%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Well, not so much fun and leisure as...get some damn writing done, you fool! |
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A while ago, I attended a writers' workshop and the lady who hosted it told us all to go away with this bit of advice - to write for just ten minutes a day. I was determined to go ahead with it and I did...for two days. So today I remembered that I'd resolved to do so and I whipped out my journal and wrote for fifteen minutes. I'm typing out pretty much the same thing that I wrote earlier, with some differences. I find I can go a lot more in-depth when I'm typing than when I'm writing by hand. Writing by hand is such a chore! I've struggled with loneliness a lot throughout my twenty-nine years. I struggled with it when I was the only one home with my mum when I was a teen and everybody else had other places to be. I struggled with it after marriage and when we moved into our own house for the first time. I struggled with it after my son was born and I felt torn between pursuing my writing and being a good mum, because my culture seems to indicate that a woman has absolutely no chance of living her own life - or at least, she has no chance of attaining any goals she hasn't already attained - once she has children. I feel it occasionally still, even though I get so little time to myself nowadays that any alone time is simply awesome. I've tried to come to terms with the idea that being alone isn't a bad thing - and a lot of the time, it isn't. My friends don't live nearby so I don't get to see them often, and even when I do, I feel like there isn't much depth to our conversations. I'm surrounded by people who do not think like me, who do not share any of my interests and hobbies. I feel like I've become desensitised to isolation. Loneliness is my preferred way to be. I walked into my college cafeteria at lunch today and it was the usual hubbub of activity. Youngsters walking around, chatting animatedly, shouting across the room, laughing, eating, socialising. I could recall how that clamour wouldn't have bothered me ten-twelve years ago, when I would have been one of the youngsters talking excitedly with her friends. But, as this moment, I just found an out-of-the-way little table and sat down. I watched the crowds for a while, wondering why it was only at moments like these that the sense of isolation became so strong. In the middle of a crowd, I feel most alone. |
| 12:03 I find that a lot of the time, I do push things into the "way too hard" category, and so I leave them off even though I know that with a little bit of effort, I can do it. Examples, making a correction on a canvas, sewing a garment, writing a story. These are all easy tasks - or maybe in the just beyond what I can achieve with absolute ease, so in the optimal zone between easy and hard - but in my head they get overblown and it just becomes another excuse for me to be lazy. I didn't know there was such a thing as the Goldilocks Rule though, so thanks to Emily  for pointing it out! If you learn to look at things in a new way, maybe it leads to tackling things in a new way? In any case, I shall think about the things I need to do a bit more closely now. I'm learning a few languages at the moment - nothing big, just via a free app on my phone. I'm not putting in huge amounts of effort to learn them, which is why it's taking me so long just to get the basics down. The biggest motivator I have is that I have nearly 100 consecutive days of learning on some of them and I want to keep going. Japanese is a big one - I've been learning bits and pieces since I was an avid anime fan (although the "avidness" has gone down in recent years due to life commitments) but last year I came across an ad for a Japanese teacher based locally. Of course i went for it. Since then, my understanding has slowly been growing. Even so, when it comes to Memrise, I'm still a bit half-hearted. Korean especially. I'm finding that a bit difficult so instead of challenging myself, I keep going over the same handful of words and expressions that I first learned some months ago. I need to stop being lazy!  That's thirteen minutes! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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