#desultory typing

[seastarved]

I’ve been journaling quite a bit recently and experimenting with painting. It’s been kind of really fun!

Because it’s really really hard for me to get over my inner perfectionist to even start a thing that I know I’m gonna suck at, I’ve never actually committed to something this long. But I got through one month and painted a couple of things that I feel like look okay for a beginner?

The best part was sort of trying to let go of trying to make art that was someone else’s or comparing it to someone else. Like, I ended up painting the jasmine flowers that grow outside my house, a photo I took from a window of a plane a few years ago, abstract florals based on a bouquet that Julia bought, just greenery that grows around me, stuff like that?

It’s all stuff from my actual life so it feels more genuine for one but also I can’t really tell myself I’m wrong or doing something incorrectly lol

It’s my life in pictures and it’s my sort of growing into a creative outlet and yeah idk, it’s been wonderful and I just wanted to share.

Okbye

[nowforruin]

I’ve been writing a novel, and today I got 1/4 of the way through my draft. I started this project on Christmas, so getting 20,000 words down by January 5th  is awesome. 

I want to be more excited about this, but I have to be honest, the struggle is real.

For years, I’ve called myself a writer and felt like a fraud. That’s kind of absurd, since for QUAT alone I wrote over a million words. I’ve written plenty of other things, other fandoms, personal projects, things that have never seen the light of day. Still, I felt like I wasn’t a real writer. 

Why? 

Because somewhere along the way I got it in my head that a real book was the sort of great, sweeping fantasy I’ve always loved. It had to be epic and detailed and have a complex, intriguing world with the diversity that fantasy so often lacks. 

Here’s the thing. I like those books. I like them a lot. But what do I read most days when I get home from work and I’m tired as hell? Romance novels. Mostly historical ones. Why? Because they’re entertaining and they don’t tax my mind, which is already exhausted from another day of corporate bullshit and another day of living in this hell scape country that’s not-so-slowly turning into a dystopian novel.

But there’s this perception that romance novels aren’t real writing. I’m guilty myself of saying “oh just another trashy romance” when asked what I’m reading by friends. I’ve been trying to break myself of this habit, but it’s hard. It’s really, really, fucking hard. 

I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately, because the novel that I started on Christmas? It’s a romance novel. It’s a period piece. It’s the sort of thing I would read (or I hope it is). But there’s still this voice in the back of my head asking me why I’m spending all this time and energy on something so trivial. 

Logical me understands this is bullshit. Logical me understands that romance novels are yet another thing that’s been dismissed and degraded for years and years simply because of what they are: entertainment for women by (largely) women. They don’t exist to stroke a male ego. They don’t exist so that you can brag to your friends about how intelligent and innovative [insert trendy book of the moment here] was. 

Because I mean really, how dare women have nice things for themselves. 

But here’s the thing I’m coming around to: I enjoy romance. I (think) it’s what I’m good at writing. There are lots and lots of women who enjoy reading romance. No, it’s not going to put me on the Hugo short list, or get turned into a movie franchise that will make enough money for a permanent escape from corporate drudgery, or be the flashy new Netflix series. Those aren’t reasons not to continue doing something I enjoy. 

I don't like resolutions. I think they imply something is broken and that we need fixing. Which I mean, yeah, maybe that’s kind of true about me too, but at least when it comes to this, it just might be less about fixing and more about accepting. 

I wouldn’t tell the authors of my favorite romance novels that their work is crap and a waste of literary time and space. It’s time I stop telling myself those same things. 

I will finish this novel. 

I will send it to a handful of friends tonight like I promised (and then promptly open a bottle of wine and try not to chug it because this is really fucking scary). 

I will send the damn thing off with query letters and not give up when it’s inevitably rejected. 

The world is a hard place, and I swear it just gets harder. We’ve all got to start cutting ourselves a break over the little things. 

[seastarved]

Hey ho!

So since you’ve last seen me, I have been up and down mental healthwise, been to therapy, been out of therapy, have gotten so so so much better because of therapy, took up painting, became obsessed with baking bread and baking in general, travelled to a bunch of cool places, met a boy, fell in love, had a very very fanfic-like romance before he broke up with me a month ago for equally awful fanfic type reasons and it has sucked and now I’m in quarantine with the rest of the world.

So how have you been?

[seastarved]

Just finished watching stranger things 3 and had such a massive cry at the end oh my

[seastarved]

Does anyone else get debilitating horrible cramps on day 4 of your period? Like it’s so random and so intense on day FOUR and I am curled into a ball of pain rn ugh

[seastarved]

There is a certain kind of joy in being successfully RickRolled

[seastarved]

I know creative energies shift and I’m just channelling it differently right now— more with fashion and baking and cooking— but writing was something that I never ever ever thought I could do and I made the little girl in me so happy by finally managing it that right now, when it’s so so hard to get the words out because of the fear of failing, it’s just eating at me from the inside out and I hate it so much.

[seastarved]

Tfw you’re almost on your period and are just waiting for cramps to begin while wanting to turn into a burrito and cry and yell because PMS.

So much fun.