It's been awhile

It's been a long time since I wrote something in this part of the website. The meditations. I stole that from Marcus Aurelius. Generally, I steal a lot. I wouldn't say that I'm the most original person, though I believe everyone, like me, would really like to believe they are. It's been years now, since I started this endeavor. What have I made of the time? In milestones... not much. I wrote a whole novel. I wrote a book. I was very proud of that achievement, because I'd only ever written beginnings, and definitely never ends.

I learned a lot from the experience, but I didn't publish it. Not yet, at least. I don't know that I ever will. The more time I spend with it, the more I don't really like it. I don't know if it's just that it represents a less confident Riley. Someone who hasn't found their voice. Hell, I don't know if I've found it now. In fact, I have begun to believe that maybe I only find my voice in moments like this. When I'm brain dumping the garbage of my mind. Unleashing the pressure that builds up there.

The challenge with that content, or with this content, is that I don't find this very entertaining. I don't like what I've written as much. God. I digress. This is the mind of someone with ADHD. There isn't a through line to this rampant train of thought. It just meanders and goes where it will.

I was talking about what I learned and then I already departed.

Writing a novel. What did I learn. Well, one thing I definitely learned is that I sort of hate people reading my stuff before it's done. That sucks, because I'm a part of a writing group, and the only reason I ever write anything is to have something to share. They don't get it though. In my mind I tell myself it's because it's incomplete and I like my stories like my mind works. Meandering. Sporadic. A mass of neurons firing and bumping into each other like a racquetball court full of thousands of fast bouncing balls. Then bam! Clarity. That's what I have from time to time. I enjoy a good twist. I like when people are frustrated reading what I'm writing, because they wonder where this is all going, until it's sort of there. Vague, and mysterious. Because, that's how realizations come to me. I see the amorphous shimmers of thought and finally draw conclusions. There are very rarely inspirational moments of epiphany. That eureka moment.

The last writers group I did, I was left wondering what's the point. If my writing is just for me, and no one else cares, or seems to like it, then why not just write for myself. That's a lesson that I've learned over time. For me, everything comes in portions, and eighty percent of the time I don't mind everything I do being for just me. I'm that comfortable with myself. until the twenty percent kicks in. Then I'm isolated, lonely, and neurotic. I need to find solace in people. That's when I feel I need my writers group. I need to shout my excitement and love for the various artworks of literature I consume.

Here's the problem. People. People are the problem. Must I say more? Well I will, because you can't just say people, and hope everyone gets it. It's too much of an effigy that people can wrap up all their symbolism into. People, after all, are everything. The world is nothing to us without people. And that's the problem. We depend on people so much, even me with my eighty percent ok being alone. People are diverse, and interesting, and always inconsistent. At least, that's been the case in my life. I shy away from the phrase, they always fail you, because I don't think that's true, nor do I think that's the point.

They only ever fail you, when you build up your expectations of them. And, I do. All the time. I can't help it. Even though I've learned time and time again, that I should let go of all expectations.

Damn. This is getting too edgy. What I'm saying - poorly - is that I love writing. Always have. I love reading other people's writing. I want, so badly, for others to want to read what I want. I want to share what I write with others. Hence why I am here now, many years later writing this in Meditations. Why can't that eighty percent be enough? Why do I have this persistent throbbing pain in my chest to publish and have people love me? Love me? Why did I say that? Why not love my writing?

When I was a kid I still remember reading my first chapter novel. The Diadem series. I gobbled it up. There was a character in there - who I won't look up, to keep a moment of authenticity here, because I've forgotten all of their names - who could change anything into anything else. The more transmutation that took place, the harder it was to do. I was really young. eight maybe? Maybe nine? Life was a silent and droning misery of constant boredom, and here was a person suffering more than me, but they had magic. That wasn't fake to me. That was very real. In my mind, I could be just as truly magical. That's how stories started for me. Imagining myself as a character with a certain power, a certain desire, and having that realized. It was very personal to me. I'm the sort of person who takes the personal and literally launches it at people's faces. A super strange act of self preservation. I "wear my feelings on my sleeve". Really, I'm ashamed of almost every feeling I have.

Writing fantasy, is a way to deal with so many things that are just mundane and give them a wondrous flair. It can give a point to something that seems so senseless and meaningless. It can give us an escape. eighty percent of the time, I'm fine escaping by myself, but then there's that twenty percent. Where I want to find my people, and escape with them.

Now, before you suggest, I play a lot of table top roleplaying games. I do find these moments of escape. See how I am anticipating what people might say? I think so much about what people say, it often proves true. I concoct these stories and interactions before they happen. People mean well. That's something I'm growing to truly believe, over time. I used to fear everyone. So, I'm anticipating the suggestions that I may find refuge elsewhere and head on stating I don't want to. I want to escape in writing with other people. I want to write something makes people feel good, cry, laugh, cheer, and feel a multitude of feelings. I want to write something that pisses someone off, but not because I have the worst writing style ever. That's going to happen, inevitably. Even JRR Tolkien gets chastised, and I'm ok with that. That's a part of it. I want that too.

Anyways. What have I learned in these years? I love it. I love writing, and I want to write all the time. I do write all the time. I don't always write stories, but I am always writing. Writing documentation at work, my thoughts and feelings in a journal, and yes, occasionally I attempt to writ some stories. I have a compulsion to write. All these years later, that has changed, but I now have a deep rooted, maniacal need for it. Hopefully, I also have a greater suite of tools for it as well.

But I'm only satisfied eighty percent of the time.