"Sink or Swim," he stated very nonchalantly as if my admittance meant little. I had just told the man that I was terrified of continuing on the journey and all he could do was shrug and say, "Sink or Swim."
Was it really so simple?
He continued, "I know so many people who are constantly telling me about the things they WANT to do or the things they WOULD be doing IF they dot dot dot. You fill in the blank. Its all excuses. Just do it. Either you will swim above your self-doubt or you will sink and drown in it. All you must do is choose. Sink or Swim?
I thought for a moment and then smiled. "I like swimming."
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Change - Blob
Fear.
I am afraid to write. Call me a coward. Call me stupid. Tell me to 'just do it'. But there it is. I am afraid.
I started this blog back in 2007, about the same time I started work on my manuscript. I had moved from theatre drenched NYC to make it large in LA. Not so much art happening when you're bartending in Hollywood, doing background work in Studio City and scraping for auditions for bit roles in the latest Showtime lesbian drama or going to look-sees for K-Mart apparel. So I decided to create my own worlds. I returned to my first love, writing. This blob (blog... I meant) was supposed to be my grand entrance. (I kept blob because my finger slipped and hit 'b' instead of 'g'. It seemed fitting. Blob. This blob sat here, hollow, for five years.
This manuscript I am speaking of shall henceforth be known as 'The Change'. Not like the change the small crinkly old man with the beautiful smile asks you for in the subway. Not the shift change that happens when a fresh team of bartenders take over for the poor saps that had to work the slow dayshift. This Change happens when you need guidance the most. This Change happens when you are ugly with pimples and braces and your classmates are meaner than rabid Winny-the-poo on a sunny day chained to a rainbow unicorn on a bad acid trip.
The Change is about the humanity of demi-gods, gods, kinolau, changelings, animal spirits, were-animals. It is all the legends and stories be it Greek or Roman, Hawaiian or Native American, of Animals that you have ever heard of explained in one simple fact: They are real. The Animals live amongst us. The Animal Kingdom rules us.
At least that's the blurry, low-def, sweeping panoramic view of this world.
I know I haven't given much away and I probably wont give you much else except to say that 54,000 words later I am scared of this book. Like a scraggly gangly thirteen year-old it needs to be fed and nurtured into a less scraggly still-gangly almost fourteen year-old. I look at my words and they swim in front of me. Where to start? Where to begin? So I close my computer and I find a corner to hide in. I pull up iBooks and read the polished works of published authors and I get myself lost in their world... instead of my own.
So I was thinking that maybe if I just sat down at this blob of a blog that I started five years ago but never used, I could gain the confidence I needed to sit down and finish the third draft of The Change. A draft that I may have the oloz (ask someone from Hawaii what that means if you don't automatically get it)... Where was I? Oh yeah... my oloz. I might have the confidence to give the first three chapters to people I trust to tear into it with red pens and smiling faces. Well maybe not tear into but hopefully it'll be good enough to garner their time and a smile.
I am afraid to write. Call me a coward. Call me stupid. Tell me to 'just do it'. But there it is. I am afraid.
I started this blog back in 2007, about the same time I started work on my manuscript. I had moved from theatre drenched NYC to make it large in LA. Not so much art happening when you're bartending in Hollywood, doing background work in Studio City and scraping for auditions for bit roles in the latest Showtime lesbian drama or going to look-sees for K-Mart apparel. So I decided to create my own worlds. I returned to my first love, writing. This blob (blog... I meant) was supposed to be my grand entrance. (I kept blob because my finger slipped and hit 'b' instead of 'g'. It seemed fitting. Blob. This blob sat here, hollow, for five years.
This manuscript I am speaking of shall henceforth be known as 'The Change'. Not like the change the small crinkly old man with the beautiful smile asks you for in the subway. Not the shift change that happens when a fresh team of bartenders take over for the poor saps that had to work the slow dayshift. This Change happens when you need guidance the most. This Change happens when you are ugly with pimples and braces and your classmates are meaner than rabid Winny-the-poo on a sunny day chained to a rainbow unicorn on a bad acid trip.
The Change is about the humanity of demi-gods, gods, kinolau, changelings, animal spirits, were-animals. It is all the legends and stories be it Greek or Roman, Hawaiian or Native American, of Animals that you have ever heard of explained in one simple fact: They are real. The Animals live amongst us. The Animal Kingdom rules us.
At least that's the blurry, low-def, sweeping panoramic view of this world.
I know I haven't given much away and I probably wont give you much else except to say that 54,000 words later I am scared of this book. Like a scraggly gangly thirteen year-old it needs to be fed and nurtured into a less scraggly still-gangly almost fourteen year-old. I look at my words and they swim in front of me. Where to start? Where to begin? So I close my computer and I find a corner to hide in. I pull up iBooks and read the polished works of published authors and I get myself lost in their world... instead of my own.
So I was thinking that maybe if I just sat down at this blob of a blog that I started five years ago but never used, I could gain the confidence I needed to sit down and finish the third draft of The Change. A draft that I may have the oloz (ask someone from Hawaii what that means if you don't automatically get it)... Where was I? Oh yeah... my oloz. I might have the confidence to give the first three chapters to people I trust to tear into it with red pens and smiling faces. Well maybe not tear into but hopefully it'll be good enough to garner their time and a smile.
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