Jelly Beans and Ominous Feelings

I love the idea of jelly beans.

They're the flavor coated, multicolored happy candy. At least that's what they are supposed to be. The problem is I like the idea of jelly beans instead of the actualities. Something always compels me to buy the multi-flavored variety when I'm standing in the candy aisle, this doesn't make the problem any better. I end up picking out the very few flavors I enjoy, and even at that I only tend to enjoy the sugar outer shell--the way it easily cracks away from the weird innards of the jelly bean. Then I find myself with a mostly full bag of jelly beans that will never be eaten and yet I can't bring myself to just throw them away, not for a while at least.

This tends to be the outlook I have lately on writing. It seems to have become (I blame the last two years of intensive writing known as college for this.) a task that I have to perform rather than something I enjoy.

So it's not entirely surprising that I'm having issues with the idea of spending an entire year doing just that--writing.

I've set myself into major panic mode. Yay me.

My brain is flickering in and out, horror movie style, trying to figure out what to do. In other words, I am doing everything but the task at hand--writing.

This week's problems seem to abound.

The whole butt in chair hands on keyboard idea is a great philosophy. Just one problem, one of my hands tends to have a mind of its own. It refuses to stay on the keyboard.

It always wanders off to the same place--the mouse.

The mouse and I have a love hate relationship. Once upon a time the mouse and I were good friends, we enjoyed our time together and we even made some vows, he's a special mouse, with a gleaming track ball and buttons in all the most comfortable places. Now however, Mr. Mouse and my hand do not seem to get on so well.

I'll instruct my hand to wander over and snuggle with Mr. Mouse to fix some spelling error or typo, (Because the red squiggly lines tend to make me want to cut out my eyes with dull glass after a few minutes.) and without intention somehow I find myself on a random web page following some tangent stray thought that rapidly turns into a train wreck.

Then *poof* before the dust and smoke even settles an hour has gone by and I've accomplished nothing, other than to silence some ADHD type thought. (Now, I don't really have ADHD, but I'm starting to believe it is contagious. I live with other humans with ADHD, well they have ADHD, not so sure about the human part.)

I then realize that it's nearing two in the morning and I force myself back to one project or another.

So it leaves me wondering, is this just me, or is it all writers that have a haphazard relationship with their mice?

For tonight my dear Mr. Mouse you will allow me to post this and click close so that I can go to bed.

The beginning struggle

So I've decided to start a blog, woo-hoo. Do I get a cookie now? I've joined the masses and placed my mark upon cyberspace. Wait did I just become a sheep? Naw, there aren't any formulas or standards for these, not yet anyway.

I decided to start writing this to keep track of what I was or, more to the point what I wasn't doing. I claim to be a writer; I even have a few unimportant publications under my belt. However, I've spent the last two years basically avoiding writing, okay maybe I won't go so far as to say avoiding, but I've been in school trying to figure out what I want to do with said writing.

I dabbled in journalism, until I realized I was a far cry from a writer who could follow formulas and be unbiased, and though I know this is an unrealistic idea of the current media, I believe it is what it should be, an unbiased observation. So I threw that out the window to go to a more arts driven concentration. Now I'm reaching the end of this stage and trying to decide what to do with the next evolution of myself.

I wrote the book, I actually had that first book nearly finished before I went back to school, and somehow in the midst of everything else have essentially finished it. Well as finished as I can generally call anything I write, I'm a perpetual editor; I would have fit in well during the time of Whitman when they re-published their work repeatedly in different editions, although admittedly it must have gotten boring.

Now I'm getting ready to test the waters, in about five different pools. Freelancing, short stories, poetry (although this admittedly isn't my favorite vein), and novels in about three different genres and a variety of age groups.

So, this blog will trace my semi-invisible tracks as I delve into the world of the writing process, including the ever horrifying moments of submission and query letters.

Read if you dare, be forewarned I have a tendency to rant. Also I ignore all the grammatical rules I don't care to follow at that moment. I will vent over rejections and probably never use "!'s" even if there are moments of success.

-AR