On fear, Panic Attacks and Overcoming Them.
Being vulnerable is important as an artist and storyteller. Being able to speak "from the heart" and express yourself honestly, like an open book, gives the things you write and create a heart and a soul and brings people into them in a way you can't otherwise. All the great creators say that. And I know it, intellectually, logically and from that place in my gut that tells me whether or not I'm doing the right thing or not.
But I can't, for the life of me, actually apply this.
I'm terrified. Absolutely, completely terrified by this idea of putting a part of yourself, expressing vulnerability, on the page or in the picture. And it's affecting my life. Because it's not just in my creative work that this is a problem anymore. I'm afraid of opening up to people.
I had the worst panic attack I've ever experienced a few days ago, which ended in me crouched over the toilet attempting to calm the feeling of nausea. All because I couldn't open up to my boyfriend about why I was afraid of talking to him about why I wanted to wait for a while before I moved straight back in with him.
Even right now, writing this I can feel the fear creeping up like a vine, saying "Don't post this. This is over emotional BS. No one wants to read about your issues." But it hurts NOT to write it.
I want to pour everything I have into something I create. I want to have people read something I write and cry from heartache because they love the characters so much. I want to create something that gives people the same feeling I do when I watch a show that hits me like a tonne of bricks, a story that makes me sit up and think "I can do anything", something that touches people at their very core.
So I'm figuring this out. Bit by bit. I've been hiding in a corner for a long time, fighting harder and harder for the right to stay there. But the walls of the corner are coming down, bit by bit. I won't have anywhere to hide soon. And instead of looking for the next hiding place I'll need to turn around and face the things that are scary.
Whatever those things are.
I suck… BUT that’s about to change!
Acceptance isn't the end. It's part of the process.
I used to think "I want to accept myself as I am." Then I realised I wasn't changing. Why? I thought, Why wasn't I changing? Was accepting myself really that bad? I even half wrote a blog post about it (without publishing, thankfully), a shit whiny thing about the war between self acceptance and self improvement.
Half way through writing the post, I went off to think about it and read a bunch of blogs in the process. One of which was Mars Dorians post "The Bitter Truth You Have to Embrace (IF You Want to be Remarkable)". I love reading Mars because he always gives a fresh perspective on things, and usually a huge kick up the arse, too. This time I read it and it hit something in what I was writing about. Acceptance, I figured, was idiotic! If you accept yourself, you'll never change, and so the idea then is to not accept yourself and be happy with yourself because you're improving yourself. Acceptance is bull shit! I raved about how accepting yourself was an idiotic thing to do. Accepting things was a cop out! I said.
Deluded?
But you know what? This still felt wrong. It felt like I was missing something, like half of the equation wasn't there.
Eventually I realised that, you know what? I've been looking at it wrong. Acceptance wasn't the be all and end all, it was a stepping stone in a three-part process. Unless you accept something as the way it is, you can't change it. I'd always heard that, but something hadn't fit with me because I hadn't been looking at acceptance in the right way.
Here's what happens when something goes on in your life. Let's use a bull as an example;
A bull is in front of you and it's storming towards you extremely fast!
The first thing you do is have some sort of instant feeling: Fear, for example.
Then comes acceptance. We accept that, oh shit, there's a fucking bull storming towards me.
That's when most people stop. Most people at this point stick around in "oh shit, there's a fucking bull storming towards me" and get hit by the bull. They accept that there's a bull there and we accept that we're wetting our pants but they don't do the next, life saving step:
Decide to do something about it! For example: Get out of the way of the bull! Or grab the thing, or you know, do something that means you won't be in the way of the bull any more.
But you can't do something about the bull until you accept that the bull is there. Maybe you think "Oh, there's no bull, it's just my imagination," and pretend it's not there to make yourself feel all warm and cosy. (This was my favourite tactic. 'What problem? There's no problem.') Maybe you think you can't do anything about it. "Well, there's a bull coming. Guess I'm about to get hit by it.") ACCEPT it. There's a bull coming. Now you know that you can do something. You're overweight? ACCEPT it. Now you've accepted that instead of pretending you're perfect and there's nothing wrong with you, you can change it. Or you can get all whiny about it like I used to. Your choice.
The end of an exciting month: NaNoWriMo review
I did it.
I actually did it.
I can't tell you how unbelievably excited I am to say I actually hit 50,000 words at about 4am on Friday night, got it validated on the NaNoWriMo website straight away and immediately started crying with joy. Seriously. I was in tears.
It was actually pretty sad, because I didn't think I'd actually get emotional about hitting my end-of-month word count (and being able to cross it off the Life List, by the way). But looking back, it's actually meant a great deal to me to have finished it. And although the novel I wrote is not yet finished (I still have another 30k to write before I reach my final first-draft-target for it), I have 50,020 words more than I did 26 days ago.
If you told me back in March that by the end of the year I'd have written 50k on the same story by the end of the year, I would have probably laughed at you (after I'd gotten over the idea of you being a time traveller, of course) and then sobbed into a ball of frustrated angst. It would have been a very sorry sight. Now I feel like I want to go back to that old self, that self who didn't trust herself to start anything new, who had far too many experiences to back her up that I was a loser, and say "It's okay. It get's better. You turn out awesome in the end, and you don't even have that far to go."
And if I ever again dare to doubt my ability to meet a goal, I have a damn certificate to shut me up.
That thing is getting framed and then getting hung on my wall.
Once December is out of the way, I'm going to work on finishing the first draft of the book, and then progressively editing it until I have a version that is decent enough to mail to publishers. That's the next step in this story. But the very fact that I can close the chapter on this part is enough to keep me going through the rest of it.
The Joys of Unemployment…
I wrote this last month, because this month I'll be working on my NaNoWriMo novel and won't be blogging as much. Enjoy it!
Quitting my job at Sainsbury's has been one of the best things I ever did. Yes, it would probably have been more responsible if I'd gotten a decent income before I handed in my notice, and yes, not telling people I quit my job was probably not the most sensible thing I've ever done in my life. But the actual act of being unemployed as been a very educational experience.
I've learnt that there's a very painful social stigma attached to being unemployed. When people ask me that evil, horrible question "What do you do?" (And by the way, that question should be stripped out of the usual conversation, put in a vat of hot oil and fire and boiled slowly to death, in the most painful way possible, while being watched by people singing "We hate you, you evil question", which is sung in the same tune as "We wish you a Merry Christmas", and the whole tune should be video taped . Then someone should burn the tape in a similar way, possibly with more singers) they react with a look of horror when you tell them you're looking for a job. As if every unemployed person around my age is an evil, money grabbing, lazy leech who will never amount to anything and should be treated in the same way I want to treat the question they just asked me.
I've also learnt, that I'm not the only one who feels as though their confidence takes a huge hit every time someone reacts this way. And it's really hurting a lot of people out there, who are unemployed for reasons that aren't anywhere near wanting to leech of the rest of the country. The social pressure to get a job; any job, even jobs that are seriously below their skill and / or comfort level, jobs they're really overqualified for, jobs that make them want to cry when they go to bed at night because they're not using their unique talents to their fullest extent, it's heartbreaking. I've spoken to some people in that situation who have gotten so depressed in their work situation that they couldn't bare to go out and look for more work, or feel so ashamed of where they work that they want to quit the job all over again.
I say we need to change the social stigma there is to being unemployed. So people don't react with surprise and annoyance when they hear it, or act like the person is something awful they wouldn't want to step in. Some people lost their job unintentionally; some people, myself for example, quit their job to get out of the industry they were in; and some people are just leeches who want everyone else to pay for them, but we shouldn't be all shoved into the same category.
If you're reading this and you are unemployed, I'm not just going to tell you "Get a job!", because I've been under that knife before and it makes me cringe. What I will tell you though, is that you're in an excellent situation. I know that's not what everyone wants to tell you. But you suddenly have the freedom to start something fresh. If you've wanted a career change for the past few years but have been afraid to quit; if you wanted some spare time to start up a business (which you can do on no money) or if you've felt like there was more to you then just a crummy supermarket job then figure out what you want to do and take it. Maybe take a job that pays the bills, but that doesn't have to be your new career. Use it to find out what you don't want to do. Use your freedom to create the life for yourself you always wanted. I figured out a lot about myself through my unemployment. One of those things was, that I figured out I was trying to hard to be something I'm not suited for. Now I'm steadily working my way through things I don't want in my life, so I'll gradually find out what I DO want. And I would never have done that if I hadn't been unemployed.
Since writing this, I've managed to get another job which I'll have until the new year. I'm still grateful for the experience and wouldn't change it for the world!
The Wake Up Early Project Recap
This month I've attempted to wake up at 6am every single day. And almost every single day I...
failed miserably. I did manage to get up before 9am for about six random days, which was definitely an improvement on the norm, but overall it was just a poor, poor result. And I'm really disappointed in myself.
I did find that, on the days I got up earlier, I was significantly more alert, generally happier and more productive than I was on the days were I slept in late. And so, despite the month being at an end, I intend to continue attempting to get up early, practising what I've learnt this month until I can get up at 6am affectively as a habit. I've read so much on the subject now that, I strongly believe that getting up early is one of the most important things to do in order to live a satisfying life.
Starting tomorrow, I'll be attempting to write a 50,000 word novel. Because I'll be trying to keep most of my writing time specifically to the novel, I'll not write blogs... but I'll try and get at least one in, in two weeks time to talk about my progress... Until then, have fun and if you're taking part in NaNoWriMo, good luck to you!
How I intend to survive NaNoWriMo
I've been feeling calm about NaNoWriMo all month, probably because I've been focussed on other things. Like being in Majorca, or attempting to wake up at an ungodly hour every day. Then, over the past couple of days as this week has drawn to a close, I've started to feel a creeping sense of panic. This is probably due to the fact that,
1. I, midway through this month, decided to change what story I'd be writing from a cutesy fun adventure story, to a story that's been sitting in my mind brewing for years and absolutely terrifies me;
2. Whenever I write anything, it's never more than a thousand words and I have to really push myself to get past the 1500 count;
3. I have to push myself to write every day, and often don't write unless I'm "inspired" to do so...
4. I'm unemployed and still have to find a damn job while writing this thing!
Taking number four out of the equation for the moment (and even with it in), I'm left with a pretty bleak picture of how the month is going to go. Based on my current writing performance, it'll probably look something like this: Month starts off well, in second week writing doesn't get close to 1000 words per day, end of the month I've given up and am crawling out of a McDonalds seeking comfort and sympathy from the bottom of a chocolate milkshake. That is not what I want to happen.
So, I have devised a strategy for getting through NaNoWriMo, that well, if I'm honest, I have no idea if it'll help me at all. But with the idea of "failure to plan is planning to fail" behind me, I'm gonna go straight for it!
So without further ado, read my tools and learned advice for NaNoWriMo after the jump...
My foggy morning head.
It turns out that the only time I don't want to wake up at 6 am, is, of course, precisely at 6.00 am.
Three alarms are set to 6.00 am every morning, and every morning they wake me up, I turn them all off and then clamber back into bed and go to sleep for a couple more hours. Although I've been getting up a hell of a lot earlier than I used to (11 am is no healthy get-up time), it ends up being more like 8 am, and that's at best.
I need a new routine.
I've read quite a lot of information on the art of getting up as soon as your alarm goes off, and my favourite website on the subject is StevePavlina.com/. Steve used to be in my exact position, and has since trained himself to automatically get up at 5am; as soon as his alarm goes off. I know exactly what Steve talks about when he talks about "Fog of Brain", and I don't know many people who haven't experienced it. So I'll try out Steve's method to getting up straight away.
And, if you read it, it sounds bizarre. The idea is, practise getting up when your alarm goes off, but NOT in the morning. So, at 1pm when the last thing you want to do is sleep, you set your alarm for a couple of minutes, lie down and get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Eventually, your subconscious will be so used to getting up when the alarm goes off, that you'll just do it naturally.
So here goes. I've got 2 and a half weeks left to get this down, so I'll give you another progress report next week!
Reality Check: Stupid is as Stupid Does
I'm pretty dumb sometimes. But I'm human, so, that's a given. Not a second goes by where a human being doesn't make a mistake. But that's probably what's made us the most advanced-thinking species on the planet.
I lied about something stupid (the fact that I lied at all is stupid, but that's another story) and it really hurt some people who very important to me. While questioning myself why I did that, I found out a few facts. Like... how I keep desperately trying to protect peoples image of me. Trying to keep my reputation "clean" in some peoples eyes. And that causes me to either avoid talking to them, or, in this case, lie about something dumb.
Well, that's probably the most stupid thing I can do. Everyone will have a different opinion of me, so trying to carve everyone's opinion of me into something perfect is just downright stupid and eventually those very people I've been trying to like me will be hurt. And, well, that happened. So it seems instead of listening to the advice of hundreds of people in books, I'm living in that painful hard way where I learn from experience. So I can tell people later on "Yeah, don't do that, I know from experience that it's a dumb thing to do."
Here's a couple of facts for you: I'm a delusional, niave, ridiculously insecure, foolish, terribly shy, bitchy, idiotic, emotional human girl who makes mistakes.
I'm gonna stop trying to hide all that from the world now.
I’ve Been Naughty
Yesterday I did some filming for a short series of films I wanted to do. It was a lot of fun (except the part where it was terrifying) and I felt like I did a good thing because I'd done something. But I realised later on that evening that I'd actually been naughty because that's not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. I already have a script I'm meant to be working on.
I started writing this script about a month ago, and I decided that, this will be my film project for now until it's finished. I won't work on any other of my projects until it's completed. Working on other peoples film projects is fine, but I can't start anything else for myself. And then I went and started writing this new script and even started filming some of it!
I'm forgiving myself a little bit because at the end of the day, I had fun, it was enjoyable to get those ideas out and to get started on something was really rewarding. But I'm not going to work on that project until my main script is completed. I do have other projects in the works, so my scanner-brain can be happy doing several different projects at a time, like my illustration project Third Time Lucky.
It feels good to get back on track actually, I feel a little as though I was distracted and getting focused on this again has given me some more direction, so I'm quite glad this little experience happened.
Hi, I'm Sarah and thanks for checking out my blog! I'm currently taking photographs of a Bunny sitting on various peoples heads, trying to figure out my life and blogging about it as I go! Join me for the ride, it should be fun :) You can learn more about me by reading my About Page...
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