Editing Madness

I've been back home for a while now, but between work and late night writing/editing I haven't gotten to updating my blog. 
But I thought tonight would be the perfect time.

Tomorrow is a big day because tomorrow is the day I intend to finish editing part one of my book.

The editing process has been slow and at times downright idle. But one thing has kept me going through all this; through all the inconveniences and the frustrations; through all the times when I felt like life was against me and it just didn't work. 

I come home at the end of the day and I wish I could just crash. I wish I could go to bed, or read a book, or waste away in front of the T.V. 

It's so much easier to feel sorry for myself and make excuses. But then I realized something: This is my purpose. It doesn't matter if it's inconvenient or hard. It doesn't matter if I have to stay up late night after night or write and rewrite scenes till I go mad. It doesn't matter, because in the end, all this, all the late nights and the long days, are just a means to an end. 

Because this, all that I'm working for, this is gonna be so worth it!

Anyhow, it's getting late, and I have a big day in front of me.
Goodnight. 

A Series of Choices

Although I haven't posted in a while, I have opened my blog quite often lately. I have started writing post after post and not finished any of them. This is not because they were something that should not be shared but simply because I did not know how to share them.
I will finish this one. Not because I know how, but because it's been too long.

When you run from one place to another, completing task upon task, life gets away from you all too quickly. I have been very busy lately. And although I often drift away during class and reminisce about stories, the ones I will write and the one I am currently living, most of the time I am too distracted and overworked to ponder any such things.
I wanted to take a moment to sit down and ponder again; a moment in which I do not let life distract me and I can forget about the things I have to do this week.
 Life is, after all, a series of tasks, of struggles and storms; of little fights that become bigger fights all of which are a part of the bigger battle. 
I have been so wrapped up in the little tasks that I often forget the big task. And, when I lose sight of the big task, the big battle, and what I am fighting for, this abundance of little fights, this repetive series of tasks, it drains the life out of me.  

I sit in class and I lose myself sometimes. I write the names of characters in between my notes and I wander through the landscapes I have built in my imagination. I read my textbooks and sometimes it makes me sad because I would so much rather be writing my stories. I would so much rather be writing, because it's been so long and my characters are waiting.
 
I made a choice to pursue my love for stories. I chose this path a long time ago, but that does not mean that I am no longer choosing it now. I choose this path every day. I choose it when I get out of bed in the morning and when I study late into the night. I choose it when I go to classes and when I go to work. I choose it again and again. I make this choice every day when I choose to work and to fight instead of taking the easy ride.
I did not just choose this when I first turned down the bend in the road, I am choosing it with every step I take. 
Every day is a choice. 
I make this choice today, and I will make this choice tomorrow, and I will choose it every day after that. 

And the names of my characters, the worlds I have built inside my head, the stories I love and the feelings I've savoured, the ones that only stories can give me, they are all there to remind me why I am here. 

Heinrich Nikel Photography

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

~ Gandalf  

My Safe and Organized Chaos

My Christmas break didn't feel like a break. 
It felt more like an interlude, an in-between before the journey continues. 
I feel frustrated and overwhelmed, yet still eager. 
I feel frustrated because being grown up sucks. I didn't do nearly as much as I hoped to over this short break. My responsibilities have a way of calling me away from the things I intend to do. 
I feel overwhelmed because there is so much that seems to be in the balance in my life right now. There is so much that seems poised on the edge of certain chaos, one draft might make it fall. I feel almost helpless; like one walking a tightrope, steps wavering, balance unsettling. 
I was sorting through my things today. I have been meaning to do this all week but I kept getting called away by other responsibilities. Having to pack up my bedroom makes this journey frightfully real. It reminds me that time is running out and I am really leaving.
Those who know me know that, to the untrained eye, my bedroom looks a like clustered and chaotic mess. I'm not claiming that this is not true, yes my bedroom is clustered, but this is an organized sort of chaos. There are books and notebooks stacked on every surface. There are sketches and scribbles of maps on the walls. There are canvases in the corner and trinkets scattered about. 
Yet, those who know me also know that, I know where everything is in this chaotic mess. Everything in my room has its place. I know which book sits where and I know the story behind most every trinket and painting.
Yet, here I am. Packing up my things to make room for another who will soon be filling it with his own things; creating his own chaotic and organized mess and lining it with his own stories. 
I'm not leaving yet, but I am leaving soon. And this makes me feel uneasy.
My bedroom is, as it is to most I believe, my safe space. It is the place where my books surround me and my cat sleeps. It is where my desk is, the desk which I used to fancy could take me anywhere if only I sat down with a pencil in hand. It is the space where I know every corner, every trinket; where the things that are mine -the things that are a part of who I am, surround me.
Packing away these things makes my heart ache. Today when my Dad took down my ballet bar I felt like I was saying farewell to something; my childhood perhaps, but also to my safe place. 
It is a little less mine now and one day, frightfully soon, it will not be mine at all.
The things beyond this little safe place are uncertain. I am going out into the world. Not all at once, but ever so slowly. For the first time in my life failure is a real possibility. For the first time in my life it is not enough to just dream but I have to consider the real possibility of what I will do if I should fail. 
And, if I feel like I'm barely making it now, how much harder will it be when I am out on my own?
I sat down as I was packing up my things. I looked around at the boxes and the things that line the walls, and I found myself debating unpacking it all again just to take it all in one last time before it goes away.
My past is a little further behind me today; my future a lot closer than it was mere months ago. 
I am uncertain that I will make it. But it is not me that I have faith in. 
I feel frustrated and I feel overwhelmed, but I also feel eager because I know that my story, as all stories do, has an ending. 
And I can't wait to see how it ends. 
But it's not my story at all now, is it?
I stepped a little closer to the unknown today, and this time, the pencil is not in my hands. 

"I am the desinger of my own catastrophe."

~Unknown