A Writer's Notebook, Day Two-Hundred-And-Thirty-Three

I have had a rather fraught day, but I am hopeful that maybe it will be a positive turning point.  For once, I am recognizing certain things and attempting to face them.  I've got to make a lot of changes in my life, and I am in the process of doing that, to some extent, already, but I really came to understand today that I am not at all who I want to be in many ways, and I really need to change that.  I think I may be ready to.  Maybe this is the first step, but I am not going to go easy on myself about it.  Honestly, while I don't want to get into specifics, I do need to acknowledge that I've been hurtful to people I care about and feel incredibly bad about that.  I"m lucky that I have people who care enough about me to be forgiving, but that does not excuse any of it, and I am facing that.

One aspect of change that I have made which I think is helping facilitate the rest of this process, is the work I am doing as a poet and writer.  I've done four new poems today, some of which were actually explorations of things that I'm discussing here.  I am lucky that I have the ability to express some of these ideas in poetry, and to use that process as a way of exploring myself.  It is not a natural thing for me as a poet, really, to explore myself that directly, but I think it is an important thing to do and a part of my maturation as a writer.

In addition to the new poems I wrote, I also attended a playwrights group meeting which I found really positive, and am very excited by.  I need to start working on some stuff for that group, actually.  It shouldn't be too hard to get going now that I have something to write for, but I need to give myself a chance to think of what I want to do.  I think I am going to do something that is somewhat simpler, maybe, but I am not really sure yet what it will be.  I don't know yet, really, even though I do have some thoughts in general.  I've one idea that I like and think I might play with, but I have had it in my head a bit and am still trying to work it out entirely.  It may be that I actually want to start by doing something where I am just retelling some older story in some way, just to get an idea of what I am doing.  I have to think about it, but I am sure I will come up with something soon, and am excited about where it will lead.

Ultimately, though, today was really a day where I became aware of a lot about myself and it is largely stuff that I do not like.  I was aware of this before, in some sense, but I can't be that way any longer, and cannot just ignore my own bad and cruel behavior.  It is time to take responsibility and make real changes.

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