Pages From My Journal

This will be a fantastic story. No one is going to read this. I have no idea what's going on. Coffee If I write it perfect now, I won't have to edit. Perfection is impossible, failing is inevitable. Now this, this is a genius idea. Has anyone come up with this before? The movie soundtrack to this scene would be amazing. I wonder what it's like to feel that? I'm grossly unqualified to write about life. These characters are committing mutiny. I need to have a backup plan if I get rejected again. Cupcakes. I wish more of my friends understood what it's like to be a writer. It feels so good to have aching fingers from typing. I will only use Pinterest for inspiration. I will not, in any way, get distracted. Oo, chocolate cake. Writing is harder than I thought. I feel like this is taking too long. These two characters: I ship them. Why is one of my minor characters my favorite to write? Am I the onl...

My cousin (center) came to visit my sister and I a few weeks ago.     I've been writing: Philosophy paper about the ontology of fictional characters. Politics paper about the cultural shift from a print based world to a visual based world and the implications on public discourse. A speech advocating for domestic adoption.   Things I plan to write: Letter to best friend--we rarely text, and we try to write letters. WIP rewrite--haven't touched it in a long time, but I'm almost 1,500 words in. Blog posts--I've got some cool ideas, and I'm going to try to get them written down.   Things I've found at goodwill: Converse Pink pants Ann Taylor LOFT sweater Jeans that I don't have to roll up!   Things I've gotten excited about: My new skirt from my friend Hannah Everly Learning how to do aerials in swing dancing The fact that my pet fish is still alive. To be perfectly honest, I expected it to die fairly quickly. ...

     A couple days ago, I posted on Instagram this photo about some discouragement I've been feeling lately. Over the past few weeks, my time has been consumed by two papers for both my politics and philosophy classes. I had already been struggling to find a balance between my writing and my schoolwork, but lately it's been abnormally hard to set my writing aside over and over again.      To make things more difficult, my philosophy paper's topic was about the ontology of fictional characters. I spent many, many hours working on an argument for the state of existence of fictional characters. All my time poured into analyzing characters while my own were just sitting on my shelf, waiting to be written. I had to tell them, "No, you have to wait," so many times it hurt. Inspiration seemed to come every time I sat down to write something else. Discouragement increased everyday I didn't get to write.      Tuesday, I wo...

    New Books-- Clean, unscratched covers. White, unwrinkled paper. Stiff, unopened bindings. These three things that make a writer smile. The neat thing about new books is that they get all writers excited, not just the authors. Every writer gets excited about new books, even if it's not "theirs." Old Book-- Dusty, ripped pages. Faded, stained words. Withering, broken covers. Old books attract attention because their story transcends the plot of the tale within. Writer's hold old books and think, "I wish my books will one day be loved so much that someone would take the time to preserve them and pass them onto another owner." Children's Books-- Sometimes the simplest plots reveal the greatest about our world. Every writer understands the difficulty of writing a book for children, because they deal with the same emotional, relational problems we do, just in different terms. Essentially children's books challenge the same world adult ...

     I knew they were about to take my family away from me. I would soon be forced to say goodbye to my three foster brothers and foster sister. I couldn't fight for them--I didn't have the power to stop this injustice.        As of then, I didn't know specifics, but the day was coming when I'd have to deal with my family being ripped apart. Everything was about to go terribly wrong, and I did see it coming.      I walked into school that afternoon. There were five minutes left of study hall before I had to go to class, so I sat in the cold hall, pulled out a pen and paper, and wrote down a list of things that made me a smile.      The list wasn't long--maybe three things. I don't remember what I wrote, and I can't find the list.            Smiling didn't get me through that day. Writing that list didn't make me smile at all. But, it did force ...

     My seat on the panel was on the end. Two chairs over, sat Nancy Rue, one of my favorite authors as a child. The man next to me had cried that morning after reading my poetry--a situation I was not expecting. I was grossly unqualified to sit next to these professionals, and as teens asked their questions, I mulled over responses, never feeling like I had a good enough answer. I offered my prospective a couple times, but I knew that every other person on that panel could provide better insight.            "How do I stay focused on God if everything starts to go well."        This teen's question made me look up from my knees. As he finished explaining his fear of losing sight of God during success, I began to fidget in my seat.      I don't know why I felt like I had the knowledge to answer his question. My success was by far the simplest of the panel. My n...

Quiet. Calm down, brain. This is not your time to speak. I need this time to work. You're in my way. I know you're excited and stressed. I'll get to you, I promise. Please, learn some patience. Your thoughts can wait. My deadlines can't. My head hurts. I want to sleep. But, I can't You know that. I know you have a story to say, But I need you to wait. I'm sorry. *** I'm working through the struggle of being a student first and writer second. This lesson is harder than I expected, but I am learning. ~ Alyson