Pages Into The Wind

Before the clock could tick onto the New Year, I’ve decided to tackle a “main project” I’ve wanted to cross off my ‘goals’ list is to write a book and self publish it, sending it out into the world with my name on it. But not just any book sloppily written, something of higher quality. Something with resonance and of deeper thought.

I’ve thought about it so many times while doing the dishes during my slower days off, while driving home on the freeway when rushing to rest after a long day’s work condensed to a shorter work week than I’ve ever experienced, while writing in my journal about my hopes and aspirations for what the near future might hold.

The first inkling of it came and went, dismissing it for the simple fact that I assumed I had nothing to write about that’s worthy of sitting in a book shelf along with the other greats, awaiting a curious reader to pick it up and buy it for an entertaining read.

Maybe this year is the year it finally happens.

It’s not like I haven’t thought about stories to write, poems to scribe, essays to jot down because often times, all it takes is a simple line to put in my notes app in my phone to revisit later when I have my notebook near me, but often times I don’t go back to revisit. At least as often as I should when such a line strikes my temporal though the excuse I tend to roll with is “I’m just letting it bake and ferment in my brain and I’ll just write out pages and pages…” which is delusional thinking at best.

Psychotic thinking at worst. I love the idea of having a book sitting on the shelf with my name inscribed on the spine with its title up top. If I’m going to tackle such a goal, I have to break out of my own bad habits and start writing a little more than what I have in the past year.

The unfortunate thing that keeps me from doing so is “The Editor.” Before I can start writing a single word, I’m already pondering about writing the perfection I hear in my head.

I’m uncomfortable with the writings being a little different than what I’ve heard in my head yet it stalls me from writing.

It’s a heavy freight train trying to climb up a steep hill with a steep grade but it’s only until the engineer lets go of the handbrake, preventing the train from going anywhere.

In the same way, “The Editor” is that same obstacle holding me back from writing pages and pages day in and day out. At least on my days off work while on my workdays, it may be limited to just one page, but it’s a page I didn’t have before. I know I can do something like that.

I can write that book I’ve wanted to write for the better part of almost a decade. I remember writing in my journal that I would do so straight out of high school and yet, here I am almost eight years after with not a single volume to show for. It might’ve been more than that.

By now, I could’ve written my fourth or fifth book while reaping the abundant rewards of my previous works. Living in an apartment made from my own paper in a way.

It’s not hard for me to entertain a story or premise, I am somewhat addicted to writing after all, but the challenge comes after that thunderbolt strikes. The execution of an ideal, such as a simple poem or passage, but I need to challenge myself the way I have been doing in my other goals.

“Writing a book” isn’t exactly the hardest thing I’ve had to conquer nor is it the most difficult challenge I’ve ever faced.

That title goes to “getting my driver’s license.”

Two years ago, I wasn’t driving at all. I was solely relying on rides from friends and family but that system of dependability started to show cracks in its foundation, heavily.

It was only during the summer two years ago, where I started to cling onto the steering wheel, begging the universe above that “it has to work this time…” The chant builds.

To me, there was no option for it not to work. I have to learn to depend on myself starting with something that seems so easy to other people out in the normal world but to me, I was petrified of even the thought of getting behind the wheel before I gave it the fourth attempt. I can say it was the determination of making it work and the divine intervention of my lord and protector upstairs in the heavens above guiding me to cross the finish line and embodying that goal on a daily basis. I didn’t think I would be coasting down the freeway, heading home from a tiresome but rewarding day at work the way I’ve been doing for the last solid three months. I’ve never understood what someone meant by “driving is a taste of freedom” until now, having that same luxury myself.

Imagine how many of my other subsequent goals I thought the same thing, being placed on this grandious, “out of reach” mountain, when in reality it was only a few plays’ away from being accomplished and achieved to the highest degree of satisfaction on my end. It probably won’t be that hard to write that book I’ve wanted to, but I need to kill off “The Editor” that’s running around inside my head making a sheer mess out of everything instead of trying to help.

Be willing to write pages upon pages with the slight chance that not every single one will make it into the book, being okay with some of those pages flying into the wind. It doesn’t matter if my notebook is digital, physical, or both but I really have to get it done somehow.

It’s going to be an amalgamation of both, seeing as I already keep some lines written on my notes app, but it doesn’t matter the format. It’s a tool to help and I need to start utilizing it.

It would be a crime to leave those numerous stories untold, forever cemented in the chambers of my imagination without anyone being able to read a word of it, I need to get to writing.

How does this not stop some of the greats from writing??

Leonardo or Dostoevsky?

I thought it might be my own “special sense” to which I have yet to unravel a proper answer with a therapist if there is something wrong with me, but whether it is or it isn’t, I’m going to have to buck up and make this plan to work in order to cross over the finish line with that book in hand.

Write, write, write. Keep a dedicated notebook for those writings if need be, manage my time a little bit more efficiently where I can write a little even on my workdays, and probably develop my sense of writing because something is telling me that I’m not going to write like everyone else.

That is going to be one of the standout qualities of my books, I won’t write like everyone else. It’s not to be conceited, it’s not to be egotistical either. It’s just a truth I’m following.

The urge to get it done isn’t powering down anytime soon. Not until I finish what I’ve started. Though it’s only a few pages in, I need to kickstart the process further and not to allow “The Editor” from putting the handbrake in what I’m wanting to write. So many poems about life, love, the prospect for a better future baked in our metaphysical biology, the dreams I’ve had reflecting what I’m really thinking, these are themes I could run with, embarking in the journey towards yet another goal.

There were many times I’ve gone to work, going about my day bolting parts down when the visual of my finished book with a polished, glossy cover right in front of me in my hands as I flipped through it, believing it’s a mere daydream. It is, but it won’t remain so for long.

This year is going to be the year it happens.