In here.

I seek comfort in my writing, my silent witness, my hollow beast. The universe expands and contracts and I go back to her, my solitude that always expects me knowing I am always to come back. I sit quiet, my shoulders relax back, my head hangs lose. I have nothing to fear, I am not in the world anymore; it passes me by in a frenzy, but I've stepped inside. I have exercise the right that is Law's given, the one to chase oneself anywhere we might decide to go.

Every cell, every atom, every impulse keeps me standing, integrated in my flesh vessel. The physical part of my existence cannot avoid its own biology, and it stays, doing it's best impersonation of any common being, typing away. There's is also Me, the part that stepped inside.

In here is quiet, and light. Inside it's wonderfully smooth and clean. Inside is pure, and straightforward. Inside it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. It just is with all its magic and exuberance, the lushness of real life in real form. There are no codes to decipher, no set boundaries, no hush hush. There is no dress etiquette, no procedure, no deadline. There are no blind judgments, no brand recognition, no entitlement.

There's nothing, because from everything we know, nothing could possibly enter. You step into the beast to say:        .
Because in nothingness we can realize that all we know is the other side of the coin, and that there could never be a mid-point between Here and There.

We should write with that mind set, otherwise it would be like allowing a total stranger dictate our book to us. Don't listen, turn away.
Your book is terrible [ turn away]. Your book is great [turn away]. Let's get lunch [turn away].

It's not worth it to give in.

Stamina

*FYI:  I had the urge to leave my dream again, but I stayed. I discovered that nothing beats the feeling of waking up and wondering what would have happen next...I never was a fan of cliff hangers, until now I guess?

I read not so long time ago a blog post by Nathan Bransford about how important is as a writer to have stamina. Writing a book is not as easy as it sounds (I'm talking to you writer-posers!) When you first start, and that idea is fresh out of your neurons, the process seems as simple as one word following the next. It all depends on each case, but in my case, as soon as I hit page fifty I felt I hated my story and started to have doubts about whether it worked or not— whether it was worth writing or not!

Funny thing is, the same thing happens to me with boyfriends. At the beginning I feel I can't live without them, and that I must have them. But once they are in "the net", I am bored bored bored, and I'm ready for the next one. This is exactly how I feel about my current book. I'm not even remotely close to being done, but I am already done. I want this to end.

So I took a break from writing. I stopped thinking about it, I did other things. I went for long bike rides with my boyfriend and the dog, watched movies, made cupcakes, stare into space. I did everything possible not to think about writing, or about the story. I made an effort not to read about technology, or watch TED videos, or browse Tesla's patent list.

After all that I feel disappointed, defeated...I wish I had the stamina to continue.

My life has gone through some changes recently. My job situation is not as solid as it used to be, and this I see as a blessing. I might not have stamina, but I do have motivation —from outside sources— to continue writing my book until the end. My new plan is to set —for the 100th time— a  daily quota of 2000 words. Is it too much? Too little? I don't think so. I work full time, and I drive one hour to and from work.

I've heard many times "it's about quality and not quantity" but listen: you can't say this to a writer who hasn't develop the will power to continue. We must continue even if we go back and discover that what we wrote was shit awful. We can always edit.

Just as a comment, not advertisement because I don't have any relation with them: I use scrivener and it's awesome, highly recommend it.

Ok, back to work-work.

Traveling

Last night I had a dream. It was my usual kind of dream with the whirlpool at the center of my bed, the cookie wrapped in saran paper which fought to be eaten, the flying sphere above my head. You see, I often have dreams where I am fully aware that I am dreaming —this way before Inception— and although I don't try to manipulate the dream, I do fight with all I have to wake up as soon as I know I'm dreaming. Why? I don't know. Last night, after I woke up punching the wall next to me as I repeated "wake up, wake up!", it occurred to me that I had never stayed in a dream that I didn't want to be in. I have never fought through the desire to wake up just to see what happened. So, tonight, I will go to bed, and as soon as my dream starts to kick-in, I will fight to stay on it as long as possible.

A friend of mine gave me a very thorough explanation about the brain processes that make us have these kind of experiences. I will get into it in the next post.

clxx