I Didn't 'Get It' From 'Them'

Whether it's a good or bad trait or skill, there's always something off-putting about the assumption that it has to come from someone. The inclination to be artistic, an addict, compassionate--even if there is a possibility there's some genetic thread, there is just as easily a repellent, the possibility that it could have been killed off rather than nurtured, passing rather than innate.

It's one of the many ways intelligent thoughts tend to kill off individuality. Some twins love to look alike, but there are also the twins that are absolutely sick of that shadow that comes from always being lumped into something that reeks of some easy destiny. Some celebrity children enjoy hate living in their parents' shadows, some use it to gain their own spotlight. There are so many aspects of personality that are deeper, impossible to pinpoint down to genetics, environment, and so on.

It doesn't matter if your genetic contributors come from a long line of artists. Either who you are embraces and coasts on it, or you loathe it and do all you can to find a life that skews far from the comparison. Still, you'll find that the only way to avoid those comparisons is to go somewhere where no one knows you. Those comparisons always follow and they'll probably be repulsive or complementary no matter how things change. Sometimes the paranoia follows when a stranger makes a bald assumption on where you 'get something' from. Talents aren't necessarily decided by nature and nurture tenants. You can be passionate about something for decades then, just like that, be done with it for good. It's scary to think about, but also curious enough that you can't help but wonder what you might be like over time. I know that my 7 year old self would never have imagined my 37 year old self. My 67 year old self is probably not what I can really imagine either. It's not a lack of wisdom or experience, but largely because I can't possibly understand how wisdom and experience will later shape and manifest.

I've never enjoyed comparisons rooted in assumption, so that leads to a confession not all that startling.

Being compared to my mother is numbing. That didn't change even after she died. The fact that she was almost effortless in life and somehow never did wrong was a painful and confusing message. It got me into trouble and it often made me feel worthless. Don't do what she does--she is rewarded, you will be punished and berated. Very few people were ever able to reach me, to see how her light burned me, to soothe the wounds by saying they saw the flaws. I went back for the pain, time and again, because what hurt also numbed. Did you ever have a healing scab so thick and tight, clawing into your skin, itching, yet peeling it off was a relief, no matter how much it bled and pussed and scarred? That's what it was to love my mother. The fact that I could tell her this, that she'd be awed by my depth and madness instead of hurt and angry...  In the love was the abuse and in the wound was the cure. It didn't offend her. It didn't slow her. She was my best friend but outside of the first nine years of my life, I didn't have a mother in her. I had to learn to self-parent and there were many women, wonderful women, who were mothers to me when I needed one. I did become a motherly type over time, but not through example of my own.

The training wheels on my bicycle came off when I was four. I learned to ride a bike by coasting down a thirty foot hill at a 45° incline with one hand on the handlebar, the other indulging my thumb sucking. Which is often a metaphor for how I stumbled through a great deal of my life. There wasn't someone there to train me. It's possible that I'd have ignored them anyway. Art, sports, gaming--I was good at things I did without much proof in the doing. When encouraged, I'd already been doing it for so long, I was equally surprised they didn't realize it nor how unlikely it was I'd stop.

I'm sure when you have helicopter parents, it's easy to assume you've inherited the good and bad from them. Yet I look at kids nowadays in severe states of abuse and neglect (which was not my case)--even in those cases, there's something in the individual that makes them exceed their circumstances or succumb to them. It's not always a willful or inherited certainty. Again, there are simply some innate traits where people may fight for something but give up on something else. Strong people are strong in areas that they prioritize. You may think someone is strong in everything until you pit them against something they are actually half-hearted about. Then again, even where they are strong, sometimes they are just too worn-out to withstand another fight. Thresholds are there, whether mental or physical, there is only so much pain one can take.

Pain can be absolutely paralytic for me, so I've been adamant about my opinions on how the tortured artist is a bit of a bullshit trope. Pain was not even a driving force. Escape wasn't what I was after. In art, I maneuvered for ways to understand why I felt the world was always kicking me out of normal spaces. I was working out ways to belong that didn't involve hanging myself. I was looking in literal meaning, in metaphors and analogies, in disjointed rhythms and tripping rhymes, in visuals I could see in my head and not find outside of it. 

Creative spaces can be like hospices though. It's a little bit Girl Interrupted with the plastic surface of forced positivity but then you get the wallowers that seem to like talking about being bad at everything or want to have everything done for them. It's a bit the serial widow who slowly poisons the current husband a little too confidently. Even though I've met some amazing people in creative groups, I also realize that taking the mask off attracts the diseases. Or, forgive the Bird Box reference in a time where it's overused but... there are always sweet voices cajoling you to take off the blindfold so they can destroy you.

So I end up breathing deepest in the solitude and isolation of my own zen-like creative space. Even in team efforts with someone I know is reliable, my breaths are measured. It can't be helped. To protect individualism, it will always be a battle to be defined for yourself. To not be taken in by comparison or assumption, the stoicism becomes the happy medium. When working with someone, you still have to discern when to speak and when to listen. While a meeting of the minds can be extremely successful, you can't take for granted the person you work with. They have their own hang-ups and experiences and you have to treat them individually. The larger the group, the more of a challenge it is to unify the voice.

Back on the subject of traits and personality, I'm not offended or hurt or upset by comparisons. If anything, I am motivated to find how I can stand out more on my own. It's a challenge to prove to myself that I cultivated myself. The things that affect me do not define me. I am both grateful and hateful, bitter and sweet. I do have some power over how things affect me and how I affect things. There are some traumas that do create hard limits, but if I become reactionary and hurt someone, I am capable of apologizing when I create that hurt and misunderstanding in someone else.

I realize I'm covering a lot of trails here, but I'm wrapping it up. Busy brains and all...

Lol of course, I don't find a busy brain to be a human boon. As humans, we do too much fucking deep thinking and I don't doubt even idiots do quite a lot of it too, even if they don't end up on the logical side of a decision quite as much. Essentially, it's not the deepest and most profound words that we're drawn to. There are always elitists and self-proclaimed intellectuals that will insist they are looking for that, but I also find those people more likely to drive themselves into a deep misery that eventually needs lighter distraction. I'm more often drawn to those quick and easy thrills, I'll admit. It cracks me up when supposedly intelligent people write this form of entertainment off as lowbrow or that it makes people stupid. Pseudo intellectualism sometimes comes out of some of the most prominent intellectual circles too. In fact, the more a person claims to be an expert, the more likely they are to display the gaping holes created by their biased preferences for what they pass off as universal truth.

Okay, since that sounded like big-word babble, let's simplify. People who paint with one color do not make a rainbow. It's impossible to be completely diverse in a field, but have all the paints ready and make careful strokes. Trying to assume you know everything is a messy blend... that once more just makes one muddy color. Big egos do not make you unrivaled. A healthy ego is one willing to switch to another color, another brush, another perspective. You can still favor red but work with purple and green.

I derail on a lot of side thoughts but the main thing is, we're not meant to be anything. It's poetic and simply neater to romanticize destiny, to find patterns everywhere. People drive themselves into madness with their favorite patterns. It's really freeing when complex guesses are simplified. I love taking complexities and finding simpler ways. As people, our misunderstandings with each other often come with thinking we can apply that to each other. 

But they seemed so happy, there's no way they could hurt themselves.

I'm shocked because that's just not like them.

How often do we hear or even say those things because we were so quick to think we had so neatly figured things out? Or was it simply easier to box away their choices and label them without looking too closely?

You don't have to unpack everyone you meet. It's exhausting, even when down to your inner circle. Yet so many regrets often come from being too afraid to be hurt by the truth. To go back to the paint analogy, broad strokes seem to cover it all, but it's a layer too thin or too unevenly thick and it doesn't go very deep or hold with time. It flakes, it chips, it doesn't last.

For good or bad, I have no regrets with the relationship I had with my mother. I can't blame her for the scars and I still peel the scabs. I may regret more the relationships I lack that rawness with. She had no lack of faith in me, no delusion that I was anyone but me.

She probably got me. I don't know if I could say the same. Whatever we got from each other, death paints that into place. Time paints it differently too. The pain doesn't lessen because we never stop painting someone. Why would we assume that living people can be so easily painted down when the ones who are done are never finished?

We don't need to figure everything out. Hell, I'm pleased when my brain just shuts the fuck up sometimes. Once I've scrambled everything soundly, I could use a mindless bit of fun to wash it down.

Seeing a bit of a pattern? Well, yes. Some things are practiced because the results are consistently comfortable. Some of us are more creatures of comfort, some more risk-takers. For me, I am satisfied with finding a balance there too. I find if I am too comfortable, I worry I am depriving myself of the rewards of risk. I would say it's the way I've always been, but an innate trait.

Although I am not thrilled by being told who I get a trait from, I can concede to it without being too stubbornly against it. I know for myself which parts of me are mine. Most of them. I can also smile or laugh it off when I'm in no mood to argue. Yet, as you can read here, I certainly consider it more deeply than I let on.

NaNoWriMo Doesn't Have a Difficulty Level

I'd like to sincerely apologize if, at any time, I made what I do seem easy. In the spirit of sharing Kryptonite, here's the reality. Other than being a queen of symptoms and few working treatments (the physical and mental concerns will always be playing a role), there are a lot of factors that come in between me and superhuman awesomeness. So many factors can make one story harder than another, no matter where you are as a writer. Maybe you changed genres or you're aiming for a novel when you usually write short stories. Maybe you're finally ready to work on something you hope to publish.

People will perceive that you're more experienced or successful based on preconceived notions of what you've done so far, but writing is one place where we're all not that much different. We want to shout it from the rooftops when we're doing well, but any momentum is something we may exaggerate because we know we could hit a block of some sort or life will just make it impossible to get to those ideas we're itching to nail down.

Like most people, I battle with tons of ideas with no sure-fire way of communicating them and struggle to find my strengths and weaknesses. I also believe in setting clear boundaries, which means I don't trust total strangers with my unpublished work, always building cautious friendships and talking about personal issues with a measure of earnesty and reservation. For every milestone, there's another unknown looming and at no point did what it behind us make it that much easier to take the next step or repeat something we've done before.

As much as my blog is about introspection at times, I'm terrible at keeping in the first person tense when writing because my mental headspace keeps panning outside of the character and ends up in third. No one wins baseball going from first to third. I have some odd preferences in writing as well. I try not to start paragraphs using the same first word of the one before it. I have a tendency to use the British 'grey' and 'glamour' while every other word follows American English. It's not something I do to stand out, but one of those things I've done as long as I could remember. My English teachers always wanted the double space after every sentence. That took a lot of work to kill that habit (and I still use Find to locate any, just to be sure). Given, these are small things and nothing that would shatter the story. However, you may have noticed, I'm an impulsive thinker. I do often have to put my story back on track when I start chasing shiny objects that don't need to be there. I spend a lot of time editing because there can be a lot to clean up.

Showing a few of my obstacles shouldn't give you grounds to compare. Oh fuck, if it's hard for her and she's done this much, then what hope do the rest of us have? (I've heard this a few times directly and it's mortifying to be regarded too loftily.) If you want to know the truth...

Exactly as much as everyone else. Call it being unable to take a compliment but you can call me amazing and I'll find some way to make myself seem ordinary. Even though I might know I'm amazing, it's a hollow victory if I give the impression it's au-naturale and you either have it or you don't. I had a lot of things working for me, but just as much working against me. Just like you. There are insecurities and egos-- the perceived good and bad can flip around, but you know what? Taking note of the way things slip away from you are nothing to be paralyzed about. Those are the key to your unique insight, where people will start to find you relatable.

I struggled a lot the first time I did NaNo but not because of the word count. I tried to write a book that an agent might look at. I looked at it the wrong way and even though I was satisfied enough to release it, I wish I had stretched it out more, let those characters shine more. Its sequel UnSung was where I resolved to ditch word count concerns and just write the story as broad as I needed the characters to be. It took eight months to draft because I needed to plot, plan and unify the details. Since I originally planned UnNamed as a standalone, I didn't bother styling it to continue. UnSung was born of what I wanted UnNamed to be. UnHeard will continue on the same way. If I thought for  one moment that the next book in a series would be worse than the one before because of forcing it, I wouldn't write it until I felt it could be better. Yet UnSung will wait to be completed because I wanted to see if leaving it open might benefit it as I continue. My first series was one I wouldn't release until they were done. It gave me so much room to go back and change things. While I didn't want to do the UnQuadrilogy the same way, I think that between UnSung and UnHeard, mutual contemplation might benefit them both. So I set UnSung aside to throw in a new approach for NaNo.

The first time I neglected the free-writing part. Don't edit as you go, don't stop to plan, just wing it and learn to clean up the mess later. I was curious if I could not only wing it on a complex fantasy but do it on a third book when the second was still in edit. Not only is it freeing, I don't feel tethered to notes or plans that I can always work in later if I like the original plan better.

I'm going to cut into the fat here-- I used attitude and mentality to create the hurdles of difficulty. If headbutting the challenge was working against me, I could change tact. It's not the same as quitting or admitting defeat. Writing isn't factory work. It requires very volatile things that demand only flexibility. The only failure is killing your drive by slaughtering your talent. You do not enjoy your favorite things because you think you should. It doesn't matter if writing falls under work or play, you are ultimately in control. Even if your characters run amuck, you get to grab the reins of the story and the edit and the vision. It's not censoring them or watering them down; it's bringing them to harmony with the elements.

(This is especially true when I've written something too quickly because of a great mood and momentum. You think it's untouchable but it's actually where you really want to dig in.)

Every character doesn't need to be wise or quirky or fucked-up or deep. Loving them too much will squeeze them flat. It's probably hard to face your own mortality, especially when you superimpose yourself on to a character. But...

Read the 3 Faces of Eve. Do yourself a favor and read an account of a woman who had to kill aspects of herself to assimilate them. Killing your poster child can be a sign of metamorphosis, not self-loathing. If your writing suffers from overloved characters, understand that killing them, either literally or figuratively, is about growth. I didn't die when my mom did. When I die, I won't be around to care that I did. Even the Death card in a tarot deck is about change, the end of something and the birth of another. It doesn't matter if you tend to be hypersensitive and empathetic (guilty of both, believe it or not), if your characters are really independent entities meant to show off their humanity, making them superhuman does both you and them a disservice. No one expects you to extol the virtue of your beliefs through every character.

Whether life or change or NaNoWriMo is difficult is up to how you learn to adjust it. Even in the throes of a panic attack, I once stopped it by thinking "you gonna cry, Barbie?". Hyperventilation turned to laughter and I like to believe I forced a chemical I lacked to release and counter it. No, depression doesn't disappear with happy thoughts. While I know how to trick a lot of moods now, some are still dangerous and stubborn. I have a mental medicine cabinet that must be tried every time, but until I do try everything I can think of, I can't give up. Don't say you can't until you've tried all of the things you can.

You don't get to always decide when to be happy, when to write, how much to work. Americans have been groomed to think we should do things anyway, even if that path is a long walk off a short pier. No. Just no. There are choices and consequences. Don't let people shame you into being who aren't you. You know you'll be the one to deal with it so weigh it as only you can. Tell the Captain Obviouses to fuck off.

I'm gonna be a tireless cheerleader this month. As much as possible. I know what it's like to be low. Doesn't matter if anyone reciprocates it on my low days. I always find a way to crawl out and fight. What matters to me is people finding the joy of writing. People often get lost in that when demanding something from it that isn't guaranteed no matter how much you suffer. It's never a more important time in history for people to learn to reconnect with purpose and one another.

It's easy. It's hard. It's up to you. Whatever you do, do it with an open mind.