Tag: My Writing Struggles

I’ve been doing lots of thinking since this ill-wind blew its mortal breath upon the world. This situation, or these sequences of situations look like one of these fictional stories I watch on television, read in books, or even, same as those stories I write or daydream about . . . Sad days which surely have already inspired the writer in us.

Since lockdown, my life and my everyday habits changed suddenly, and overnight, I became the personal caregiver of my mother-in-law. I had to revise all of my priorities, and re-organise my everyday life – where I am still trying to reconcile writing my next book, blogging, parenting, my house-chores, reading, caregiving, and me-go-time on my everyday planning schedule. I had to adjust my time and even myself to this amor fati (love of one’s fate), and rethink about the basis of my own foundation. Slowly but surely, I am adapting myself to this new reality; adopting the change that came about; harpooning the next day.

I thought that I would be taken aback, or even feel dreadfully sorry about my recent decisions, while my life would be dreary . . . but it is not the case, fortunately. It is as if, my heart learned acceptance. I’ve let one of the birds that was caged within my heart flee.

Writing always haunts me, and my want to blog, write poems and fiction passionate me more than ever before. I’ve even submitted two pieces of mine during those two last months – a fiction piece, and a non-fictional one. Thus, my writing ambition has not weaken the least, on the contrary it has widened, and even perhaps, matured.

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Right in the beginning of lockdown, doubts and darkness started to appropriate my mind – pessimistic feelings about my writing aspiration took its toll on me – I felt like a fraud, useless, stoopid, delusional. Lies lead to deception . . . and I was convincing myself that I lied to my self, because deception was gnawing my mind. My self-esteem and self-confidence took a harsh blow during this short, but yet how intense time.

The other birds in me were dying out of passion and enthusiasm.

But I am not a fraud, for I write. I am not useless; I endorse all of my responsabilities; good for others. I am not stoopid; I certainly know what I want, and certainly know what I am doing. I am not delusional; I see opportunities from my own perspective.

I’ve been doing it all wrong, of that I am sure. And though how slow I am, and how much time flowers take to bloom in me; and how slowly the birds in me learn to spread their wings, my mind is a fertile land. Perhaps I’ve seen an oasis which was only a mirage, or an oasis that they made me think was only a mirage . . . But the oasis in me is broader than this oasis, which by the way, is not a mirage.

Too bad! I guess, for I shall continue my way more individually than ever before. My fictional, poetic, and blogging happy endeavors appease my soul, and I envision a bright future filled of serenity, only because I swim inside this creative lagoon. I don’t see myself persuing these other activities that infuriate and frustrate me; that lock me up in total distress. No! I won’t give more power to negativity, for I want to live in happy places. The birds in me have the right to chirp as much as they like. I have the right to express myself, to express my creativity, and I can’t, and I WON’T, take responsability about how others personally interpret my writings – which to me is art for the sake of art.

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If I had abandoned my creative persuit, I don’t think that I would have seen again the lagoon where I birthed out; I wouldn’t have found myself again. I would have been a total wreck. So I’ve decided that no matter what, I’ll keep trying, and if I don’t succeed, well, at least I know that I am making things that passionate me, and that I found a creative leisure that makes me happy.

I have always been a quiet-over-confident type of person, mainly due to my loyalty and worship of the self; and where most of my tragedy shows stem from the fact that my self-esteem has taken a harsh blow. I lose all self-control when I feel that my self-esteem has been attacked; I see red, and I lose all sight of the pathway that I’ve slowly built.

My failures, mainly when I’ve planned and masterminded everything on my own, lead me to those feelings that are very hard for me to digest – that taste of bitterness remain stuck in my mouth for endless periods of my life.

For me, there is always someone or something else that is responsible for my failures, my mind then designating a culprit behind the unrealisation of my dreams – the start of my fall inside the pit of delusions, where these persisting gloomy thoughts turn into obsession.

Everyday I’ll be obsessing about who or what is, or are behind my failure – I’ll be telling this or that to my husband, or this or that when going at my mom’s place, looking sick, mad, psychotic, delusional, and where they will all try to assure me that it’s only in my head, and where… *sigh* well, you see the picture of them panicking when I go through this delirious phase – mother, sister, husband eyes go-go😳 while am raving mad, and being paranoiac about… well, it’s much more that I am being way to over dramatic, suffering from irrationality, going through some type of disturbance due to denial of failure, a sense that I have betrayed the self, my own self. Just a delusional type of indignation.

This obsession, it clouds my mind and prevent me from seeing what I’ve achieved, that is, my success of having written a whole book, one hundred poems for the upcoming one, as well to have written all these poems and articles for this blog, and so many short stories penned and typed here and there; this persisting indignation, it also make me forget about what I can do, that is write, versus my inability to make the right decision about choosing the right platform to sell Darcocyte, or even my incompetence to market myself, my book, this blog, my writings.

Eventually, after having been very very very angry (the delusional, irrational, and irrelevant kind), while anxieties made me eat a lot😂 – the viruses suddenly appeared, and in a strange way, my anger concerning the web, Darcocyte, and everything else that were primar sources of my frustration and craziness, quieten down. It was the shock, a large baff in my face, the sudden realization that I’ve been acting like an insane paranoiac, accusing everything and everyone, blaming others for I’ve not been able to complete my dream.

Things did not went my way and as I had envisioned them to be, which caused much anxieties and a great deal of annoyance in me; even going so far as to prevent me from finding solace in everything that I have already realized, even forgetting about all the years it took me to hone the skill of writing, the long hours of practice, the analysis of the books I love, the long wait until I finally finish Darcocyte – and then, just like that, Corona came around, slapped me in the face, and life suddenly seemed too short and fragile for me to be living inside the continuous and perpetual agony of denial, delusions, and paranoia. I am way too much in love with life and of all the beauty it contains to continue inflicting myself with the heartache of failures.

It’s hard for me, as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, a family member, a friend, to face the reality of this virus that is eating us up… It’s such a harsh situation, mainly when you have loved ones. Everything and everyone has been obliged to slow down – to think, to repurpose, to….. fill in the blank here; and where I had to rethink and repurpose my plans, too, going blindly into the uncertainty, while facing whatever is coming my way.

The aftermath of this whole crisis, what would it be? I wish I was the oracle or had that crystal ball, but everything right now is so uncertain and inaccurate, thus I continue to write and blog amidst the destruction, even forgetting that there was once denial and anger, and just doing what my heart wants, hoping that my loved ones and everyone else remain safe and sound.

Just a simple user

There was a time where I was taken aback by the websphere. I was discouraged, I was confused, I was overwhelmed — mainly due to the fact that I was blind as a bat flying in daytime. Thing is, to get the necessary control over something, you need to first and foremost have even the minimal knowledge of how it works; and to know the mechanism behind a process, you need to learn it as to be capable of designing your subsystems, as to be able to operate it as you wish and be the chief on top of that creation… and that’s from where stem my habitual frustration, which most of the time affects my online posting mood. I never had any whatsoever control. I am a simple user.

With time I came to understand that the main ingredient to a successful digital entrepreneurship is in fact your IT knowledge and background, or any other direct affiliation you might have with the internet system. And that’s where I got it wrong right from the start. I am not a web developer, I have no single knowledge of the in-depth of how IT systems work, nor am I affiliated to any of these subjects. I am only a droplet in the digital lagoon. My head is filled of dreams while surfing on the surface of the sea – not caring what lies underneath.

The internet and its components are complex processes, so are the software that were built upon this main foundation — subsystems that are easily manipulated by those behind the scenes – the back office – the core of the filaments of the web. And to actually have a minimum control over traffic, design, the security of your site for users and as well as your own data, one needs to be actually related in which ever ways to heightened level knowledge of the know-how IT system foundation works, as to be able to operate and manage your own web system… Isn’t it the truth? Mainstay: the person or thing that something depends on most in order to continue or be successful.

Thus, to prosper online, you may choose to become one of those tech moguls that have knowledge of development with full control over their products — literally go big, or else, remain a user that relies on control systems, which might as well be into deceitful and misleading activities that users, or even their site authors, might not be aware of, thus putting us, the users, and our work to great risks, perils, and hazards.

In the end I am only a simple user that relies on the virtual equipment and materials built, programmed, and managed by others . . . and as a natural born control freak, there are things that are hard for me to digest. But now that I am starting to get it, and where all of my illusions about the web have been shed — mainly my daydream of spreading pages and pages of my works from various high towers—yes, from the perspective of others, it would have been quite insane doing it like that—but where I strongly believed that on the internet it would have been elsewise, say, publishing, distributing, and posting to a grand audience… wouldn’t that hilarious and quite delusional musing fits what the internet should have been here. Me and my silly dreams of wilderness and independence.

But still, as a simple user—which I guess I’ll remain so for I only want to use the web to write stories, blog, create content, and as well as to make connections—I prefer to run within these complex systems and organizations than that of being killed, captured or whatever else, in a wilderness filled of vicious hungry predators, and whatever else cyber criminals that might be hidden on these isolated pathways. I am very very far from my dreamland, this all thing is only a joke.

I’ve learned that doing everything in solo was extremely tiring and demanding