Community

Catching up on reverb10.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I have never really been great at joining online communities. I had one, once, that I will forever be deeply connected to. A group of rpgers I met when I was about 12, four of whom (Fae, Kitty, Ali and Lea) are some of my closest friends. That’s the last time I was really in the loop, so to speak, when it came to an online community.

All of my attempts to join communities since then, be it the NaNoWriMo forums, 20 something bloggers or Tumblr have all fallen flat. They’re always already established and I always give up before I find my niche. So instead I become an occasional spectator, or manage to find a few friends from the community and stick with them (like Eleni, Seb and Lisa who I met through 20 something bloggers.)

I am currently in love with a site called Smart Bitches Trashy Books which is a hilarious blog/community about romance novels. So I’ve been trying to comment occasionally, but I guess I just never feel like I fit in.

That being said, I’m quite good at forming communities of friends in person. I always have a close group of friends, it’s always been a really important part of my life.

I like to think that all of my online relationship luck went into meeting Fae, Kitty, Ali and Lea. And that’s fine, because I love them all dearly and I never seem to lack for friends wherever I live.

One word

Based on my recent success with writing stimulus packages (NaNoWriMo), I’ve been looking at a few similar sites like 750words.com and, recently, reverb10.com.

Reverb10 is designed for bloggers, to give them a prompt for each day in December. I thought I’d give it a try, though my entries will be sporadic at best next week when I’m in England for graduation, I’d like to try to get into blogging again. So, here goes!

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Adventure.

2010 was an adventure in all possible senses of the word. It was exciting, new and occasionally terrifying. It was quite often about putting one foot in front of the other, following the bread crumb trail only to be derailed by a siren. But the most important part of any adventure worth having is the journey, not the destination. And that was my 2010. It took me many, many places and really, it’s not about where I ended up. I hope.

Beginning.

I would like 2011 to be about beginnings. New projects, a new career, a new life path, a new home. Maybe even a new city. Maybe even a new person. I would like to begin as many things as possible in 2011 so that I can spend 2012 and onwards completing them.

Dead space

So, this has been some dead internet space for a while now. I’m sort of in the process of working out my life. And looking for a job. And writing a time travel romance novel. One of those three things is infinitely more exciting than the others.

But this is sort of a place marker to say: Don’t stop reading my blog! I promise I have some interesting things coming up soon. I just need to work my head around it and not depress you all with my rather pathetic life (seriously, today I apologized to an apple. Most of my conversations during the day involve cats, not as the subject but as the object.)

That being said, as I vainly love the sound of my own voice, I’m not out of things to say just yet and I do have some posts planned at some point in the near future.

Including one about the aforementioned time travel romance novel.

Such pretty words

In January of this year, I wrote four essays in two weeks, along with some journalism assignments, totaling some 10,000 words. I posted about how I never wanted to write another word again. Later that day, I posted the first bit about how Fae and I were starting to work on The Book.

The truth is that I can’t live without writing. I have been doing it as long as I remember. I even enjoy writing essays and journalism assignments (except when I procrastinate too much). I love words. I love communicating. I love creating an image with words.

In 2009, I started to take my writing seriously. Fae and I wrote over 50,000 words of The Book. We even attempted NaNoWriMo (we failed though… we got maybe 5,000 words in November). I started blogging regularly, something I greatly enjoy. This time last year, the only person who read my blog was Fae. Over the summer I managed to post nearly every weekday. I started to feel my way through this blogosphere, and where I wanted to be in it. I still have a lot to think about, and big plans for this blog. But the point is that I was writing. All the time. And in writing, as in all things, practice makes perfect, right? I’m learning how to write the stories that make up my own life.

I also started to write some other things. Things I never thought I’d write. Like right now I’m working on a series of monologues.

I’m learning how to think like a writer. How to be serious about this, as a possible future. How to grow as a writer. I have a long way to go, but I am really loving it so far.

Life or something like it*

I haven’t updated in a long time. Here’s why, the things I am struggling with:

1) Life. I’m busy. Either procrastinating essays and being moody or out having fun. I’ve had this problem before, getting wrapped up in school and life and not having time. School is particularly hard this time around, not because it’s my Master’s but because I have quite decided that I am tired of being in school (found this out about two weeks into my new program.. oops) and can’t seem to manage much enthusiasm for it.

2) Lack of inspiration. Today I’m craving inspiration. I want to… listen to symphonies or look at great art or read a beautiful book. I’m in a place in my life right now that’s not terribly inspiring. Actually, it is… England is beautiful and there’s so much inspiration available here, but I don’t have the time to be inspired I suppose.

3) Uncertainty. I’m not sure what I want this blog to be anymore. When I first started writing, almost two years ago, it was extremely personal. I posted song lyrics, some of my writing, random thoughts, rants, whatever I felt like. That was back when the only person reading it was Fae. Then I had an incident where someone else read it and got angry with me about what they read (don’t get me started about this…) and since then I haven’t been able to bring this blog back to what it was when it was started. You see, I started it in a therapeutic sense. I was at a really weird point in my life. I went to visit Fae and we talked about it and decided it would be good for me. My blog has been a lot of things since then, and I really enjoyed this past summer when I posted almost everyday and had a lot of regular readers. But it I always find myself holding back from posting anything too personal…

4) Complaints. On a similar note, I keep finding myself wanting to complain about things in my life but I don’t want this blog to turn into that either. It was supposed to be something positive in my life. I’ve been thinking about posts about how I feel about being here in England… but it’s hard because everyone has a different idea of me and my being here that I don’t want to get into. Also, I don’t want to sound ungrateful or pessimistic, because I am neither of those things.

5) Stargate SG-1. I started watching it towards the end of September, from Season 1. I just finished Season 8. I’m addicted. Doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

But today I was walking down the street, thinking about my blog and my writing in general. And how if I ever want to truly take myself seriously as a writer (more about that later) then I need to force myself to write even when I’m not sure about my life. And even when it’s a bit painful. So, this is, truly, an attempt to put the jumper cables to this thing and get it running again. But I warn you, it’s liable to change completely from what you might have been used to before, pets…  We’ll see what comes out at the other end.

Also, I promised Fae I’d write something while she was gone for the afternoon, even if it wasn’t The Book. (More on that later, too)

Now I just need some inspiration. Any suggestions?

*A great movie with Angelina Jolie that I strongly suggest you watch.