch session and I didn’t like that. I started blogging to find my voice and whining is not a voice I want to define me!

My resolution now is to continue the quest to find my voice, refine my perspective, express myself, and get the creative writing going. It is enormously terrifying.
I’ll be honest and admit this: I am lost. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing anymore. I know what I’m qualified to do (on paper), what I need to do, and what I should do. I also know that all of those truths make me physically sick to my stomach and the idea of living that life is soul-crushing.

So I need to figure a lot of things out and I don’t have the luxury of wasting time anymore.

This is one step I’m taking to try to work through what’s going on in my life—instead of running away from all the complicated stuff I’m going to start picking through it, sorting it out and holding it up to the light of day.
Sometimes the blog will be personal, other times I give myself license to use it as a writing tool- do little writing exercises like I did in college only this time I will actually be the author and not have my talented husband ghost write them for me so I can pass a class.

My writing will never be as compelling as Aaron’s, but I do think I have something to add to the world and it is my endeavor to discover what it is and deliver.
I promise a lot of it will be unreadable. Painful. Embarrassing. But I am pledging not to delete or edit any of it. No matter how dismal and amateur. Every book on becoming a writer tells you to “just Write” and not focus on perfect or even good. Just effing write already!

So that’s the plan. I can promise it will not be incomparable. In fact it will probably compare unfavorably to many hackneyed writers and student works. But it will be better than nothing. Better than a collection of sighs and shrugs and “maybe someday”s.

And who knows? Maybe there will occasionally be a gem or two amidst the shit.

Aaron revealed to me last night that before the Zombie job came along he had started a blog as a writing exercise. It was a secret blog meant to catalyze him into writing. It is great so far and I sincerely hope he gets back into the habit. What I love about it is that he makes no promises to tell the truth- that he intends on using it as an exercise in writing so fact and fiction will blend and mix and be largely irrelevant.

Mine won’t be quite like that, and because my writing is of such a different style than his I think it’ll be clear when I’m ‘journaling’ and when I’m doing creative writing, but I’ll label them just in case. HOWEVER, I’m kind of hoping that since it has been so long since I blogged that this little corner of the internet will remain unvisited for a while… And perhaps I’ll keep some off-line writing going too?

Today I have to get a resume and cover letter (I almost typed headshot) together for a position teaching English at a high school. I am qualified for this position. I feel like a fraud applying, however, and wonder what the hell I’d do if I got the job. But I am very much qualified for the position.