The Medicine I Need the Most

This week has been unemotional. I don't really mean that in a good way.

I read my Bible every day, and pay attention to the words, think about what they mean. I make connections and begin to see those famous verses in their original contexts. I've learned a lot. I pray every day, and I love the time I spend in prayer - how I can talk to my Lord about anything, and know that he listens.

But this past week I've been just so blah. I read it and I get it and I even remember it afterward, but my heart doesn't stir; I don't feel that fire burning in my chest when I just need to celebrate God, to share Him, to surround myself in His Words and His presence. It's tempting to blame it on my medication - I'm on anti-depressants, some people just don't feel anything, on and on. But I don't think it's that, because I can get passionate and angry and sad and excited on the meds. And there's nothing wrong with God; he's the great mechanic - he isn't broken.

So, my conclusion is, there's something wrong with me. And I see it in my life; I make all these promises to the Lord - prayer throughout the day, the attitude I will have toward things, the way I will spend more time usefully to glorify Him. Yet I continue to put junk into my mind, to choose to daydream instead of pray, to waste time on Facebook instead of having a conversation with a friend who doesn't know Him.

And I make - and break - these promises to God every day! And every day He shows me something new, teaches me something new; yet my attitude keeps pushing Him away.

I don't need a change of heart; I need a transplant. Take out the old, me-motivated monster, and replace it with a spirit-filled heart.

A few weeks ago, I asked God to humble me, to show me that I cannot do it on my own. He has. I keep trying to do it on my own, and I can't. My own determination is nothing more than that. I don't know if the lesson has sunk in further than my brain yet, but I keep pressing on; I so dearly want to be someone worthy of the title "Christian." And the conundrum is this; I can't do it on my own, but I have to choose to let the great God-surgeon in to do His work.

We're working on it.

About Nothing At All

Here I am, blogging with nothing to write.

Life has been good lately. Each day went by and I felt like, wow, I'm okay with that. Maybe I'm just learning not to beat myself up over things I've already been forgiven for, and instead look forward to doing better the next day. Maybe I am, in fact, doing better each day.

Yesterday was one of those days where I realize that the good life doesn't last. That, for every good day, I'm going to have to wade through a few sucky days. Today, however, has not been - so far - a sucky day.

This past week I picked up the clarinet again. Just because I wanted to; and I'm enjoying it. Not like I've done a lot of playing, and not like I'm very good - but I forgot how much I loved to play. It always seemed odd to love music without being truly passionate about it, when I know my talents lie in other areas. Yet I'm looking forward to being able to play more and better things.

In other news, I got my new passport picture taken today. I look like a surprised person sucking on lemon, simultaneously. I think there's a rule about official photographs - school ID, driver's license, passport; they all must look like crap, or you're not doing it right.

Off to play Mario Kart with Squeaker. See ya folks.

Nightmares and Cliches

I finally finished the Fafsa. That application is a monkey's bare bottom. Not like I'll get any money from it, but I like to cross my t's and dot my i's.

So, I'm reading Stephen King's "The Green Mile" which is brilliant and creepy and I woke up in the middle of the night from a wierd nightmare that I sussed was based on my reading the book... I've spent the entire day trying to remember the nightmare, because while it was scary at the time, I recall waking up and being impressed with my subconcious for coming up with it.

For the last 5 weeks of my writing course, there seems to be a pattern emerging. I can do the characterization and the plot and the point of view - but I always use ten words where two would suffice. So, I'm working on sharpening my prose - and eliminating cliche's, though this is a toughie because certain characterizations necessitate cliches in the narrative, and it's a matter of knowing when.

I suppose you could take the previous paragraph as a "case in point." I couldn't come up with a good non-cliche for that.

"The Remains of the Day"

I just finished reading a beautiful little book called "The Remains of the Day," by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is essentially the tale of a butler, who becomes so enveloped in his profession that it affects his views on his personal life - the death of his father, the possibility of love. It's written so consistently in this butler's voice - it feels very natural.

The best (and most beautiful) part about it, though, what how subtle the author was. If you weren't much of a reader and picked up the book it would bore you to tears, because you would be far less likely to pick up on the way the little actions and implications that Mr. Stevens cannot notice - and that drive the story.

And it's so relevant! How many workaholics exist in the world today! Driven by money or passion, it doesn't matter; their work consumes them. And though I picked up on the hints and the foreshadowing in the book, am I blind to these things in my own life? How much do I not see?

It took me ages to read, but it was well worth the time because it needed to sink in. Another book for the ever-growing "reread" pile - I know I'll find more in that one than I did the first time through. It is certainly a new favorite of mine.

The Line

I am straddling a line.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about maturity - about what it is and about how we get it. Do we get our maturity from our experience or from our years? I am 19, but I still live like a 17 year old. Am I somehow less mature, because I have been denied those experiences? What am I wiser about, thanks to my own experiences?

I live very much in my own head. I think about how I'm feeling, what I am doing next, what is important to me. Yet, I have moments where I have to make decisions - tiny ones - where I act a little less from inside my head. It doesn't happen often enough, but I am aware of it when it does.

So, I realized tonight, that I am straddling a line. I am a nineteen year old girl. I can choose to see myself as a flaky teenager susceptible to emotion and not responsible to anyone else but herself. Or, I can choose to see myself as an older girl, hardly a teenager anymore, capable of a great many more things than she has had the opportunity to do lately.

The line between the two is so thin. It is, I suppose, the line between choosing to do my own laundry or just leaving it for Mum. It is the line between learning how to cook real rice or just getting the quick stuff. It is the line between choosing to teach myself Spanish, and just leaving it all until I get to school. None of these good things I have chosen, though I am quite capable of them, and have the best of intentions to do.

My conclusion is that I am at a point - personally, I doubt it applies to everyone my age - where the state of my maturity depends on me. I get to choose how much of a grown-up I want to be. I have been denied certain experiences that would force me to learn things and adjust to things - so I must make the choices that would develop these new understandings in me.

I am not less of a responsible being because I have not had my first kiss or lived away from home or had to pay my own transportation. I am less of a responsible being because I haven't been making the most of the opportunities I have to learn more about these things - to do my own laundry and to set a budget for myself.

A month ago, I wanted to be doing so much more. I was going to be studying Spanish again. I was going to take up the clarinet again. I was going to have finished more than two books. I was going to write everyday, I was going to go to the gym at least once a week. So, now I need to move past Intend and toward Do.

I won't catch up to my peers this way, but I'll be only 8 steps behind instead of 12. I choose to be the older girl - barely a teenager anymore - capable of doing all of these things and actually doing them.

Prose Styling

I got an interesting comment from my writing teacher today. She noted that, when I was turning in assignments where I was told to jot down ideas, and keep it to just a sentence or two, that my voice was "sharp, secure and economical." In contrast, my prose for a lengthier assignment didn't achieve this. I need to use as few words as possible to convey my ideas; it makes for stronger prose.

I've never thought of it that way. But now, it seems pretty obvious. The more words you use, the more complicated and awkward things get; your ideas are no longer solid. So, I went back through the actual super-short fiction assignment and rewrote it, no extraneous words. I do like it much better now; it gets the emotion of the characters across clearly and specifically.

I thought for so long that my writing wasn't long enough. My stories weren't fully fleshed out and my work was too short to possibly be good. I tried to make my writing longer - but making it frillier was no improvement. If I want to flesh out a story, I'm going to have to look at character and subplot, emotion and action. I'm going to have to spend a longer time searching for that perfect word, because that one perfect word will say more than a thousand imperfect words.

I have a piece I've been working on for a while - a short story I'm submitting for my first "booth" assignment, where the class reads and critiques their peer's work. I went through and cut out the foofy and the frilly, while trying to make the story stand. It's under 3000 words long; any volunteers to read through it before I submit it? I know that this is an area I need to work on; I want to know if I have achieved this, so I can recieve feedback from my classmates on issues I may not be aware of.

Exciting things.

I love the writing course I'm taking. It's only been three weeks, but I really do love it.

I'm one of those people who has to convince myself not to waste time (I do a lot of that, by the way), and sit down and write. Some days, it's all I can do not to sit at my computer for days and write. But in the years since I discovered the difference between quality and quantity, I've been more reluctant to sit down and write. I don't want to write low quality stuff. I know you're supposed to just get it all out and fix it later, but I can never manage to turn that first draft into the beautiful thing I have in my head. So, I avoid writing.

Once I've started, I can hardly stop. For the most part, I fall into the story, into the editing, into the characters and the plot and the prose. I even come up with a few real gems of story-making. But most of the time, I don't really like the product.

Which is why I like this course. Not so much that I'm learning things I've never heard before, but that I'm being forced to write. And forced to use the things I'm being taught.

I can't become a better writer unless I practice. And I can't become a better writer unless I use the things I learn in the process.

So, excited, me?

Yup.