The Impossible Dream

I originally wrote this last night, for a journal entry. But after finishing it, I decided I would post it as today’s entry, instead, under both Writer and Girl, because it is something very personal to me in addition to being about writing.

I think I just had an inkling of what a full-time writer (blogger? contributor? author?) must be like.

I have just come up for air from nonstop writing. Okay, that’s not technically true, because I’m still writing. That sounds kind of fail, but well, here I am writing in my journal. I wrote the whole day yesterday: broken by two meals, and intermittently to dump clothes in the washing machine and hang them up to dry. I wrote ’til 1AM, after which I (foolishly) played Final Fantasy I (it is on the iPhone omg!) until around 3AM (I had to stop because my iPhone power ran out). Today, I stayed in and wrote again, broken by Mass, one meal (I have yet to eat dinner!), and a thorough scrubbing of the bathroom. In a bit, I will make dinner, turn on the TV and iron my clothes. Ah, the calls of domestic life.

I’ve been writing almost nonstop. Some online researching, as well. The result of all of this is, I have blog entries scheduled and ready to go for the whole coming week, and the next two Fridays. That is almost crazy. I have around five more drafts that need working on, in various degrees, but very doable drafts.

I was talking to my friend Jaydee for a bit today, when I went on WoW to do some screen capping for some of these articles. I told him I was just capping for blog entries, and that I was back to blogging again, and that what I meant for just one entry has ended up to be three entries in one series. He said (translated), “that’s because you like writing, so you write a lot.”

And you know what…he’s right. He’s absolutely right.

I don’t know if this feeling of an epiphany is a phase or not–but it’s a good feeling. It’s a good feeling to be writing again, dealing with words again. Words have never been alien from my life–I’ve always journaled–but writing for public consumption is a different feeling, whether it’s creative or otherwise. I haven’t felt this in a while (the last time was high school, in fact). I’m not saying I’m a good writer: I’m still finding (re-finding?) my voice. I’m certain my blog posts are all over the place in terms of writing tone and style and voice. With my mercuriality, I may never have just one voice, and I may never be able to correctly harness and organize these multiple voices. I don’t know. But it’s wonderful to just write, anyway. It’s wonderful to see the number of visitors rise ever so slowly over the weeks. It is a small, cozy number, but I’m happy just the same–maybe even inordinately happy.

Creative writing might be a different story. I haven’t gotten back to creative writing yet, although I’m gearing up for it by signing up for NaNoWriMo this year. But I’m willing to give it a shot, again. If a month’s daily blogging placed me where I am now, another month of daily blogging should help me with NaNoWriMo, fail plot and all.

A whole weekend of writing. Sitting here looking back at it (with a growling tummy, I might add–I should go have dinner soon, but soon soon soon when I’m done with this entry) I am amazed, abashed, and so very grateful. A month ago, this would never have been possible. But I’m here now, and I can almost see the progress I’m making right before my eyes. Quantity is a poor indicator, but quantity is better than nothing.

Suddenly, it feels like my dreams of writing for a living–and enjoying it, in the same way I’ve enjoyed making websites for a living, that is to say, it has its highs and lows but I enjoy it all the same–is not so impossible after all. The possibility is faint, and fragile, and I may yet bungle things up…but it’s not some unattainable dream that I have lost somewhere along the way, now.

It’s there, so faint, so far away. But it’s actually there.