7 a.m.: I’d love to have my blog followed, have others enjoy my writings about my creative and life wonderings and explorations. Sharing my work, having others enjoy it helps inspire me further. I want to get my books published… but these aren’t exactly what I live for, right?
But then, I don’t know exactly what I do live for. It’s not that I’m living FOR somebody else. Yeah, that comment goes against what most people believe and even sounds arrogant and self-centered. But I have to speak my truths.
There isn’t anyone for me. I’m alone. So, what do I want to live for? Writing. After all, isn’t that one of my mantras? “If I didn’t write, I’d die or go crazy or worse.”
What is keeping me from living fully for what I want to live for?
6:55 a.m.: The day to day living challenges, upkeep to property, accounting, dealing with issues, expenses, loneliness… anything not related to my art, and especially, the dislike and refusal to do self-marketing… Not trusting so-called publishing companies …
And having to do it all alone! There’s no one else to help relieve the burden. It’s all on my shoulders and it can be crushing and there are times when I don’t care if I live any longer… but I’m not ready to die yet. It is discouraging, though, and the worry and the “chore” (can’t think of the right word) of it all dampens much creativity.
And most everything besides art work feels like a chore these days.
I have so many projects and ideas in the works, sometimes it’s hard to decide which to work on. That also means I sometimes can’t make up my mind and end up doing nothing on the list. I know. Just choose one and go with it, but as someone who works on intuition and emotion, it’s hard to get involved if I’m not heart-invested in the moment.
I need my heart involved or my mind picks up on some issue or what I see as a fault, and spins, sometimes out of control until my ambition falls into the pits of discouragement. Then I don’t get anything done.
I get in those too-much-to-do modes and my brain kind of shuts down. I feel like an idea hoarder. I have all these ideas to write about, pictures to paint, gardening projects, and more. It’s like walking into a hoarder’s house to clean up and there’s so much stuff, I don’t know where to start.
Or I’ll start one project then get distracted with another. Sometimes weeks and months go by before I get back… and there are times I never do. The uncompleted projects pile up. The writings started and never finished fill folders on the computer. The partially written books and even a couple finished manuscripts lie abandoned… even though I’ll think about them.
Maybe that’s why these three questions have come up. I suppose, too, life would be easier if I only had one or two passions. Unfortunately, I enjoy many things. (I don’t like saying “unfortunately” because I do enjoy these projects but when there’s too many, it can get overwhelming.)
Even simple topics can take many different paths. For instance, writing jumps between poetry, articles, book-writing, and journaling. Pastel painting is a drawn out (pun intended) process between the reference photo, thumbnail sketches, initial charcoal drawing layout/composition before the actual pastel work. Then there’s the writing about that!
I gave up doing actual photography, though I still take and post photos. I gave up knitting scarves and jewelry-making. Even gardening in warmer months is getting less as my body refuses to do some of the work necessary.
My life, as much as there is left of it, basically comes down to writing and painting. And that gets less as it takes me much longer to handle life and home issues. It seems something always gets in the way of my art. Things seem to get harder to take care of and resolve.
What does this all mean? Put one foot (or thought) in front of the other and continue to move forward? Buckle down and just do it? (Whatever “it” is in the moment.)
And my mind glazes over with too much thinking and I dissolve… until I get the spark ignited again…
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