self-doubt

Never Give Up…

/ Varza / 2 Comments

…Never Surrender – especially to your own self-doubts.

I almost did this the other night but I am lucky to be married to an amazing man who won’t let me do this to myself anymore. What was I doubting? My ability to be a writer and should I continue. My husband listened to me and told me to not give up. To believe in myself more, because he doesn’t understand why I don’t more.

The doubts – oh, there are so many.

My writing probably sucks
What if I never find an agent?
What if I get panned by reviewers?
What if I just fail?

So, after spending a month attempting to edit at the same time of doing major work on the house, vacationing as well as visiting family… I haven’t had a chance to get a word written. Tonight, instead of continuing my work on the editing I am getting back to writing. I will be spending time each day working on getting my edits done then in the evenings I will work on continuing my novel. In truth, when I was reading it as I edited it I actually enjoyed it. Is it a classic? No, but it is enjoyable.

I do need to find a title for what I am working on. Right now I have a working title of The Bank but it doesn’t really fit the story anymore. I also need to come up with a title for the series it will hopefully be the start of, a series about a group of girlfriends. Kind of like American Girl meets Sweet Valley High meets… am I boring you yet?

Now, it is time for me to get back to it. I ended up finally breaking 30K with the editing of four chapters and fleshing out parts of the story; I am getting ready to finish writing Chapter Eleven then onto Twelve. My end goal is about 70K.

Following Your Dreams…

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Can Be Hard When You Start Doing It…

I haven’t been posting a lot in the past few months, or at all, because my life has been a bit hectic. My last semester at school was one of the worst I have had since graduating high school. All those doubts, worries, and stresses associated with my LDs (learning disabilities) seemed to rear their ugly head. It didn’t help that my health has also taken a dive. In the past few weeks we have a received a confirmation of Sleep Apnea from the doctor and next week I get to go in for my face mask so I get to go to bed looking and sounding a lot like Darth Vader. This is my first step to getting my health back in line including getting my weight off because it seems when you don’t go into REM, you don’t produce the hormones to control or produce a natural metabolism. Thankfully, I passed my classes… didn’t die in a car wreck due to falling asleep at the wheel… things are being done to make life better and the support I am receiving from my family has been lifesaving because I had reached the end of my rope with no idea where to turn.

At the time all this is happening, I finally decided its time to really start following my dream. No longer mess around with just writing for fun or for one day but to sit down and actually do it. So here I am, not blogging and spending as much as my very rare free time to try to write and finish a novel by the end of the summer. With everything going on this past semester I didn’t get to finish my other story, which wasn’t working in any way but is still there. I barely had time to write. BUT! At the end of the summer I am attending a Writers Conference where I may have a chance (slim, very very slim) to sit and pitch a book.

FOCUS!!!

I just finished my first edit on the first 10 chapters of my book. I am nervous but I liked what I have read. So often, with my other writings I have gone back and wondered what I was thinking when I typed those words. This time, it feels different. Part of me believes that it is because I am not trying to write something that isn’t me. I have tried many genres and it seems teenage angst is something I can write. Of course, this is probably because I was a total drama queen and experienced a lot of craziness when I was growing up. Seeming to find trouble even when I wasn’t searching for it. I do hope to go back to some of my other pieces and flesh them out when I have time to, heck there are more stories than I can count bouncing around in my head. You just need to focus to get it done.

My blog from here on out will probably be a lot more about my writings, health, weight loss than everyday life. Hopefully, I can remember to post more often. Please note that all my blogs are done in the free-writing format – I don’t worry about editing. Which is probably stupid for a person wanting to be a writer when they grow up but meh!

Yes, I know!

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I should be doing homework…

Instead, I am sitting in the library playing Pottermore and chatting with people on Twitter. I know that sounds horrible but that isn’t all I did in the past hour and fifteen minutes. I also wrote over 400 words on my story. OOOOOOHHHHH, goes the crowd.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound like much but it works. It is something. I wish it was more and at this rate, at about 1000-1800 words a week, I will have a very badly written novel done in another 67 weeks… or by next Christmas. Not really a prime goal for me especially since I had been hoping to be done by the end of the year. But this weekend, instead of working on my novel in the evenings like I sometimes do I spent it finishing up writing a fictional account of someone who was awakened by the writings of Thomas Paine in journal style for a late paper for my History class. Does that count as writing? It was 2,799 words which is about the length of a paperback chapter. It was just as bad but it has given me an idea of a possible story down the road.

That’s part of the problem with wanting to write… you find so many stories out there in the world. It would be easy to jump from one story to another but I got advice from a pop culture icon (I won’t say who but I was excited as peas in soup when he responded to a comment I made) about a month back when discussing multiple projects. He said “It’s important to finish something” and that is when I realized that as I stared at the 13 files I had sitting in my special section of docs for my writings, none of them were finished. Some were barely a page or two, some a couple of chapters or scenes in but none of them were finished. It was one thing to get inspired by an idea and write it down. It was another to completely stop your work then start another one that is once again left unfinished when another idea pops into your head.

Now, at the time I was given this advice through Facebook comments, I was working on four different things at once and this was BEFORE school had even started. I decided then I needed to buckle down and just finish something. Yes, it may not ever get published but who cares. I can say… “I wrote a novel. It isn’t published but look! I wrote 100,000+ words and it is a completed story! Take that doubts in my head! I did something in my life I have always wanted to do!” (I can only hope that then maybe they will go on vacation to Russia and not come back.) Then I can move onto something else. It of course helps a bit that outside my writing I am raising a very rambunctious toddler who drives me bonkers, taking classes that, oh my gosh, are requiring me to write as well. I am using my personal writing as a way to focus and give me some personal creativity time.

Do I see myself as a professional writer? I don’t know, maybe not but after talking to my professor this morning I did find that if I ever wanted to be a professor – yeah, I know crazy write (haha!) – I had to get published with something. I really didn’t know this, that to be a professor of English you have to know what you are talking about. Weird, I know! One of the best things though, is she offered to help me on another dream project I have… publishing my poetry. She said, whenever I am ready. Which to me has been the coolest thing I have heard since my mom told me submitted her Masters application and before that the sound of my son yelling Mama as I cooked dinner a few weeks back. Alright, I hear a lot of good and cool things in my life but it made me feel really good that a teacher of mine offered a hand to help me. I like my poetry better than my prose and I have always wanted to see it in print, in a collection. I don’t see myself as a Maya Angelou but just a poet who wrote some things when she was a younger… I just wish I still wrote like I used to and every once in a while be printed (my first poem in print was when I was 10 in a school collection, so cool!).

As I have grown up over the years, mostly in the past six since I turned 30, I have learned a lot that I wish I had known when I was younger. I think we all go thru that but I am finding that if you reach out and ask a question you can get so much guidance in unexpected ways. How was I to know that some off-hand comment that I made on a Facebook page would lead to a couple of words that would make me open my eyes in an unexpected way. I am 36 years old, still in college because it took me 18 years to finish my Associates Degree; something I didn’t think I would ever get. I am aiming to finish college with a Bachelor’s but it took a long time for me to realize because someone else smacked my virtual head, that it’s important to finish something. This is important not just with my writing but in a lot of other ways. If you do not finish things… its hard to grow because you never completely leave the path you were on before. You can only stretch yourself so thin, right, how many things have to go unfinished; so finish something and move on with your life. What you finish will be a step to the next level in your life. I wonder if my lack of finishing things so often in my life is one of the reasons I like the … which leaves your sentences open-ended, never-ending, never completed. Which is so much of my life…

Annotated Bibliography Suck, Part 2

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Okay, now that sonny-boy is down for the evening it is time to finish up my last blog post. I already gave a quick run down on the War of 1812 and the Bombardment of Fort McHenry, where 1000 men were bombed for 28 hours straight. And I complained that I didn’t like annotated bibs even though I will have to write them again in the future… or speculated that I would.

Now, why do I dislike them so? It’s not that I think they are useless, they have their purpose. They breakout for the teachers where you are going with your research and your paper. It helps you compile everything into one area. Where are you going to go back to, to get your research on. I hate them because they are so damned difficult. I can write a bib, no problem, with a little help of the Owl at Purdue (probably the most important resource for anyone in school at any level). It’s the description part of it. I never feel like I get it right or I am doing it correctly, and I hate this feeling so much! I hate feel lost and discombobulated when I am doing something for school. It brings back all those bad emotions from when I was a kid. I can still hear my English teacher from 6th grade shouting in my face about how stupid I am.

Yes, I know, I need to get past these things and I am for the most part. I think everyone gets these emotions during their bad moments. Those doubts that ate away at you in the past can rear their ugly heads when they feel you are vulnerable. School can do this to me so easily. Yes, I love being in school right now but there are times it is such a struggle still. I didn’t give up in high school because I was lazy, I gave up because I knew in my head I was too stupid for it and it wasn’t worth the energy. I believed this whole-hardheartedly. It was draining. It still can be. I can still end up in tears with the pain that courses through my body when I begin to doubt myself. I had support at home but as anyone who has ever been a teenager knows… that doesn’t matter when everyone else around you helps confirm those doubts.

These are the same doubts that stall my writing as well. I have always wanted to be a writer, it was my secret dream but I am scared shitless of the possibility of success and/or the negative reviews that will come my way. Even the best writers in the history of the world have their haters. I do not know if I can successfully navigate that minefield when it comes down to it. The question than becomes… is achieving my dreams worth the negativity that will be aimed in my direction. Will I be able to, emotionally and mentally, survive it. I am luckier now then I was a few years ago… I have a husband who believes in me and will do anything to protect me. He also doesn’t allow me to drown in my own doubts, which he doesn’t understand why I have any. I don’t understand how he can’t see it. But isn’t that usually away… we are our own worst judges. I am harder on myself then anyone else could ever be; which could be a blessing but it can also be a negative because nothing is ever good enough in my own mind (when I think of my own expectations of myself).

So, the annotated bib? I will be doing it, even though it may be late, because I need to. I will swallow my doubts and get on with my life. It’s only a couple pages right?

Warning: Overly Emotional PMS Post!

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The warning is real people. I am in an overly emotional state and just need to write it out once again. Its probably repeatative and stupid but hey thats me!

I realized this morning that I was PMS when I spent another morning in the shower with tears rolling down my face and blending in with the shower water for absolutly no reason whatever. In truth, it feels like I have been spending more time with tears in my eyes then not the last few days. Actually pretty much since my birthday. Oh what a year it has been. I try so dang hard to be strong and mighty… nothing can harm the Mighty Mighty Varza and she doesn’t care what ANYONE thinks. Right! And I’m the reincarnation of Leo DiVinci. Can’t you tell by how damned talented I am.

In truth, I am probably one of the weakest people you will meet and I hate it. Absolutly hate it about myself. Emotionally, physcially, mentally. I kinda suck. Big time. I feel like at times I should have a massive sign over my head that says: Warning! Do Not Come In Contact with This Person… they suck and not in a good way.

I just don’t think that a 33 year old woman should be as confused with themselves as I am. I mean I have no damned clue who I am. I am just floating around and going thru the motions of the day feeling as though I am an intrusion on every single person I knows life. And its not anything new. Do you know how hard it is to go thru life feel like the odd one out, that no matter how hard you try to fit the puzzle piece that is you into the puzzle it just never fits? Cause thats how I feel and have felt for a long time. Like that puzzle piece that gets put into the wrong box over and over again. You stand out like a glarring mistake and no one wants you to be there yet you are. And afterwhile you just get tossed in with another puzzle to have the same thing happen over and over. I swear, I am an undercover EMO kid at times… oh wo is me blah blah blah…

But seriously… I feel like the people I am around, don’t want me there. Is that a problem? Yes, I can sense it. I feel it. It makes me want to go run and hide then cry away the shame I feel for even existing. Thats right shame. Because I feel like I am a waste of space sometimes. I want to be worthy of something. To be worthy of anything. I struggle every day with finances to make sure I can do the things I need to do to exist. I went years without buying anything to make me even slightly attractive so that I could put my money towards other things. I mean it didn’t matter what I looked like – no one else cared. I want to better who I am and what I am. To maybe be seen as attractive to anyone… no find a way to break through this crap that I hold onto.

I mean, how do I let go. Someone can you tell me how to let go of this self-doubt, nagging, annoying shit that I keeps me from being someone? I try so hard to let it go and then I start feeling like Sam Jackson in Deep Blue Sea. Ranting and raving against something until it jumps up and eats me for a snack. I want to let go of the pain of the past. No not be sensitive when someone pokes fun of my appearence. Do people not realize that it hurts when they do that? That after all these years I still want to hide in the corner when someone lightly teases me about my massive amounts of hair. I love my hair, I think its one of my best features even though its a pain my ass and my plumbing. It still hurts. Is it because it was the first thing that I had large groups of people tease me about? (Thank you Aaron for that)

I want more days that I look in the mirror to be days I can be proud of instead of days that make me want to cry and hate myself. I want someone to look at me and love me. Maybe thats why I have always wanted to get married. Marriage – you would think – is the ultimate acceptance of a person for everything they are. At least it should be. Why else would you bond yourself to another person? You fit and love one another. Unfortunatly, I don’t think that is the case in the world or ever has been. Marriage is a status for amny people. Or hope that that ultimate acceptance is really there. Until things go wrong… cause they can go horribly horribly wrong.

But for myself its that shame. That shame that others put on me at a young age when I didn’t know any better and just wanted to be accepted. That I carried around for so many years without realizing it… the shame that if anyone knew the true me they would just hate me as much as I hate myself. I wait for the day when the friends I do have leave me, like so many others. Or laugh at me. I really really hate being picked on and laughed at but it seems to have been and always will be a part of my life. Maybe its cause they realize that I am not a person worth taking in as important. That I am just a joke. Because thats what I see… I am a big fat frakking joke that doesn’t deserve much of anything else.

And am I sad? I was asked this the other day… yes, yes I am and very very lonely because I have friends but I don’t really fit in with them. How sad is that? But can someone, anyone, tell me how one learns to love themselves? Cause I would love to be able to one of these days… and have the strength to realize that I am worth something. Because even though someone can say you are… its harder to believe its true. Tell me that and how to let go from the past. Cause thats even harder.

This is what I get for talking about high school over lunch with a friend…

Gone Baby Gone…

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I was sure if I should post this or even talk about it but I am slightly frustrated. I had this event happen to me once in the past with Jenny Craig. You get your counselor, you build a relationship with them and then she disappeared. I mean got a promotion and left without even letting her clients know. It was frustrating to the extreme because I spent over 2 months getting this women to understand my limitations with finances and food allergies. But once she was gone it wasn’t so much that she just left but from there one oout for the next month, each week I was bounced from counselor to conselor. Never seeing the same person more then once and spending half my time there going over again and again what my limitations were.

So, to my utter frustration I have had a problem with my personal trainer these past few weeks. He didn’t show up for our session two Mondays ago and then didn’t show up again this past week. Luckily they had another trainer I could work with the first time but this past Monday I had to reschedule. Frustrating since I had spent 30 minutes in traffic on my day off to get there to and from the gym. But whatever, the guy was booked solid and no one else was avaible. On Tuesday when I met with the new guy, R, he told me that my last trainer was gone. Without a bye your leave.

Is it wrong of me to be frustrated? I mean these are people who are suppose to help be a support system in our weight loss/training journey and it doesn’t seem that they even see their clients as real people. How could you spend so much time with someone and then just leave them hanging? It pisses me off and I have been trying to gt past my self-doubt and my desire to see this as a sign, once again, that I shouldn’t be loosing weight. That I am meant to be a fat ass for the rest of my life? Or I should just learn, that like with some friends, they just leave you.