End of year recap

This week for Sunday Scribblings the prompt is late. Not ‘late’ but the word ‘late’. 🙂

I thought of the fact that it is late in the year. Of course it’s arbitrary based on what calendar you use, I understand that, but human beings need closure and an end-of-year recap is traditional.

My year began and ends with my travel book and in between the multiple rejections from literary agents. Self-publishing will be the next step in 2009. My novel is stalled, I haven’t written a word for many months past 33,000. Instead I have written many short stories and submitted them to various literary journals both online and in print. I enjoy writing and short stories fit my life better than long book formats. That’s not to say I don’t have many, many ideas for novels because I do, but I find it difficult right now to focus for the length of time needed to really write.

Of late I’ve been very depressed and moody. The economy and his job are having a negative affect on our lives for the past four months and we are searching for a better way. I really want to contribute to the household and my writing ability is the best path possible. It’s a tough, tough job though and you don’t have a steady paycheck: or any paycheck at all. But I want to help, I need to be part of the family more than I am.

Next week we go away for vacation and meet up with our friends in south Florida. Plus Ann is flying in from England again as she did back in March. That’s three times we’ll have met in person in fourteen months. All because she stumbled across his poetry blog two years ago. Making friends via blogging has been the best part of my life and I feel so grateful that so many of you have stuck with me.

It’s never too late to say I love you.

Rose

xo

Bearing my soul

No that’s not a typo – bearing – because I do feel very low right now. I’ve been writing for Sleeping With Bread most Mondays over at Bawdy Wench but this weekend matters have not resolved.

Who am I?

I’m a woman.
I’m a writer.
I’m lost.

I’ve tried regular posting, but Bawdy Wench and Dewy Knickers are more suited to that venue. I’ve tried emails but real life issues prevent many of my friends from replying. I don’t ‘like’ blogging. Rose is too private and too shy to be open enough to connect.

I printed out the complete manuscript of my book this morning, 307 pages double-spaced, for the first time I held the weight of my dreams in my hands. I’m proud of my efforts yet desolate at my lack of motivation. Lack of desire. Why am I this way?

I am shy. Really. My fantasies may be forceful and successful but the body is an insurmountable obstacle. Writing is spontaneous for me but many writers state that dedication and scheduling are the keys to production. Is it just an excuse? Do I really want to write?

Yes. I do.

I think of my friends. In England, in South Florida, in California, in Canada, throughout the United States and in India there are people who know Rose. Some of them I’ve met in person which brings up the strange paradox of social blogging. I can’t talk to my neighbors but a stranger becomes a friend by commenting on my blog.

I don’t ‘like’ blogging but I love the friends who’ve become so important to me.

I could never be an editor. Receiving rejections doesn’t bother me, if my work isn’t good enough, then I need to write better stories. I have lots of ideas, lots of visions, but somehow the urgency, the passion fades away in black and white. The concepts I have are somehow bigger than the page. How do you translate the emotions within the tormented mind?

My mind is tormented; hidden behind his. Filtered through his psyche I find myself munching on stale leftovers. Homeless in a way. I can relate to the fringe people because I am even beyond them. Beyond the far reaches I explore territory filled with monsters, demons and dance with death.

Death is beautiful.

Yet, I am so angry at the world. So angry at the powerful and the rich for being so smug while millions die needlessly. As the economic meltdown accelerates the harsh lessons of the past are returning. Workers are scum. That is a mantra that business has lived for millennia and even a cursory reading of the daily headlines reveals companies throwing employees overboard in the name of ‘cost-cutting’. People aren’t numbers. There is a reason that the rich are hated.

Politicians too. They are all corrupt and have lied, cheated and stole in the pursuit of power.

Why bother?

Why bother fighting back?

Is this the tipping point? Is this when the world commences the slide into anarchy? Are the riots of the past year spreading quicker than the spread between the poor and the rich? Is this the end of democracy?

Alright, so I can write when I put my mind on the keyboard. [That’s a weird visual.]

I like essays. I like writing my thoughts into fiction. I like making the world more complex. I ‘like’ blogging for that reason. Blogging brings the world to my computer and grabs my attention. I want to be there. I want to be with you. I want to live in a giant house with all my friends. [I don’t do dishes though.]

Utopia is a myth.

That is a fact.

People can’t live together… not for long without feeling homicidal. What is it about mind and ego that are so strong? Personality is amazing. I know this to be true for obvious reasons but it still doesn’t make any sense. I have no explanation for me. None at all. Is that bad? Not really. I exist at my own sufferance and death offers me a drink.

That’s a good title: “Death Offers me a Drink”.

Obsessed? No, it goes way beyond that. I’m obsessed with quantum physics.

I am proof. Yes I am.

If every moment of your life is a quantum choice, then I am here, right now because of my quantum path, not his. His is suspended for as long as I choose. Think about that please. As a multiple personality my path diverges as Rose. The search for a literary agent is my quantum path that never would have existed without my decisions. I’ve submitted fiction under my name to journals. I write as Rose and my dreams are mine. Mine I tell you. So who am I?

I am Rose.
I am a woman.
I am a writer.
I am still lost… will you help me?

Rose

xo

Life is strange

Three Word Wednesday

Balance
Dictate
Wander

Three words that evoke different emotions.

To wander: An aimless word with no end and no beginning. A word that is connected with fall leaves, apple orchards and blue skies. A word that lurks outside our door waiting for a brief moment of madness.

To dictate: A harsh word filled with anger and fear. A word stamped into passports and engraved on tablets. A word used as a bludgeon by bosses the world over.

To balance: A stressful word revealing a lack. A word of struggle and pain for many too busy to stop. A word filled with guilt and self-loathing.

Rose

xo