A Stanza and a Step Forward

  This post really doesn't have anything to do with what I am supposed to be posting about today, I just felt like writing. Normally when I write I post on this blog I am not able to listen to music while writing. I have this habit that if I know something is going to be read for grading purposes, I feel that I can't allow myself to listen to music, or have any other sort of distraction. I require greater thought before every word. In consequence, how and what I write is also affected, in pace and content. I dawn a working mood as opposed to a pleasure mood. When I write with music, what I write and how I write wither away; confidence is at my forefront, if only for a brief period.
  I am taking the initiative to write for myself because this is the first time I have had the urge to for about a year.

<poetic prose>

Is there a crack in my block,
a little more think to my thoughts,
like life winked at me,
hot and horny for anything
to do with bettering me?

</poetic prose>

  My life is moving in a totally new direction, not to somewhere unknown, but in the direction I am aiming it, and for the first time I am more excited about my future than scared. I have a plan to achieve my goals, and I have taken the first step. In my mind I have begun a list of things that I want to change, all of which are achievable. Some things are small, like flossing more, others are bigger and will take longer, like self-publishing at least 3 short stories by December 11th of this year (my 23rd birthday). These are not things I am ashamed of or critical of, rather they are things I know I can do, things I have put off, made excuses for.
  For a few years I have looked upon my life from the outside, separate from the spiral. It gained speed and no matter how viciously it tried to pull me from my stoicism, my ambivalence, I closed my eyes, turned the opposite direction. Now, I begin my process in reversing the current. I will someday stop it altogether. It must be a slow transition, due to the momentum at which it was moving towards ends I did not want. Even with my new aims, the direction still might change again, but at least it will be in one I found on my own.

Practicing RET - For Yesterday and Today

  I'm aware that my performance on this blog has been very lackluster from the get go, and I do not deny it, and I will not make excuses for it. Recently I have not posted much, specifically information on my BDS, with yesterday as the exception, where I expressed doubt at my choices. This is unsurprising given the amount of extreme changes my life, and by extension my emotional state, has sped through in the last week. Regardless, yesterdays in-class BDS saw me reading Orson Scott Card's book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy hoping to dispel all my reservations. Or at least that's what I thought I was doing. By the end I realized this action was almost entirely unrelated, and could not really be considered a BDS. It's official. I have maintenance problems: with this blog, with my BDS, with meditation, with everything. It's no secret why. Iv'e done more than enough explaining on that front, any anymore would be beating a dead horse, so instead I would like to put into practice Boise's RET (Rational Emotive Therapy). So, without further adieu:

A - The Activating Event

For me, the activating event occurred through our kindness meditation. Something that the voice had said stuck out at me, and really made me uncomfortable throughout the meditation. It exemplified how I was feeling at that particular moment, and circled around for the remainder of the class. I can't remember the exact wording, but she said something about thinking of, "what makes you feel bad about yourself." Dumping someone. Moving out. "How does your body feel that emotion?" In my stomach, in knots; gnawing, thrashing, violent, steel-winged butterflies tumbling around like towels in a dryer. This emotion was overpowering, and it did not make me depressed, but as much as I tried to kill it with kindness, it would not go away.

B - The Beliefs (or Irrationalities)

Here is a short list of the beliefs that went through my head:

1. I cannot concentrate now, I am much too anxious to write.
2. Do I really want to write a sci-fi story?
3. I don't feel like writing sci-fi.
4. If I don't feel like writing it, then it must not be what I am mean to write.
5. Maybe I should just pretend like I am working.
6. I can do a real BDS when I get home later and feel better.
7. I'm getting burned out with this story anyway.

C - Consequences (of Irrationalities)

Today, I can see the consequences pretty clearly. I did not write at all yesterday, breaking my internal vow. I lost self integrity, allowing myself a pass. If I allow myself one pass, more will follow, until I am blocked again. This behavior cannot be tolerated. However, beating myself up about it will not solve anything either. Going through the consequences for each of my 7 beliefs, or what I would call excuses, from yesterday could be worth looking into.

1. By allowing my concentration to be ruled by emotion, I have engaged autopilot. This belief shows that I do not wish to be mindful of this particular moment, instead letting worry and angst consume me. Is that really how I wanted my BDS to play out? It's a waste of time...
2. Yes. Of course you do. This belief os product of 1. Doubt enters because you give it the opportunity through unsettling emotions. If I did not truly want to write a sci-fi story I would not have begun it in the first place, or researched it with such fervor.
3. Again, one thing leads to another: 2 leads to 3. Let me correct this: "I don't feel like writing sci-fi right now." Of course I didn't, I was being emotional and making excuses. Just because one has a momentary aversion to complete a BDS, does not mean I can't do it anyway. Not wanting to do something doesn't make it okay not to do it, and putting it off till later fosters the belief that inspiration should rule when one writes, as well as fosters bad behavior in not completing BDS.
4. No, no, no! Again, if you add right now after both of these statements, it changes the meaning completely, showing their absurdity. It's not about how I feel or what I'm meant to write, it's about willing myself to write even when I don't feel like it. BDS are about the habit, not the content. I am letting my anxiety, which I feel on the surface, effect my self-esteem. I am a good writer, and even if what I write is crappy because I myself am feeling crappy, oh well. Doing it anyway is good practice!
5. Bad form. Now I move from belittling my self integrity to risking my integrity amongst my peers. Plus, I still end up getting nothing done. How can that be helpful? It isn't. Period.
6. Now I am just avoiding the problem, moving into denial. What makes me think that I will want to write later? That I won't let this anxiousness continue to fester? There is no guarantee I won't, so it's best to do as Nike says: "Just do it."
7. Add right now ect. 

D - Disputation

I think I actually moved into this step when I was writing out my consequences. These seem to overlap a bit. Rather than waste time reformatting, you get the picture.

E - The New Cognitive-Emotional Effect

I feel that had I actually pursued any of these excuses/beliefs, I would have found the confidence to write, and would not have hid safely behind my kindle, reading. For time purposes I must avoid a lengthy conclusion. I think I get the picture when it comes to RET and its benefits. Today in class, when we do a BDS, I will practice it in my prewriting, just as Boise says we should do, to avoid another catastrophe like yesterday...

The Trouble With Venus Is

I realize I have had some trouble with my BDS. For the past couple days I begin by free writing about a page in my notebook, by that time I start to feel uneasy, unpleasant, even though I've only been writing for about ten minutes. What I am noticing is that my urge to write a science fiction story has begun to cease a bit. The simplest explanation: I am having doubts. "But why?" I ask myself. "You know why," the voice in my head responds. "Doubt comes and goes with life. For you, one going through great change, it is inevitable." Ugh, that damn voice. So smug and secure, just because he's right! What if I don't want my story to change? It isn't like there is a deadline or a qualification to fulfill, but I feel I have invested a significant amount of time on it. To change from science fiction to fantasy now would be blasphemy! Or would it? I don't know. I'm weary of allowing my story to change itself willy nilly with the mind. That's fickle, but it could be necessary. Boise has the answer, probably.

No Question It's Depression

  Depression is something I have been battling with for years, pretty much since the first day I began to write poetry. What I wrote wasn't meant for criticism or for publication at all. For me poetry was a coping mechanism for my depression, more like a hobby. This is not to say that I didn't know at that time that I wanted to write professionally. No, I knew that at a very young age. However, depression put the urge to write fiction, and all prose in general, on indefinite hiatus. Through poetry I felt I could accurately convey my emotions while masking their inceptions, through abstract language and vague descriptions. This period of poetry lasted from ages 14 to 20ish, always coupled with feelings of anxiety and depression. Only when I became of age did the urge to write poetry begin to waver, yet depression remained. A block, it seemed, set upon me. When I read Boise's maintenance problems, I noticed many of them applied to me, unsurprisingly. I never once in 6 years asked for help with my depression. Never. To do so would be preposterous! Why did I need it with poetry by my side, comforting me, temporarily relieving my symptoms daily. If you look at my old blogs (my first one was on Myspace, my second here on blogger!), you will see somewhere close to 1,000 posts, many of them poorly written, sad poems containing overwhelming angst. Depression emanates from them, without a doubt. But because I did not feel I had a reason to ask for help, it was a problem with no solution. That it, until the current phase of my life, where I have felt creatively blocked for about a year and a half.
  Unlike Boise's assertions about depression as a reason for blocking, I now know mine stems from problems with my relationship, problems I have suppressed. My brother says that we do things like this because they are easy. It's easy to stay in a harmful relationship, avoiding the inevitable, painful end; it's easy to say you are suffering writers block, without analyzing why; it's easy to make excuses for your failures, placing blame on such ridiculous things like your cat or your car; indeed, it's easier to live on autopilot, while the problems snowball, blocking becomes a way of life, and depression rules every action. Accountability and what Boise describes as maintenance are non-realities on autopilot.
  Mindfulness and meditation, amongst a few other things, have given me power. When I began this course, my crisis hit me hard. I realized that all my unhappiness was due to a lack of a mindfulness of myself. Everyone and everything else had always come first. My problems didn't matter; I didn't matter. Just before this course began I finally gathered the courage, the self-worth, to ask for help. If I were going to get rid of my depression, I was first going to need guidance and support that came from someone anonymous. Then, as we began meditation on a daily basis, the overwhelming, cluttered, buzzing spiral in my mind slowed it's violent swirl. My mood showed signs of stabilization in the periods between meditation. Yet my stress did not cease, for my problems were not solved. It has taken the entirety of this course for me to gain any traction against them. When you have let them run your life for almost 2 years, and depression consume you for almost 8, it takes time to change. But it is possible.

Block Smashing Like Mario

  I know I mentioned self-shaming the other day in class, and todays reading for Boice has shown just how much it applies to nearly all the problems I have in my life at the moment. Couple that with yesterdays contemplative reading about judging, and it is a wonder I never noticed how big of an effect it has. I would agree with Boice and his "subjects" that blocking is intensely personal, stemmed from self-defeating behaviors that are addictive, such as what my psychologist pointed out: laziness. What makes me label myself as lazy? Why do I feel the need to be lazy in the first place? Perhaps my psychologist's explanation that I am lazy because I label myself as lazy does not solve it entirely. She has given me the X intentionally, but I have to finish the equation on my own. I can choose to be lazy, but why do I choose it? The same could be said about blocking. Earlier in the course, in my first blog post, I mentioned that I had taken a creative writing poetry course which I believed caused me to cease writing poetry. Now, having read Boice and talked to a psychologist, I realize that categorizing the professor as the problem is only part of the answer. Blaming is easy, it relinquishes our responsibility at examining ourselves and dealing with things. I allowed her to make writing hell, instead of talking with her, explaining that I found her methods a hinderance to my creativity, I remained passive, silent. That act is a form of blocking. Silence solved nothing, passiveness solved nothing. Over time blame produced nearly every one of Boice's bad habits in Rule #15.
  Of course, these habits are not formed from one isolated incident. The professor is only one factor out of many. I mention it to argue that not only do we have to be mindful, notice our self-destructive habits, but evaluate them in order to move on to eradicating them. Actually, I think Boice mentions this as one of his methods for unblocking through "insight therapies." To be honest, I have not looked up whether or not insight therapy is anything like psychoanalysis. Even if it is entirely different, what I gather from the past few readings of Boice is that we are what facilitates and allows blocking, and therefore only we can solve it.

A Comparison of Boise's Explanation of Contingency to How I Met Your Mother's "Slap Bet"

  Boise's assertions over contingencies seemed rather extreme at first, particularly writing a check and giving it to a third party. I am not sure I could stomach a contingency that great. This reading actually reminded me of something an old roommate of mine showed me on the show How I Met Your Mother. It was called the "Slap Bet," though we used a slightly altered version of it. Basically, in the show, two people make a bet and the winner of the bet gets to slap the loser. For our purposes, we created a written contract listing a reasonable amount of homework and housework that I needed to complete in order to prevent being slapped. It was signed by both me and my roommate and taped to the wall, where it remained for a weekend, taunting me to complete everything for fear of being slapped. For me, that is how I view the concept of contingencies: as a scare tactic. I completely agree that they work in the short term, but if you constantly lived in fear of being slapped, or having your money given to something you hate, the contingencies become less important and undermine, rather than encourage, good writing habits. In our case, the slap bet was used only due to the disastrous state of our apartment and the overwhelming amount of homework that needed to be completed.

  

Turn It Off

  This reading was particularly difficult for me. I began it this morning only to find that I was having considerable trouble concentrating. My grandmother flew up to Missouri this weekend to visit, staying at my aunt's house. Because my aunt lives on the boarders of Columbia, I decided that it would be easier for me to spend time with her by staying at my aunt's house rather than driving to and from there 2 or so times a day.

  My grandmother, like me, is the type of person who needs constant noise. She even leaves the TV on all night while she sleeps. I'm not quite that bad, but nonetheless this morning when I began the reading, the TV was blaring. I walked around the house to different places, the noise following me wherever I went, echoing throughout the house. At last I went to the basement, as far from it as I could go, and sat on the couch trying to be mindful about the reading. By now, my attention had been strung out, and all but a few passages seemed lost on me.

  The few that stuck out were Boise's list in Step 4, and his "Quantitatively Based Indices of Progress." I found the list to basically be a pre-summary of the entire chapter, commenting on how to achieve the different steps and what to do once you have. This seems to be where I would focus my attention in this chapter. If I could only tear out one step, this would be it.

  The "Quantitatively Based Indices of Progress" intimidated me at first. The language I understand, but it is almost too wordy, too complicated, too scientific-sounding. Of course, due to the subject matter, it fits, but it still stood out to me in this way. I found myself relating to the people he described with manic, depressive symptoms. Much too often I find myself complaining "loudly of a lack of time for writing" even though I "regularly had sufficient time, at least one hour per day." Does he point out this fact just so I can relate to it, because he does not provide a solution. His method has proven useful to me, but I still feel I am not taking 100% advantage of it, for I still feel manic and short on time every day. Could it be that I am overwhelmed? How do I overcome this?

  It may even just be today. Everyone has off days. Maybe, instead of dwelling on the fact that I am overwhelmed, I will keep moving forward today. Even if I continue to feel overwhelmed, right now I am just going to keep completing things that need to be completed. Sooner or later I will stabilize by doing this. Some days I guess you just have to turn off your mind, even if you don't want to.