I detest clichés!  When heard, my eyes start to roll back in my head, and my skin starts to crawl. 

Recently I mentioned to the MOTH an idea I had for a novel.  That’s right!  A whole frikkin’ book.  Penned by me.  I don’t know who I think I am really?  I mean the average novel contains 130,000 words.  Somehow I’m gonna be wry and witty over several hundred pages?!?  I dunno.

 Anyway, his response to my idea (topic not actual ability to write) was “Isn’t that a bit clichéd?”  Whaddaya mean?!

 A space age novel with a spunky, young captain and her roguish crew captured by baddy guys who barter their way out of a gruesome death by offering to embark on a perilous journey to a far  away galaxy in search of hidden treasure?  What’s clichéd about that? 

Never mind the whole copyright thing

(“ding dong”)

 “Oh hello Mr Lucas, what do you mean you’re going to sue the pants off me? ( Randy old bugger!)

 Anyway, my first response to this suggestion was one of sheer indignation.  “How dare you call me clichéd!?” I’m as unique as a chocolate flavoured omelette (bit tastier too I’d suggest!) “I strive for individuality!” “Whatever everyone else is doing, I’m doing the opposite”.  And as he slowly started to shrivel and die of boredom, whilst still making eye contact and therefore not incur the wrath of “Did you just roll your eyes at me Wife”, I started to think about how any idea is ever really original. 

Sure, there are some sayings that are truly barf worthy. 

 “It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions!”

  This is moronic boy talk, usually heard dribbling from the mouths of athletes who lack the ability to express any true emotion. 

“Uuummmm…. I felt sad …and…… then I felt happy….and….then I felt sad again.”  Ugh!

 Or “traffic was a nightmare!” 

 No, what is a nightmare, is being held in concentration camp, slowly being starved to death whilst those around hope that the next person killed is you and not them! 

Sorry.

  Got a bit heavy for a minute there.  Hang on, just turning the Lithium IV up a notch.  “Laa, Laa la la la oooh look I can see the music”….Right, much better!

 

My point is (and I’d be surprised if I can actually find a point in this rambling shemozzle) is that some clichés, said ad nauseam, seem to lower an individual’s IQ.  And, in a world where burping the alphabet seems resume’ worthy, none of us can really afford to dip below 110. 

So, I’m really a bit stuck (I was thinking between a rock and someplace else, but I think we’d all get more confused than we already are about this topic).

 I want to write, but am gonna need a frikkin’ brain transplant from an alien to actually come up with something that hasn’t already been done before.

 Am I being too elitist (coz being being a “little” elitist is OK…right?) or should I just suck it and see? 

Scared of ridicule, failure and criticism?

 Naaaaaaah!  Not me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d rather write nothing, than something uninspired and forced.

 I strive to be true to myself and transparent to others,

 I long for understanding and to be understood. 

I dream of days where time just stops

So I can catch up.

To shine and be humble.

To soar

To connect

To disappear.

Infinite and fixed

Forever and not!

I am shy and outrageous.

Glorious and dull

I am pacifist and warrior.

Clenched fist and warm embrace.

I am passionate and apathetic

Glaring and scowling

Soft and gooey

I am Mother

Wife

Friend

and Enemy

I am an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a dressing gown.

“But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

So, I found this blog space and I started typing.  I thought I was finally following God’s plan for myself.  Writing fit for human consumption.  My Gran once told me that to squander a God given gift was a sin.  For years I doubted that writing was the gift God meant for me.  I’m not a beautiful, poetic writer.  At times when I’m trying to be serious, I end up writing something wry and funny.  It’s a bit like catching your reflection in the mirror and realising that “that” is how you really look..not the picture in your head.  So, I continue to write the words as they come out, and so far it’s been a real joy.  However God has a new plan, parallel to this writing one, that has thrown a new challenge my way.

Slowly my health has been deteriorating, and with it my inspiration.  At the same time, a real sense of dis-loyalty has started to grow in my gut.  Why, after conquering my own emotional hurdles to get to this place, would God continue to make the path so difficult to traverse.  Why offer up such a wonderful prize and them make it so I can’t use it anymore?

Perhaps it is the prize for pride.  Lack of ego has kept me in the same place for all my life, unable to recognise my own importance.  I have strived, eventually listening when people said I could achieve greatness.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think like the Beatles did.  I’m not bigger than Jesus.  But I certainly started to feel like a loved member of his family.

So, a big lesson is in the learning for me here.  I see that very clearly, and I will continue to be patient.  But..there’s a sadness, and sense of missed opportunity.  That everyday I sit without writing is a day lost, words lost and unexpressed.

 

Paulo Coelho

 

Let me tell you something about myself.  I’m a deleter. I’m a deleter and a fixer.  Sometimes to fix I deleted.  It’s a handy combination.  The need to fix comes from my own inability to “sit” with a feeling of  being uncomfortable. I can’t stand to think people aren’t living their best life.  And to do that they need to be living a life more like mine. For a long timeI was a fixer because thought I was  better than all those other people who couldn’t get their shit together.  In reality I hate that feeling where the world is out of sync.  “Your problems make me feel bad, so now I must fix them and make the bad feelings go away!”  I suffered from a severe case of ego overload.  If I couldn’t fix I would erase.  This is an hereditary condition I have seen repeated for years. 

Recently a loved one posted a comment on a FB forum that upset me terribly.  My instinct was to retaliate.  I started typing several times.  Some responses were angry, others apologetic.  I was frantically trying to make what they said alright, so that I could be ok with it.  My next response was to remove myself from the situation completely, to never return to said forum.  To cease all contact.

In my franticness my world was spinning.  I had been caught completely off guard.  My heart was racing, my mind buzzing.  And then a new little voice piped up.  And I listened.  And then I got up from my chair, and I walked away, having done nothing.  I worried over this issue like a sore tooth.  Forgetting about it for a while, and then going back and giving it a poke.  I wanted to ring this person and challenge them on what they’d done, but knowing them too well, I knew it would only serve to make me feel even more worthless. 

So, I sat with the feeling, and when my husband returned after four weeks away, I sat with my head in his lap and sobbed.  He was a little bewildered I think.  It wasn’t the end of the world, but this person had broken my heart a little bit.

So, why tell you all of this?  Because some days I sit here at this computer and I want to delete everything I’ve written.  It’s not the content that bothers me, mainly my technique.  I want to fix or delete (probably the latter). I wonder who the hell I think I am expecting you all to come here and read my words of wisdom?  I don’t really have an answer to that , except to say that I don’t imagine one can evolve much as a writer if no one reads their work. 

So, I say thank you.  I will probably worry over this blog the most, but rest assured, I will not delete.  I will continue to sit and be uncomfortable safe in the knowledge that this is exactly where I want to be!

 

“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”
Alfred Korzybski