Memory Lane

Yesterday I randomly started reading over my open diary, and I realized how many memories I have stored here.  Since I’ve started my career as a fiction writer, focusing on short stories and novels, I know I’ve let my blogging fall off. At the same time, reading over those old entries, having that snapshot of myself from years ago is really valuable to me.  In those entries I can see the path of my growth. I see the things that had value for me then, and how those things have evolved. 

In addition to that, I saw myself playing with words.  Forming my memories out of words, with the only thought to create.  There’s a difference between creating a piece of fiction–balancing plot, character to form story–and writing for the sake of writing.  I love the energy of my old entries.  The enthusiasm, and the near complete abandonment of form.  I can see the bones of my writing style surfacing in the earth of those entries.  I look back on them and see the earlier stages of myself. 

This is important.

So I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to blog more often.  I like having a digital "paper" trail for my life. I like writing for the sake of writing, without concern for how many drafts it will take to have this writing come to some saleable form. 

Since starting Grad School this September, I’ve had to deal with some major adjustment issues.  How do I fit into this writing program?  How do I balance the study of literature, teaching, and the act of writing?  How will my approach to writing benefit from the environment I’m in? How does my approach differ from what is expected of my process? What do I need to be successful?  Who am I, as a writer, as an intellectual (or even the fact that I’m thinking of myself possibly as an intellectual, which is completely hysterical actually), as a person? 

I don’t want to lose myself in this quest for intellectual development.  Grad School is, in many ways, a game of pegs and holes.  I’m not sure the shape of my peg, and the holes are kind of hazy.  I desperately want to fit in somewhere, at the same time, I don’t want my shape to become something standardized.  It’s a combined game and sales pitch.  You can have any color you want, so long as it’s black. We have dark black and light black, and shiny black and matte black . . . a greyscale rainbow of options.

And I am red. Or purple. Or iridescent green.

The past three months have been a mixture of trial and error, gain and loss, daring and timidity. I am pushing forward in spite of it. Or maybe because of it.  The march of time slows down for no man, unless they are traveling at a significantly faster speed than the observer, and even then it all depends on where you are standing, and how fast the thing you are standing on continues to move.

We are spinning every moment from the past into the future. Spinning around the sun.  Spinning around the globe.  Reeling in the face of the events in our lives.  Our goals.  Our perceptions.  Our lives.

Nuff said . . .