Sooo....
Here I am.
Gonna keep this short. Been a little....I don't know, lately. Frustrated. Bottled up. Problem is, the things I want to say are the same old things I've gotten tired of saying and feeling, so I really don't want to go there. I don't want this to turn into a pissy rant, so I'll just keep things brief.
School will never change. I see that now. I'm an okay teacher. Not the best, and not the worst. I'm all right with that. If I'm going to dedicate myself to writing and still remain committed to my family, something's gotta give elsewhere. Teaching's it, and I've accepted that.
I'll never be the guy they dedicate a yearbook to. When students look back and remember teachers who changed their lives, I won't be the one they remember. They like me well enough and think I'm "pretty chill". A good teacher that does not make, though.
Oh, by the way? Did I mention that I'm horribly insecure and have poor self esteem?
Just in case you didn't notice.
My MA seems to have ground to a halt. I have to take a written Spanish test to graduate (I know. A Spanish test to get an MA in Creative Writing. Let's not go there). I haven't taken Spanish since high school. Don't remember any of it. I'd need to take a class to LEARN it again, not even just refresh it. And I just can't. After bulling my way through 40 credits the last two years, I'm just burned out.
And no one seems to get that but me.
I look around at publishing. Small press. Specialty press. Clustered little genre factions. Christian fiction. And I can't help but feel a healthy disdain for it all. I'm sorry folks, but I didn't grow up reading that stuff, didn't fall in love with that stuff. I know our dreams and reality rarely coincide, but when I look around at the horror genre and then it's alternative the Christian genre, (and that doesn't mean there aren't writers in both genres I adore; quite the opposite), more and more I snort in derision.
I'd open my mouth to say something...but you know what?
That just makes me tired, too. Billions of blogs out in cyberspace, all of us yapping into nothing and none of us listening. Often, that's what I feel blogging is.
Anyway. I obviously need to eat something; obviously need my caffeine. And I'm obviously frustrated about nothing.
It'll pass. Eventually. 'Cause I got an awesome wife and two awesome kids, and also?
I've got God, too. I know that's not so popular to say these days, but screw it. And I also know I'm not the best at living the way I should, but in the end...I hope I know... or am coming to know...what's most important.
But that's all internal. You'll still never catch me telling others how to live. That pisses me off just as much as everything else.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So endeth the rant.
"Billions of blogs out in cyberspace, all of us yapping into nothing and none of us listening."
ReplyDeleteNot so far from the truth. Find the ones that listen, and be a listener. In that space is the dividing line between the ones who write from the heart and the ones who have none to begin with.
That's usually what I do. I have a few blogs I read daily, and I usually don't comment; in fact, several of the blogs I read don't even invite comments, but that's not why I read them. I read them because they're passionate about things, and that's what attracts me to their blogs.
ReplyDeleteKeeping in mind I was hungry, caffeine-deprived and generally pissy this morning: I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. First of all, with the kids and full time job, if I'm blogging - I'm not writing fiction. That's no good.
That, and I only blog when I FEEL like it - I mean literally, I have some emotion (good or bad) that needs expressing and if I don't I might explode, so I blog and feel better. Don't really care if anyone reads or comments. I tried to do the whole: "Guess what's trendy/controversial and blog about to draw attention to my site" thing and it failed. Plus, I felt like...well...a moron.
So now I only blog about what's on my heart and mind, and that's it. It's become very much a pressure-relief valve for me: for life, teaching, writing, publishing, parenthood...and that works for me.
Of course, here I am also posting all this to a public blog and not journaling privately...so even in that, I'm still part of the "system", I suppose...
ReplyDelete