Written Whispers

Thank you to Easy Writer for the Excellent blogger award and for the awesome words that came with it. :) :D *does the happy dance for lack of vocabulary reasoning at this moment*

Thankies.

In return I’d like to share this award with everyone on my blog roll because I only read excellent blogs but there is one blogger in particular I’d like to take the time to mention.

Crazy Monkey of Doom

I have stumbled onto her blog quite recently and for my own reasons I want to give this award to her. She’s a good spirit making her way in the world and not afraid to blog about it.

I know. It’s taken my forever but I’m finally going to post up all those wonderful awards I’ve been given in the order they’ve been given. :) I’m sorry it’s taken so long, it’s just for things like this I like to think about what I’m going to say and the modest half of me scrunches up and gets all mousy with a loss for words, or as the case may be fingers to type with.

The three things I think that make an excelent writer with powerful words are:

Honesty – Because even when you’re writing fiction if you can’t look within and face your own personal truth no matter how ugly it might be than your words mean nothing. You can’t give a creation breath if it’s only 2d and you can’t create anything through writing unless you’re prepared to go deeper than you’ve ever gone before and acknowlege things you might not have in another craft. A writer must know and accept their soul.

A tolerance for pain – Writing can hurt sometimes. It can hurt showing others your work, even when they accept it and you’ve done it well. It can hurt to put something difficult on paper. And it can deffinetly hurt to pull something out of your soul or mind and try to put it on paper in such a way that everyone else can understand it and learn something.

An acceptance for pleasure – I love writing. Even when it hurts, it just feels so good when you look past society, inner turmoil, grammer, and all that other stuff. One needs to be able to look beyond all that even if they want to become a professional because in the end it will all mean nothing if you lose the joy you feel when pen meets paper or keys meet mother board. If you don’t enjoy your craft there’s ust no point to it

Now at The Shameless Lion’s Writing Circle, where this wonderful award originates, it says I need to pass this on to five deserving people- whom I’m asuming don’t yet have one. ;) Let’s see here I pick…

Jessie Carty. My first friend in the blogging world and a wonderful writer in both heart and mind! Never afraid to admit when things are getting hard yet constantly, though seemingly unknowingly, offering words of wisdom and uplifting thoughts that help me through my own struggles as a wannabe writier!

Mr. Grudge because he is awesome even if he doesn’t think he’s awesome and because he only writes what is truly important and never without a purpose. We could all learn a bit from his morals and life style I believe.

Preetilata of the White Window because when you read what she write’s you can help but smile and feel your heart being lifted up. Another wild spirit child in her own right who never fails to make sure I haven’t fallen off the blogosphere. :)

Just1More. Not just for his writing but for what he does with his writing. Helping others in his own special way, enccouraging new writer’s to come out of their note books and into the world (via 3Words), as well as offering up some of the most helpful comments I could ever wish for. Thank you.

JJ the Nature Nut of Nature Shows & Dreams. For painting the world in magick and beauty once again. Whenever I start to lose hope and think that this dying world will in fact be ravaged by pollution and stupid humans I run over to this blog. A true being of the forests. ;)

You can read the rules for the award here of how to pass it on and such as well as pick up your own copy of the award. Woot! Woot!

PS> My spell check is broken. Forgive my errors.

This is just one of my seven wonderful cat children. He’s my baby so I have to fawn over him the most. :)

ToaWS = my new project called Tales of a Wandering Spirit

So, I was on MSN the other day doing what I do best. People like to come to me for advice and no matter how many times I tell them I’m not the best person to ask they keep coming back. Instead of advice though I merely tell them about a similar situation and my thoughts on it, in the end making sure they still have to make up their minds themselves but at least having some info to go on. It’s like some Tao saying, the best teacher of them all is the teacher who teaches nothing but merely gives their students a way to learn. Not sure that’s worded right or from which part of the Tao Te Ching is spawns but it stuck in my head none the less.

Anyways, I was talking to one of my many online friends and they told me about a situation and all the things going on so I told them about a time in my life. I told them a story. Given it was split here and there by questions and answers and emoticons and each part could only be as long as the messenger box but the story I told ended up being as long and my ‘Manipulation pt. 1′ post and just as in depth though not written as well.

I was at ease and it didn’t hurt dredging up emotions and old memories like this. It’s just like with the posting. I feel able to be at distance because it’s just having a conversation and in the end I know the reader or other MSN’er will take something away from my words be it helpful, thoughtful, or they just remember it now and then.

I’m so excited about this whole idea I actually look forward to digging around my head and emptying the contents of my mind onto the paper. Given I won’t be able to do this more than once a week let alone once a month for emotional and mental health sake but I really do look forward to those urges I’m prone to. The urge to ‘tell’ someone about something that’s happened in my life.

I plan on using this excitement to my full advantage too. It’s rare I feel so at ease and excited about this particular kind of writing. To celebrate I’ve decided to work on a slightly happier memory. I’m very in the mood to write it and it’s nice to have a little reminder that so much good has also happened in my life I think you’ll enjoy hearing about it.

On a side but important note: Some of the ToaWS posts that I put up here will only be up for a month or so before I move them to my private writing blog. This is for a couple of reasons. Primarily because I don’t want someone to try to steal my idea and in concept my life and try to do something with it and because I will want to publish it someday. On a good note though I only said some. It will be rare that they will be written in such a way that I’m proud to call ‘actual writing’ instead of just posting, but my better ones that are less and less like a rough draft will go on that other blog with a link for those or you have access.

So, I’ve been thinking about something. Wait- I take that back. I’ve been thinking about a lot of thing but the past few days I’ve had a specific recurring thought. It’s about a new project. Don’t panic, it’s not really ‘new’ as it turns out I’ve been doing it all along it just wasn’t on my mental list of things I’m working which far exceeds the little list you see on the right hand side of this blog.

See, when I tell people about things in my life, stuff from my past, my memories, and stuff I’ve learned along the way many of them say I should write a book about it. I’ve thought about it many times and tried to start one many more times but I never got anywhere. Looking back I can see that my main problem was I tried to start from the beginning and work my way forwards but memories don’t work like that. My memories least of all what with large gaps from regression, the years I was medicated uneedfully, and the things I’ve fought so hard not to remember on a daily basis that they’ve fallen back into a dust little folder- said dust obscuring my mental vision. I would constantly give up and take up the idea again and again. It wasn’t something I worked on as much as my other stories since I’ve never given up on those but then again writing those isn’t entirely that painful.

But- when I wrote these bits and pieces from my past and posted them up here on my blog I did just fine. I was able to do it because I was just talking (i.e. typing) about things that had happened, telling others. I wasn’t trying to make a book or write it in any peticular order. I was writing it with the thought that others would see it but it was easier because I felt like I was just telling a story like I do in a conversation. It didn’t have to be perfect.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to compile a bunch of these posts and when I have enough and I’ve completely exhausted myself with this idea I will take them and attempt to put them in some semblance of order and make them into my book.

I’ve decided oddly enough that I might call it "Adventures of a Wandering Spirit". Catchy title, huh? :)

***ps. I swear to all the strange beings I believe in that I will be posting up the awards I’ve been given these past few months in the next day or so.***

***pss. I will have something new for the readers of my private blog in about a day.***

I’m very excited right now. My blog, Don’t Stop Searching, is actually working. People are submitting their searches and such! No success stories yet but it’s still early, either way I’m happy because it is out there and every search I post is another chance I give someone else. It makes me so happy.

Sometimes I honestly wonder if I’m a hypochondriac or something because it seems like there is always something wrong with me, in a health related sense. I’m used to people telling me it’s in my head or accusing me of faking or trying to get attention that I question myself even when I feel like crap. It’s a hideously bad habit that can cause all kinds of problems. For example when my hip and back start acting up I’ll keep working because I think the pain is in my head, and I’ll do this until either my leg gives out or I get smart enough to sit down. Heh, there was this one time I had the start of the flu or something and I went to work even though I could hardly stand up. It took two cooks and the head chef to tell me to go home. Then there was this other time I went in though I couldn’t stop coughing and I had tears streaming down my face…

Fortunately my Hunny has been working on me for over two years now and I’m starting to learn to trust myself. It’s not easy, even when I absolutely know something is wrong without a doubt and I know enough to say something about it there’s always that thing at the back of my mind questioning; ‘is this real?’ ‘am I making this up?’ ‘is someone going to think I’m making it up?’. It’s all rather sucky.

The past week and a half, mayhaps two weeks now, I’ve been having breathing problems. I was sitting at my laptop, just like I am now, and all of a sudden my chest kind of hurt. I’m used to the occasional anxiety attack here and there for no reason so I just ignored it thinking it would leave eventually. It didn’t. To top it off it was a totally different kind of pain, my anxiety attacks or whatever they are called usually include a slight but sharp pain that is easy to pinpoint. It gets sharper when I breath in and usually is near my heart. This was a dull pain, hard to point at and it covered a large area below my collar bone. It didn’t hurt so much as was uncomfy and felt like pressure, it didn’t get worse with breathing but it was like the air was starting to feel a little thick, I ignored that part completely.

My first reaction to an anxiety attack is to breath slow and add subtle pressure to the point of the pain, dulling it in a sense. This did not work but I continued to ignore it, maybe it was nothing. About and hour and a half later I was having trouble typing on MSN to my friend and it just would go away. In fact it felt worse and now I couldn’t ignore the fact that the air felt wrong. I had a sudden sense of Déjà Vu.

Once, a couple of years back my adoptive sis and I went to spend the night at a friends house. It wasn’t the first time and there was nothing out of the unusual. We swam, ran around, blah, blah, blah. Night came and we snuggled down. I couldn’t sleep though. Something felt uncomfy, mind you I didn’t have the chest pain, but it felt like I couldn’t get air into the bottom of my lungs. I tried to keep my breathing slow because I no better than to hyperventilate myself. Still didn’t work and I was coughing now. I tried to keep it quiet until tears were streaming down my face and I had to sit up clutching my chest because I couldn’t get any air in.

I’m sad to say I ended up waking the whole house up. Our friend, smart dear as she was, ran and got her brother’s inhaler and explained how to use it. I did and was feeling much better not five or ten minutes later. Similar experiences have happened since then, but no more than two a year and never to that point so like a dip shit I thought nothing of it until now.

I waited another hour and when the pain didn’t go away I finally said something to my Hunny. More time passed and we aired out the house and gave me some stuff to help open my lungs up and ended up knocking me out… It was very eventful. Every night since then the same thing has happened. Not just at night, not just as home but at work, in the truck, at the store. In fact I think I’ve only gone two days this whole week without it happening. The past day or so has been the worst. I’m pretty sure it’s asthma of some type or another for varying reasons. Both my brothers and my mother and supposedly my father all have it though none of them other than my mother bad enough to need an inhaler. And with my mother I know she had one but I never once saw her use it. To top it off premature borns have a more natural tenancy to it and I’m also at the typical age for onset asthma in women.

The worst part of all this is I don’t yet have health insurance. I’m working on it. I just need to call some place or another and if I’m lucky they’ll take me. We shall see, anyways, this is a useless post. I just felt like complaining I suppose but it’s nice to get it off my chest. Goodness knows I have enough pressure there already.

Nothing inspiring here. Just an update on life. Feel free to skip. I’m sure I’ll write something interesting in the next post.

Wow, and I thought December was a low posting month for me! Fortunately it’s still early and like always I am too full of words to go long without sharing. I haven’t even been reading blogs these passed few days because I was busy with the reopening of my website.  I had nearly 70 members to transfer from one directory to another, manual password changes, and personalized emails sent out. So, for once I don’t feel too guilty for being gone so long.

I’m doing much better this week than the last. I’ve let the whole job thing fall into numbness where it shall rot and eventual decompose and recycle itself as a future writing project. Just like all my other issues. If you’re a writer and people claim you bottle stuff away you should tell them "Nope, I’m just proud to recycle" and besides anything can be turned into a writing experience and I’m not really ignoring how I feel about because I know when I relive it on the keyboard I’ll feel it ten times as worse- I’m just deciding to deal with it on a later date when I’m less prone to handling it poorly. On that note, I’m proud to say I’m slowly getting my balance back and the thoughts I was having have faded back into the small box I keep them in at the back of my soul. To sum it up: I’m all good.

I’ve been working on a new story (when I wasn’t hard coding and trying to get my forum to look navigatable) the past week or so which is a record for me. Usually I have trouble working on one single writing related project for more than 4 days unless my inspiration has had some caffeine. My Hunny was trying to encourage me to learn some self disciplin because I’m always complaining that I can’t seem to finish anything, so I’m trying my darnedest to only work on this one story for as long as I can (unless my inner muse suddenly gets bored and smacks her head into the walls of my skull in frustration and I get inspired by the bruise it creates). So far so good, I worked my way past a plot whole and a boring part. Mind you I’m still in the outlining process so it feels very much like NaNo writing. I’m nearly at 20,000 words. 16,000 if you disregard my notes but I don’t since it is still just an outline and the bigger word count makes me giggle.

Usually I write in a mostly fantasy type genre -or- I write something about child abuse, a rather new passion of mine to be honest. With this latest story I find myself writing about both of them. It’s not adult or overtly mature in some parts like the rest of my chapter work but instead it’s more for young adults and instead of being inwardly deep (like my other stuff) it’s outwardly deep. I find myself pulling at experiences I’ve lived through for inspiration in parts but not writing about them in a way that wrenches my soul like Rain of the Forgotten. It’s interesting and I find myself wondering at the subconscious psychology behind my sudden ‘idea’ for this story. You can see the pathetic summary for it to your left in my updated list of projects. It’s titled as Untitled. :) I should have a short excerpt or two up on my private writing blog soon. For anyone who doesn’t have access to my private blog but who wants it- email me and I’ll think about it.

Went to Olive Garden today with my Hunny and his mom. I got to eat shrimp so I’m mighty happy about that and I quite enjoyed the stories of his childhood and such. After that we went to Borders and I was elated to find out an anime series I’ve fallen for had another DVD out. I plan on watching it shortly after this post. After all this I came home and worked on my site for a bit, well, I didn’t really work on it. I just made a bunch of forum posts and added one new feature. Then I took a nap waiting for my friend Val to come over for the very last time- she’s moving to Virginia.

I’m very sad about that last bit there. I haven’t known her very long but she’s pretty much my best friend. We met online via a mutual friend that I did know in real life and then we started to hang out not long after. She would come over, we’d sleep till noon and stay up till daybreak, eat nothing but pizza and do our own thing. Neither of us were very social so we didn’t expect much of one another. It was nice not to have anything expected of me. I gave her advice and tried to help her with some things and without knowing it she did the same for me. I’m glad she’s moving because it will bring her to a better life and get her away from certain bad habits that are harmful but I’m still very sad. I haven’t yet cried but I can feel the lump in my throat and I’ve been listening to a lot of music that I know will make it bigger.

She’s pretty excite but none too happy about the single weeks notice as that’s hardly enough time to say goodbyes. She’s promised to call me and email on occasion but I still feel strange, but, not depressed yet but now I won’t be able to watch out for her and that makes me feel… well bad. Bad enough I had a nightmare about her death of all things.

But, I’m still doing good. I’m not going to let this scar me, merely a bruise that will fade over time. I love her like I love so many others and I already knew I couldn’t protect her entirely or help her as much as I wanted to and I know this isn’t going to kill me but I still want to be sad. Just not till she’s gone that way I don’t make her sad. I feel bad enough that she has to leave her cat children behind.

PS: Double and triple thankies to all you worried people out there who emailed me when I disappeared. I apologize for making you concerned.

Hey all this is just to let you know that I’m alive! Will be posting and catching up on reading and commenting in a bit tonight. After several emails I have discovered that people are worried about me so- here I am! I’m alive! No worries! I promise I’m not depressed enough to disappear off the face of the earth.

Never fear all I have not fallen off the face of the earth though I have landed on my face more than once. My mood is picking up though I’m still going through some issues. You can expect to see more posts soon I promise. I have to finish my community site, go to work a couple times, deal with some scary health issues, and say goodbye to one of my best friends all before the seventh of this month so please bear with me!

Mood of the moment: Tired but content and wondering why my posts are so long winded. Do I really have that much to say or do I just drag my words out? I wonder if they are too long? Feedback?

Thought of the moment: My eyes hurts and I’m too lazy to wear my glasses. I’m also wondering if I should poke the dreaming cat on my lap. He actually swats people when he wakes from nightmares and if I wake him now I might only be bitten.

Wonder of the moment: I wonder if I should just make all most posts and save them as drafts so I can post them one at a time because it seems when I’m having one of those days and have like six posts I want to make that only the last one gets comments and, as far as my mind thinks, read. All the same it feels untruthful to publish a post about my day when it’s something I wrote about a day not the day of the publishing. I wonder why people rarely comment on old posts. I wonder why is matters. I wonder why I’m making this post and what I had for dinner last night.

Quill: I will be making that post I promise! I just need to think of three things. I know I’m so lazy but thinking for me is a full time job and I take it all too seriously.

This post is hereby dedicated to Preetilata (who has unknowingly inspired me on more than one occasion now) and Just1More (who recently ‘stumbled’ upon me and helped me see things from a different pov). Thankies to you both.

As most of you out there know I’ve been kind of down lately, what you didn’t know is that I was more than just down. I’ve been having a lot of trouble dealing with certain stressors, past and present issues, as well as a particular ailment that tends to sneak up at the worst times. All this on top of the regular unforeseen health issues and a dear friend of mine moving.

I has been very difficult. *sigh* When I was much younger, say as young as 6 or 7 I was a self abuser. It’s not something I learned or had heard about it’s just something I would do during times of stress. Mostly as a self punishment kind of thing.

Before I continue I’d like to ease your worries. I haven’t done anything along these lines for mayhaps over two years.

To continue… Sometimes I would do it many times a week sometimes I would go months without doing it but it was always a part of my life. The more I look at it the more I realize that I had done it a lot more than I realized…. anyway back on track….

Like I said I haven’t done it for mayhaps over two years and I’m proud of that. The last bout of ‘SI’ I went through I scared myself into telling my therapist and requesting to be put on medication. I was in my last foster home at the time and let’s just say there was an extreme stressor and I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I ever considered taking my own life and escaping. Self abuse was never like that for me before.

That was the worst time. About two or three months later I ‘got out’ of foster care through ‘my own’ legal ingenuity and quite the pills cold turkey. I have an issue with pills so this wasn’t as hard as it sounds minus a few mood swings. Shortly after I left I moved in with my now fiance’ and quite the ‘SI’ (self injury) cold turkey.

It was easy at first. It’s not like I think about it all the time, only when I’m having those moments. In the past two years I’ve only had three bouts of the wanting to do it but I haven’t. This past time was the worst because so much was going on. So- I made sure there was nothing in my purse that could harm me at work and I kept myself busy when I was home alone. The self destructor in my still hasn’t told my Hunny that I was going through one of these bouts but he knows about my ailment and knows to pick out the warning signs.

I’m proud to say I’ve made it through this one without even digging my extremely long nails into my arms or hands either on purpose or accident. I haven’t even tried to claw myself (I know it sounds grotesque to think one would do these things but it’s part of the sickness). As I look back on this pride of mine I can smile a little. So what if I have weaknesses and they are holding me back in other areas of my life such as my job and such. I can’t control those, there is nothing I can do about my crooked back and hip, my build, my lacking social skills or any of that. There’s not a single thing I can do.

But-

This one thing in my life, this addiction, this sickness that has plagued me my entire life is under my control. This weakness that has more power over me than any of that is within my grasp. Barley, I mean it is still there just under the skin always within my reach and on the fringes of my mind but it’s something I can fight and so far we are at a stalemate. I haven’t won but I haven’t lost either and that’s what matters.

Now this is the part that those two wonderful bloggers inspired. I meant to write this in the first place but the rest just kind of spilled out of me. But like an artist seeing a new portrait in spilt paint I too shall leave my unplanned words because I see the meaning in them.

This whole experience HAS taught me something after all. At first I didn’t think the whole job issue (see utterly heartbroken post) would teach me a single thing except that my weaknesses really could hold me back but I have learned one thing and oddly enough I’ve been reminded of a philosophy so ingrained in my mind that I’m shocked I over looked it.

I have two theories that I have held my entire life and they have kept me going in the worst of times: There is no light without darkness and no darkness without light. Nothing is finite, all things must have a chaotic balance and a perfect imperfection. The other is that one must walk through the darkness to truly be able to see the light and vice versa.

The first one applies to the fact that like all things this too shall pass and I will move on. Though it seems so bad right now there are good things going on around me I just need to squint to see them.

The second is more prominent to the purpose of this post. Last new year I spent at work, it was an awful night and everything went wrong but I was smiling like an idiot all the same thinking about all the things I had to be happy for. This year I spent it in the same place under the same conditions but I was frowning and dare I say bitching at everything and everyone because everything sucked!

Now that I look back I realize something. If it weren’t for the bad things I wouldn’t really truly be able to appreciate the good things in my life. Without having people point out my weaknesses and scorn me for them I would not have had this opportunity to see some of my strengths and feel pride over them. I have lost nothing and gained nothing from this experience as far as good things and bad things are concerned.

I have only learned that I must remember to look at things with both a dark and a bright eye for not to I might as well be blind for all I’m concerned.

Thank you both for making me think. I have so much to think about now I think I can finally get back to being me and forget about the things that break my heart and hold me back.