I'm still writing my book. It's hard, fun, emotionally draining, and all around awesome. I had a conversation with my brother. We talked about some of the experiences I'm writing about. They are deep, and hard.
In some ways it's strange because I'm fact checking my own life. I'm calling my brother to make sure this really happened or check to see if he remembers if I'm actually right in what I'm saying.
Sometimes its hard because the topic material is my own life. I'm putting myself out there. I'm putting all of the baggage out there for you to read. I'm telling my story and my families' story, the good and, sometimes, the bad; the real and authentic.
While, I refuse to use any names I know there are those reading who will wonder if I am talking about them and those who know I am talking about them. There are those who will want to meet these people, there are those who will have a cord struck and will want to talk about their experiences, struggles, hopes, and hardships. Then there are those, and this is my real fear, in my family who will be unhappy with what I've written.
Yet, I find with every chapter I am energized. I feel a sense of excitement in my soul that can only be explained as a cathartic realization that this is a story worth being told and worth being lived. With every day I find myself being pushed by my own writing to live out the story because ultimately I want to create what you read, not just read what others create. I want to live in such a way that inspires others to rise from the dust of their own messy lives, because we all have messy lives, and find something that makes them come alive. I want to help people not settle for anything less than a full life filled with experiences that are as real as the movies we watch and stories we read.
I think the ultimate result of writing this story is that I hope to inspire someone to say..."This isn't a fade to black ending. This isn't a dark and depressing story. This isn't a sad moment in our humanity. This is where we stand with our hands held high, fists clenched in victory, as we face our fears, face our demons, face our inadequacies, face our fill in the blanks, and say to hell with living the status quo that has sometimes been thrust upon us by those around us and make up our own ending. This is where we end on the crossroads of our past and our futures. This is not an ending. This is just another beginning."
DOWN WITH THE STATUS QUO!!!
ReplyDeleteI can see what you are saying about family not liking what you write. But the thing is, even if they don't remember situations the same way, it's the way you remember it. It's the way you experienced it. No two people see, experience or perceive a circumstance in the same way. Your writing may be a little to real for some of us, and it may help some of us realize how the things we said, did, or attitudes we had looked from another point of view. That's a good thing.
Love you bro.
I hope this post didn't come across as cliche or whiny or anything like that.
ReplyDeleteOne of my intentions was to say that when I'm writing I'm also considering the impact my story will have on those who are important to me. I think it's interesting to write something about others that could potentially put them in a bad light for a portion of the story. It's a struggle between saying this person is a bad person and this person did bad things but is not necessarily a bad person.
This is John
ReplyDeleteYeah, writting about others and putting them in a bad light is bazzare. Its scary having snapshots of yourself and who you are/used to be in a concrete form, especially when it is from anothers viewpoint without the rose colored glasses we see ourselves with. I think we attack verbally emotionaly to prevent that very thing from happening. To stop others views of us from being known or just sitting out there in the light looking at us, making us reasses ourselves or fighting it or just realizing that we come across as an asshole. Its good. I would find it hard to write things as they were and not as how I desired them to be. FIDO brother (Fuck It, Drive On). your doing good.
Love you bro