Sunshine and Rain

I know I don't have a quote today. But I wanted to write. Not a novel, just a short post.

My day went up and down today. One second it was the highest it could be, and the next it fell beneath my feet. But I came to realize it was just me most of the time. I made it high and low. That's why we admire people who don't care if a day is sunny or rainy, hot or cold. They don't live in yin and yang. They enjoy its harmony. Of course, this is all very difficult to do with fifty things on our desk or a boss screaming down our necks. But we can all live happily and with contentment if we want to. Because when we do, we become those people who don't care if there is sunshine, rain, snow, or wind. They care that there is another day to have.

Relationships: Real and Ideal

Lust is easy. Love is hard. Like is most important.

~Carl Reiner

As a writer I've never really written about "relationship love" because it's not something I've never actually experienced. Of course there's that little boy you stare at when you're in kindergarten, and freak him out when you say, "We're going to get married!" Then there's that cute guy in math class you tap on the shoulder for a pencil, when you know fully well there's a whole box of them in your backpack. And then as you get older, there are more complications.

There are people of both genders who play mind games and manipulate. There are people who are simply out to have a fun date or whatever and never call again. And there are people who are so focused on everything else they don't bother to look up and see someone is standing in front of them, waiting.

Being a girl, and an introverted one at that, my list of imaginary relationships is longer than my list of real ones. Girls are different because after talking to a boy once they imagine a long date watching the sunset, running through the fields, sleeping under the stars, etc. etc. etc. The next time she sees him, butterflies flutter throughout her stomach until it threatens to burst. The next time he sees her, he thinks, "she looks kind of familiar, I wonder if I know her . . . "

But there are real relationships. And sometimes I kind of prefer the imaginary, ideal ones. The real ones don't have kisses in the rain or the sunset all too often. The kisses of real relationships are usually in the hallway at school, or in the movie theater. Ideal relationships have never-ending happiness. But Real relationships usually have an end at some point.

In an Ideal relationship, your first kiss is on top of a flowery hill, and your hair is flowing, and a smile is on your lips. Most people I know remember their first kiss as being a foreign, awkward experience, and I can guess that their hair was in a messy bun and they were wearing old, ripped jeans.

The reason I brought this topic up is, even though I think relationships and kissing and imaginary relationships should be private matters, because one of my best friends is having a pretty good time in a very comfortable relationship. Maybe I'm jealous, or maybe I'm being reminded that I'm lonely. No, at the time I don't have anyone "special" in my life.

But I keep my day alive with those occasional Ideal relationships, where the prince sweeps me off my feet and we fly out of that magical castle on a dragon. I'm a writer. My imagination flows like a river. The problem with a river is that it empties eventually.

And yet at some point that dragon has to hit the ground. That prince has to dump you for the scullery maid or remind you how meaningless it was to him. So you proudly punch him in the face and carry yourself proudly. Because at some point, you find someone who blurs between ideal and real, and you can't tell which was better: the fantasy or the reality.

Finishing a Piece

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

John Jakes

Today (or, actually yesterday but I finally got Internet access to write on my blog) is a partially momentous day. One, because I got a new laptop which is VERY nice. And two, because I finished a piece of writing. An actual piece.

Don't get too excited, it wasn't much. It was just a chapter of a book I've been working on. But, it's a great feeling. Most of the pieces I've already finished were essays for an english professor, poems for my grandmother's birthday, or journal entries for a half-filled notebook I end up throwing out anyway. And I think I've found my method for finishing.

We all have trouble finishing. That's why we're writers, why we're human. We procrastinate, we sit around, we forget. When I write a story, I write the whole thing in my head, and write two sentences on a word document. Why? Because there's something about that blank white page that seems to threaten us, or make us doubt ourselves. I don't really know why.

For most of my life I've had thousands of story ideas fall into my head like autumn leaves. Some escape me, some resurface, and some make it onto paper. . . before being sent to the trash bin. I keep a lot of them, but I start writing and then wish I was writing something else and then I move to that and then I get bored and move back and then I wish I had never started this because I'll never be a good writer and the Internet becomes much more interesting and before I know it the day is over. Yes, it happens a lot.

So, I had an idea. A novel idea, a series. A fictional story about a young teenage maid in the 1700s who becomes the captain of her father's pirate ship. I went right to my computer and began to type, working a prologue, and then a first chapter.

The entire time I was writing this, all I wanted to do was write a certain chapter I had planned, one that I really could imagine fully in my head. But I kept writing, all the way through without looking back. Because looking back is detrimental. If you keep doing it, your writing can never move forward.

Then I wrote the chapter I had planned. All the way through, no stopping, not even changing a word. I wrote during my vacation, and in the car on the way home. And then, it was done. It was all done.

I couldn't believe it. I had a chapter. An actual chapter I was proud of. Can you believe it?! Some of you reading this are probably saying, "Oh, big deal!" It's a big deal for me!

So my thoughts on finishing something are to go all the way through, like living life. Don't look back until the end. Just keep going until you're done. Live in the word you're writing or typing at the time, not the one you typed five minutes ago, or an hour ago, or four days ago. It leaves a good feeling inside you, whether what you just wrote was a piece of crap or if it was the next pulitzer prize-winning novel.

In the end, it's not the masterpiece you're holding that matters. It's the sense of completeness in your head and your heart that defines you as a writer.

My Friend, Brooke

. . .but for God in heaven, 'tis but the dawn

The above quote isn't by a famous author, philosopher, or person. It wasn't said in a private interview or into a microphone before a crowd of people. It was by my friend, Brooke, and it was never said. It was written.

Some of the most beautiful things in life are seen. Some are felt. Some are heard. Some are smelt. Some are tasted. And some are read. But what these beautiful "things" have in common is that they are found in the most unlikely places.

Brooke's father died when she was ten, but I hadn't known that until a few months after we had met and become friends. She was telling me a funny story about her mother going on a date, and I asked, "oh are your parents divorced?" and she said, "oh, no, my dad died when I was 10." Then she joked, "That was when I got a little chubby. You know, overeating and all that."

I didn't think about it, but a little while later she showed me a poem she had written when her father had died. It was dirty and ripped in a few places, but it was typed up very neatly. I can't remember most of it, because I only read it once. But I can remember my reaction. I can remember hearing the words in my head and being totally immersed in that ripped up piece of paper.

I told her it was amazing, and I wasn't lying. I've had friends who showed me their writing and I've gone "wow, that was good" when it really was totally bland and unoriginal. But this, what Brooke wrote, was something else. It was so beautifully written, and perfectly formulated, that I couldn't believe she had actually been capable of writing something like that.

I told her she could go places with writing like that, but she said it was a one-time thing, something personal. I don't think she's written anything like that since. At least, none that I could see.

So we're all writers. Even when we don't see it in most people. Okay, so maybe not all of us are writers, but we really are. When we talk, when we feel, when we live, we are writers. Our lives are pages of notebooks just ready to be written. The people who are defined as writers, by newspeople, by the public, are the ones who wish to share their notebooks with the world. Maybe some of us don't want to. Maybe the best of us don't want to.

The best writing in the world is found in places you didn't expect to find it in. I found it in my friend, Brooke.

Writers' Discouragement

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
Ray Bradbury

Well, it has been a while since I've written anything. And it wasn't because I was busy or lazy or depressed. And it certainly wasn't out of writers' block.

I don't believe in writers' block. I believe in writers' discouragement. We writers have moments in our lives when the writing seems pointless. Why? It's not steady work. There isn't an office or a clinic to go to, a set time to work. There's just the steady flow of life for motivation.

Sometimes the most talented writers can't get anything published, because they can't write that great novel in their lifetime. Sometimes those great novels get lost in time as scraps of notebook paper in a smelly desk drawer. Sometimes life just takes us away before we can get anything out there. Sometimes great moments elude us.

But sometimes we find our motivation. J.K Rowling, author of the famous Harry Potter series, started out writing on bits of napkins at a cafe. Maybe it hit her that the napkin scraps could really help get a better life for herself, outside of the poverty she lived in.

At times I've thought that my "big break" would come if I had something happen in my life. Some traumatic event, some setback. I have read the biographies of several writers, and I am yet to find one without an unfortunate event in between the lines. It's as if having the passion to write isn't enough. You need to have some motivation, some inspiration, or something along those lines.

But do we really need it? Maybe, as writers, we can find something in our lives to motivate us. Maybe there isn't something painful or life changing, but there is something. Or maybe you don't need anything. Maybe it's just the joy of pushing the last key, or writing the last letter, of a masterpiece, that's enough for any writer.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, I am my Mother After All

A mother understands what a child does not say.

Author Unknown

To all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day! As for writing about my own mother, well, sometimes the best things in life can't be put into words.

Mothers are not biological (I always hated science). An abusive, neglecting mother is simply the person who gave birth to you. An adopted mother, who took you into her home, loved you, and did absolutely everything to stand by you is your mother. My aunt and uncle have adopted two children, because my aunt cannot have children. Those two kids love her more than anything, and, when they see her face, they say "mommy".

Mother-child relationships aren't science. There's no math (I always hated math too). There's love. And love is enough to make any computer explode. It's incalculabe, in-exact, indestructible. You can't break love down.

Love is what threads the entire family, not just mothers. But mothers and fathers constantly throw it away. Mothers, what if your child was disabled? What if they were a murderer, a sociopath? What if they constantly displayed ingratitude and hatred towards you? Could you still love them?

It's moments like those that define who mothers really are.

I used to think the mother I knew wasn't a thinker like me. I was the writer. The original. I crafted pieces of art, decorated our house for the holidays, planned vacations, drew up dream houses. My mom cooked. Cleaned. Did the wash.

I kept every little thing, from toilet paper rolls to Barbie Mansions. My mom took everything and threw it out. I thought she didn't have any things of sentimental value because she wasn't like me at all. I was nothing like my mom.

But then I grew up and, for the first time in my life, got a backstage pass to what my mom really went through. Constantly paying bills, going to work to pay for my education because I had my own problems at public school. Doing load after load of wash while my friends' moms, who I sometimes envied, paid for cleaning ladies to do the housework. I was still a dreamer, a thinker. But in my mom's desk drawer, I found some things I would have expected her to throw away like everything else: an invitation to my brother's graduation, old pictures, and some paper Mother's Day gifts.

So, I am like my mother. I'm her daughter. Because that's the payback she gets from all those years of unconditional love. All that love pours into one glass, and that glass, in turn, pours out the same exact unconditional love. With that love, she gives us part of herself. Moms will say "no he's nothing like me, he's like his daddy" or "you would never guess we were mother and daughter the way she acts". But there's so much more than personality. There's teachings, there's mannerisms, traits.

Mirror mirror on the wall, I've become my mother after all.

May is the Most Tired Month of the Year

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too short a date.
William Shakespeare

May. It's the blooming month. The lazy month. It's that month when students sit in class and stare out the window at blooming flowers and the beginnings of hot summer skies; when cafes set up their outdoor tables and turn on the air conditioning; when every day is like Friday, because it's just one more day until summer every day.


To me, it's taunting. Even when I was younger. I wait in school all day, feeling like it's the last day of school all the time, when really we've got 30 days left. Even the teachers are so lazy that they don't bother to lecture, but rather give us a lot of busy work. And it's still that way now.


Come on, how many people have waken up every morning the past two weeks to feel like it's Friday, only to realize that it's Tuesday and that stack of papers isn't anywhere near finished? Ugh. May is tired, boring, and it reminds me of sitting in a stifling classroom listening in the distance to a lecture on Evolution while looking longingly out at the clear blue sky.

May is like a sleepy month. But it's like that sleepy month that you can't sleep in. Work has to be done, the beaches aren't open yet, blah blah blah. Everyone just wants everything to be over and summer to start. Forget the blooming flowers and the fact that the sun is coming out after about 3 months of sitting behind gray snow-clouds. I just want to sleep.

Aspiring writers who can enjoy the beautiful month of May, that's great. You're my hero. Me? My head's too deep in a book right now to do anything else but count down the days until June.