Struggling

I feel like I am falling, drifting into a seemingly endless void.  Like my motivation and desire usually does, it comes in spurts, moments in time that I never want to end.  The creativity and momentum that I had has seemed to drain out of my fingertips with no recharge station to be found.  I need an adventure.  A mental break, something to stimulate my mind, prick at my neurons and convince me that I am, in fact, still alive.  I had a great weekend, and I don't know what is causing this feeling of helplessness, and I suppose I should be used to these emotional surges by now do to my constant shift in birth control due to problems with the previous.  I can't tell what normal feels like any more, not that I would ever be happy with normal.  I just wish I had one day where I could feel content, satisfied, not feeling like something was missing.

My love life is perfect.  My cats add great joy and frustration, but always bring something new to my day.  The food recently has been equisite.  But I still feel like there is something missing.  Maybe it's Star Island, maybe it's nature, but whatever it is, I need to find it.  If I lose my way with writing again, I worry I'll never be able to get it back.

The shallow dream

Gets me every time

The beauty of a dream

Bodes the heart and begs the crime

And here it is

Lost and alone

The shallow dream

Empty promises

and I let it lie

The Mortal Tragedy

I'm not entirely sure if being mortal is a good or a bad thing yet.  Eventually, like vampires, you would probably lose all humanity, witnessing everyone you once knew and loved dying, disappearing, never to be seen again.  I imagine that it will break anyone, make anyone impervious to death, but isn't the fact that we are mortal make life so unbelievably amazing?

The tragedy in life isn't that we are mortal, it isn't that we will eventually die, it is that we only have so much time.  If you want to learn everything you can, explore everything you can.  You could spend your entire life traveling and still never experience what it's like to live somewhere else, you couldn't take in all the culture, get to know every single person.  So we have to pick and choose, and that's the tragedy.  I chose writing, and have continued to do so.  While pursuing this career path, I am at a job that isn't bad, but it isn't the promised land for me.  And even if I do become a successful author, I still will never experience being a zoologist, a researcher, a marine biologist, rehabilitating lions for reintroduction into the wild, working to save the panda population.  The whole other side of my brain, the one that wants to save the world, has gotten thrown to the side while I march forward, pen and paper in hand, probably destroying the environment more with ink and paper usage than helping it.

So here I sit, looking at a photo I took of an orangutan, and the soft reflection of my forehead appearing in the bottom right corner.  I titled it, "Reflection of a Human."  And it really is human.  Eyes looking up at the sky wondering, nose wrinkled while he chews, all the lines going across his face.  I live vicariously through Animal Planet and other television shows all of the lives I could lead.  I realize I am still young, but even if I do end up getting a degree in Environmental Science, I wouldn't know what to do with it.  If anything, I'm probably safer to spend my time volunteering, especially if I can become a published author.  That way, I can learn on the job, pour my money into some non-profit, and continue writing.

It's the mortal tragedy.

Private School = The Need for a Third Education

After getting a really expensive undergrad degree at a private college landed me on the opposite side of the country with no idea what I should do, no direction, and absolutely no help from anyone (minus my loving parents, of course), and after working as a barista for a year, a hostess for five months, and working three jobs for two months to barely make my life work, I think I've finally realized what makes me tick.

Beyond writing, which I can do any time at my own leisure, I have this strange desire to save things. Not people - I've never been one for saving people - but animals, trees, and heck - everyone knows, I'm a huge pack rat. That's what I do best, get a lot of things into a very compact space.

So, with my pack rat skills, my desire to save, and a now useless college degree in hand, I've decided to apply to an online school - probably University of Phoenix - for BA in Environmental Studies. If the other Rachel Desilets can live in Vermont and grow an organic farm, I can certainly live in Los Angeles and do ... something to help the environment? Starting with that grey, smog filled sky of ours.

Only one basic math course, one basic chemisty, one basic biology, and then you are on your way to learning specifics. Conservation biology, geology, environmental law, ecology and evolution, risk assessment, and overall: how everyone is messing up the world. Things of that depressing nature.

But the end result, is possibly, and hopefully, to finally land me in a job where I feel positive. Like I am doing something positive for the world.

Why not do an expensive college again? Or maybe, at least, a campus school?

Expensive college is just that - expensive!
And a campus school - when you are working a full time job, it really doesn't bend to your schedule, now does it.
And plus, I hate driving.

Also, I truely believe now that you learn more in the field than studying it in the classroom. Emerson could have taught me the world, but that wouldn't mean anything to perspective employers. "I know everything about everything!" The response, "Great, what experience do you have?" ... Long, awkward silence.

So, a degree, though it is a fancy looking piece of paper signed by fancy people, means little to me anymore. I'd rather get the general knowledge (which, let's be honest, I could by textbooks from 2004 and learn the same amount, but you can't very well go into a job interview and say that you've read textbooks and that's why you are qualified) at a less expensive school that gives me flexible hours and scheduling where I don't feel stressed out. I get my knowledge, my fancy paper, and my hope for a brighter future all wrapped into a simple education.

Yes, I like this plan.

Music and Writing

I haven't written anything in a really long time.  Not only is it frustrating, but it's also somewhat disheartening.  I feel like since I can't even write a silly blog, or can't even tweet, or can't even keep up my promise to write three pages of journal entries a day to myself - how am I ever going to finish my novel?  Something I used to do while writing, particularly the story with Anthony, was listen to hardcore music.  Listen to something angry, something angsty... And recently, I just haven't been in the mood to listen to really horrible singers screaming through a microphone while a bass drum is being hit with a dual kicker in the background...

I've been listening to things that make me mellow, things that trip me out.  Things that make me zone.  Which, hey, that would be great if I was working on Jessica's story.  Or that would be great if I was even working on Sophie's - though her music is much more classical and orchestral - but I'm not.  My focus is on Anthony.  And maybe it shouldn't be.  Maybe I'm just not angry enough to write his angsty growing up story anymore.  I mean... I wish I had finished it when I was still having all of those emotions.  Suffering from insurmountable loneliness, home-sickness, and just this deep pit of seemingly endless despair.  But I'm happy now.  Is it possible for me to write emotions while being happy?  Everything that comes out just seems trite and annoying.  Like someone that is trying to connect with their character but just can't.  Is it as simple as listening to hardcore music again?  Would that put me back in touch with my character on a non-superficial level?  I understand his flirtatiousness, I understand his sarcasm - that much I got from myself...  But what about the burning hatred, the frustration over being in love, the insane amount of paranoia that comes with being who he is... And really the egotistical side of him, though I can relate a little bit, I just do not have that fake sense of self-confidence that he convinces everyone, even himself, that he has.

I understand who you are so well, my dear character - but I don't understand what you are feeling anymore.  I don't suffer with you anymore.  How can I write sincerely if I don't feel an emotional connection?

Creating a Blog

I've had this for quite some time, but I've never actually utilized it before.  I will probably have daily or weekly updates about what is happening with my goals.  Maybe information on my characters and how much they are upsetting me.  Having a bunch of strangers running around inside your head would make some people call you crazy - other's "creative."  Is it simply because I know the difference from myself and the "voices" in my head?  I know they aren't real.

But sometimes, I talk about them like they are very real characters.  "He's really angry because so and so pushed him into a corner and..."  And ...  And he's not real, get over it - right?  Wrong, I can't.  Like most unpublished or unfinished authors, we are plagued with that one voice.  That voice inside our head that isn't ours.  It simple states, "Write my story - the world has a right to know my story."  And you think -- I don't have anything important to say!  But, your character does, and that's all that matters, right?

Something like that.  So this is going to be my struggle, to keep my characters out of my real life, no matter how much I am jealous of them or live vicariously through them, they are characters.  Not my friends, not my reality, but they are a part of my creativity, my imagination.  And honestly, it's about time that they finally come out on paper and stay where they belong - in one book, one small journey, and hopefully one that will have a bigger impact than just making my mother proud.