On The Edge, Through The Void.

The Ordinary Wonder Of An Amoral Fiction

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The ordinary wonder of an amoral fiction.

Poetry, Prose, and Fiction from the fringe of [post?] humanity. Please, don't take it too seriously.

It's just a ride, to the edge of Oblivion.


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Posts tagged prose

Nothing Means Anything

Fever spikes are like lunar magnetism, churning the waters of my emotions. I’m drowning in this tide of memories, pulling me down with the undertow of nostalgia…

I remember what it felt like to be twelve years old, being flooded with so many feelings at the same time that I was convinced I couldn’t actually feel anything. I would just lie on my bed, with my headphones on, wishing that I could cry. But, by then I had already cried so much that my tear ducts felt like they had turned to dust. I could have ground broken glass into my corneas and I would have been surprised if I could’ve even squeeze blood out of my eyes. 

I had only been alive for a decade and some change… and I already felt so… empty. There’s a point where fear, sadness, and pain seems to melt away. They don’t actually vacate your body, but it’s sort of like how static sinks into the background. Despite what people may think, this is the most dangerous sensation… you’re not depressed or angry anymore. You’re just… perfectly still. You start to wonder if you’re already dead. You get comfortable with the idea of blinking out of existence, because nothing already feels like nothing… which feels like… nothing. 

And you remember that when you were younger (no matter how young you still are) that you used to fight the numbness. That when you slammed your fingers in doors or fists through mirrors… when you watched the sharp edge dance across your skin, it felt like you were bleeding off some of your own misery. You would grit your teeth and quietly scream “Fuck OFF!” on the inside. You weren’t even sure who you were cursing at. Your abusers? Your parents? The world? Yourself?

No one really understood that all the times you hurt yourself, you were just trying to feel something. You wanted to prove to yourself that you were here… that the things that happen to you matter… that maybe — just this once — no one could sweep you under the rug. That you were making a record of your existence, keeping track of time served, in the form of scars and burns. To prove that some things don’t just fade away when you refuse to talk about them. To stubbornly demonstrate that not everything heals with time. 

But… it was only a temporary solution. Eventually, it just became like a mechanical habit, but it really didn’t make you feel any better. No matter how many times you left marks on yourself… you’d always wake up in the same bed… the same room… the same world. Feeding your lifeblood to the void.

“Everything happens for a reason.” It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s too naive for me. It suggests that existence is safe and easy, because whatever is supposed to happen will simply happen…. and that’s not the nature of life. Life is uncertain and brutal. And after a long time of contemplation, I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing means anything… unless you decide to make it mean something. 

For me, I knew that no one else had witnessed what I had been through. I was a sole survivor… and if I let my negative experiences cause me to self destruct completely, then the wrongs that had been inflicted on me would just be wiped from the slate. And maybe they would just keep happen again and again, to different people. 

It wasn’t my fault, the things that happened to me. I didn’t ask for any of it… but to be in a position where I could do something that I was already hard-wired for— survive — and possibly make someone else’s life a little brighter? I felt like I had an obligation…

Because we live in a world where too many people turn their heads when they see things that make them uncomfortable. They close their eyes and pretend that things are okay. And I knew, even at my weakest moments, that was something I would make every effort not to do.

The ugly things that happen to all of us mean nothing… unless we acknowledge and empathize with one another. We make it meaningful by caring. And by giving it value, we are given the liberty to help channel it into something positive — even if that takes a lifetime to achieve. By being willing to play witness, we show other people that they matter. Even if the universe doesn’t care… someone does. We empower each other to assert that what happened to us was wrong. When we survive and learn how to thrive even, we prove to each other that those wrongs don’t define us.

We remind each other that It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to be human. 

And sometimes being nothing — in the grand scope of things — isn’t a terrible or frightening thing. It just means that you have everything to gain.

Nothing means anything.

Unattainably Beautiful

“You’re beautiful, it’s true. I saw your face in a crowded place and I don’t know what to do, ‘cause I’ll never be with you.” - James Blunt

I’m going to admit — despite the numerous hilarious or silly spoofs I’ve heard based on this song — that I cry like a baby when I listen to it. Partly because it reminds me of a girl that I was madly in love with… but mostly because I think this song represents a common misconception about love and regret.

Most people assume that the song is about seeing a random, beautiful girl and knowing that you’ll never have a chance with her. Which is sort of annoying and heartbreaking to begin with. You know, the type of girl who radiates an unattainable sort of beauty. The kind that makes you cinch your jaw and ball your hands into fists…

But the song is actually about seeing an ex-girlfriend with her new lover. It’s about that moment that you realize that you had something beautiful, but you let it slip through your fingers. It’s the knowledge that you could have had everything you could have ever hoped for… but you fucked it up royally. 

I just think it’s a bit funny (in the saddest way possible) or sad (in the funniest way possible) that for all the pining we do for “unattainable girls”…

No beautiful stranger will ever be more unattainable than a person that you’ve been lucky enough to be loved by — and realized was worth so much more than you gave them credit for — the split second after they’ve decided that you’re not the one. 

Policy Of Truth [Or Reasons why I suspect I’m too idealistic for my own good, but too much of a masochistic, stubborn idiot to change now.]

In light of several anonymous questions and comments I received, I thought it would be an interesting idea to create a Q and A blog for the #Prose feature tag. Often, I feel like talented writers and active readers within the writing community here voice their concerns about the feature system, only to feel like they are screaming into a vacuum or trying to have a reasonable discussion with a nameless, faceless void. I think this leads to unresolved frustration… and eventually TWC burnout. 

It also seems to cause a rift between the tag editors and the rest of the community. Speculation and complaints about tag editors range from, “They only feature the same people over and over again because those writers are already popular” to “They are part of some clique that I can’t get into unless I kiss their asses” to “They are just lazy assholes.” [These are all summaries of posts I’ve read on my dash or messages I’ve seen posted on my dash or comments that have been left in my inbox recently.]

This negative image of editors would be fine with me, if it only affected editors, but…

I think these (what I hope are) misconceptions also contribute to backlash for writers who are featured multiple times, can fracture personal Tumblr relationships, and start to eat away at the community, little by little; breaking down solidarity, and indirectly promoting jealousy and feelings of exclusion. 

I think this #Prose blog could be a casual and mutually beneficial environment where (editors who are interested in participating) could interface with the community by accepting feedback, suggestions, and questions from the community. Where multiple editors could offer their unique perspective on a certain topic, in order to give some useful insight about their tastes, motivations, and opinions.

It could be a nice opportunity for readers and writers to actually feel like they are being heard and for editors to say, “hey, we’re just people who are trying to make the best (each of us to our own standards) of an imperfect system.” 

Tag editors don’t have the power to alter the feature system. I’ll tell you that in advance. None of us have any substantial answer as to why we were selected, how long we will serve as editors, or why the feature system is set up the way it is. So, we don’t have the liberty to speak for Tumblr. I think we also shouldn’t be held accountable for how the system was set up.

But, we do have the ability to choose our own style of editorship. We have the liberty to feature what we want (within reason by taking into consideration the tumblr community, not just the twc, as a whole), and whether or not we want to participate in the community. 

I sent a query letter to some of the editors I knew were active and who seemed like they interacted with the community to some degree, to see if anyone would be interested in volunteering some of their free time (and many of us don’t have much free time) to joining and being an admin on the new blog (if I put in the effort to create it and figure out an easy system for us to use to answer questions, check the inbox, and maintenance the page.)

The response was an overwhelmingly positive, 90% of the editors I asked said they would love to participate or wanted to know more information, but were slanted towards yes. 

About 5% haven’t gotten back to me yet. 

About 5% had either a concern or negative feedback about the idea. 

One concern was that editorship is (technically) limited to 60 days (as stated in the feature tag FAQ). So, what happens when you’re no longer a #Prose editor? The answer is that you would graciously leave the group. Active members would contact any new editors to give them the option to participate.

Yes. This includes myself. I’m assuming my editorship is temporary (which is part of the reason why I have such a fire lit under my ass to put out some new ideas, practices, suggestions, promo as many and as wide of a variety of writers as I can, and offer a different approach to being a tag editor (just so that future editors know that there are unlimited options of editor styles, even in a limited system). 

Someone else (as part of some valuable feedback) told me that, in their personal opinion, editors don’t owe the community anything, and that I am potentially making the job of a tag editor harder by setting unrealistic public expectations and that this could actually hurt the community as a whole. (Remember, we’re not getting paid for this. So, our level of commitment, or how seriously we take it, is totally optional). I think these are both valid viewpoints. I’ll admit I didn’t consider that my “hands on” approach to the community could actually be shooting other editors (who, in all seriousness are trying their hardest, in their own way, with the time they have available towards being an editor) in the foot. 

This is not my intention at all… I respect every single editor and I think they are all entitled to their own methods and style. I won’t bad mouth or demonize anyone. I won’t discourage you from traveling the path you’re on.

But… at the same time, the entire reason I wanted to be an editor was so I could help stir things up. When I asked the community to help support me, I made some promises that I was 100% committed to following through with: Accountability, transparency, being active, being enthusiastic, and doing whatever I could to show that I’ve been listening. 

I can’t turn my back on my word. I can’t just be content not to push the envelope. I can’t settle for anything less than what my personal standards and sense of integrity demand from me. 

Listen, I’m not suffering from delusions of grandeur. In the grand scope of things, none of this means anything. But it still means something to me. It’s not serious. But I’m serious about it.

I know I can’t really change anything around here. I can’t make people give a fuck or want to give something new a try. All I can do is light an optimistic spark… and make it the most brilliant and violent one that I can… and then hope that people start throwing wood, and furniture, and gasoline on top. 

We can (and in my opinion should be) accountable for our own standards, behaviors, and methods. 

We can, if we choose (while we serve as editors for however long as that lasts), to offer the community something different…

I choose to. 

I know I can’t change anything around here…

But I’ll keep trying.

I’m too idealistic not to give it my all. 

I’m too much of a masochistic, stubborn idiot to change now. 

Silly Petty Beast

What a vile little creature you’ve become. Waiting around in trauma wards, hoping to fall in love with another fleeting tragedy. I suppose nothing looks quite as sexy as one foot in the grave. You press your lips against every lifeless body, using your kisses like a respirator to breathe life back into some sorry bastard frozen in a vegetative state; forcing your tongue deep into their mouth like an intubation tube. 

When they finally open their eyes you feel like a mixture of Jesus Christ and Doctor Frankenstein. This is my body, this is my blood. It’s Alive! My god, what have I done? You celebrate the miracle of resurrection, but curse the knowledge that the connection between you can only be a perverted sort of love. No one comes back from the dead unscathed. But you push your anxiety back down into the bottom of your stomach, because you’ev already let it go this far…

For a while you’re content, even though your lover can be a bit too rough with you, especially with the sensitive parts of you person; namely your ego, mind, and heart. 

Sometimes they are sulky and forgetful, crying on your shoulder, finding themselves unbearably lonely because pretty girls shrink from their presence, intolerably smothered because other pretty girls shriek for their attention. Forever hungry for something that they can’t put their finger on… telling you how they will never be sated, no matter how much flesh they devour or vitae they consume. How they never quite feel cared for enough, even though, day after day and night after night, you’re pumping your own blood into their veins to keep them alive.

None of that matters. You love them. You have since the first moment you saw them drooling in that hospital bed. You love them, and just keeping them re-animated is enough. Because the greatest high you have ever known is saving a life…

Until the day you see them chuck your love letter into a giant pile of unsorted messages and miscellaneous sentiments. 

And you realize what a silly, petty beast you really are, because that’s the moment you wish you could will yourself out of love with them, at least just a little.

Because you don’t mind so much if people take you for granted…

But never… never your writing. 

Ghosts and Skeletons

You see me a dozen times a day, on the train, in the street, in our favourite café; disappearing just as the likeness turns and you find it’s another stranger with hair similar to mine. 


We only really see each other at the bottom of every glass, when there’s nothing left inside but the emptiness of where something that had been intoxicating was consumed.


I walk out past the ellipsis of the things you meant to say. I swim in the moonlight of all our daydreams and regrets. Your lips move in the night, sometimes, and casual lovers guess it’s the name of a broken heart; a ghost, a spectre; a remorseful phantasm you wouldn’t dare voice lest I appear in your room.


You examine the punctuation of my unrealized motives like footprints left in the sand, but my intent is fleeting — vanishing under a tide of silence. Though, I like to imagine you emerging from the sea of my subconscious, dripping wet with my unspoken desires. Do I even remember your name or did I tuck it away somewhere under the floorboards? Maybe it calls to me at all hours of the day, and at night I just try to moan loud enough — in someone else’s arms — to stifle the syllabus repeated over and over again, like the beats of a tell-tale heart. 


I sleep in the TV, counting backwards, forgetting names and places while the lights of a prism dance across your eyes. I’m being forgotten one daydream at a time. (I passed you a note, perhaps, folded three times and scented. You kept it in a shoe box. But you can’t remember where you hid it and we’re no longer friends on facebook.)


You dream in black and white these days, our technicolor fantasies of happy endings eaten up by the static of absence. (We don’t burn bridges anymore, we just break links. We don’t forget things, we just delete the evidence; the memories.)


I hide in your radio waves, humming nursery rhymes and hymns while the motorways unravel beneath you. Your job is a puzzle box. There were three ways in and all the exits were hidden. They have coffee club on Tuesdays and once a month you sing karaoke. You are fading out in echoes. (Maybe, we carved our initials into a tree. It was cruel you thought, but you crossed that field every time you walked home alone. One day you came to realize the names in the tree were warped out of shape, and you had long sold all our toys.)


You broadcast from a tower that only amplifies the white noise of regret. On a station that’s only available from the hours of too tired to exist and too awake to simply disappear. Your distorted melody lulls me to a half-dreaming state. My eyes close, behind the wheel, for just long enough to crash into my every day life. (Maybe I used that tree for firewood.)


I haunt the isles of the supermarket. There are phantoms between the prices and spectres hidden in the packaging. Your days are catalogued by the ways you prepare your vegetables. Your mornings are fibre and glucose. Your weekends are three types of fruit. You are falling one kilojoule per second. (Possibly, we spent one entire night talking to each other. You fell in and out of quick dreams still speaking to me, our fingers laced and our heads pressed together. You told me everything that night and now you can’t even remember my middle name.)


You indulge in well balanced meals of jealous speculation, beautiful plates that I’ve prepared and left at the tomb of my affection. That angry ghost that is damned to walk the limbo of unrequited sentiment. It belongs to no one, but is always bound to someone. (and if that night did happen, I swear that nothing I said is half as profound as the silence we share now.)


I whisper from the reflection in the mirror. You have grown old and alone in your reflections. It looks like you’re moving but you are always standing still. Your eyes seem further away than you remember. (Perhaps I looked deep into them years ago and told you I saw your soul. Perhaps you believed me, before you blinked, before I smiled.)


You are a spiteful ghost haunting a living skeleton. I tuck you into the grave of my forgetfulness, you lock me in the closet of your memory.



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Regular Text: blankspage

Italicized Text: ordinarywonder

I remember the first time I fell in love.

I remember the first time I fell in love. How my sweaty palms tingled when he placed the weapon in my shaking hands. The cold metal against my flesh sending waves of shivers that seemed to start at the reptilian base of my brain, crawling like a double leg amputee along the surface of my skin. My eyes were two eclipsed suns, dark but still burning in their sockets, focused so intently on his face that I was afraid I would cause him to spontaneously combust.

By the look of his expression, that’s exactly what he was hoping for. I think it was my potential for volatile sparks that attracted him to me in the first place. Even though I tried my best to smother it under a heavy blanket of numb, he could still smell it on me… like leaking fumes from a stove in the middle of a dark room. 

He pressed his belly against the muzzle of the gun, his hands cupping it from the other side, with an impish smile curled on his lips. “Pull the trigger.” He cooed, in a gravely sort of tone; his voice thick with wicked anticipation and a sadomasochistic sort of lust.

I bit my bottom lip, as my finger caressed the trigger. But the millimeter of violence I tried to coax with my fingers became a terrifying fifty thousand foot plummet in my stomach. 

“Shhh.” He soothed me as tears blurred my vision. I released the gun, collapsing against him in a cathartic fit of sobs. He wrapped one of his arms around my shoulders and pulled me close. 

His lips brushed against my forehead gently. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, I hid the rest of my face. I was too ashamed to look up at him. But, he took my chin in his palm firmly, applying just enough pressure to force me to tilt my head up. 

Maybe it was something about the way my pupils dilated when I felt the barrel of the gun make contact with my chest, but I think in that moment we both realized my true nature…

And then he shot me, narrowly missing my heart, before he laid me down in the grass — tucking me into a puddle of my own blood. He left me there, alone, in a state of frustrated shock and inconsolable awe.

Yeah. I remember the first time I fell in love. How he left me there to bleed out without the courtesy of a mercy bullet. I promised myself that I would never flirt with death again…

I’ve been looking for a real killer ever since. 

I Need Your Help.

First of all, I want to sincerely thank everyone who has congratulated me on being made a #Prose tag editor. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to give back to our wonderful community.

You are a stellar group of people and it’s my pleasure to be your reader, peer, and friend for as long as you’ll have me. I have a lot of faith in this community… and for someone who has a fair amount of intimacy and commitment issues, that’s saying a hell of a lot. I’ve found a loving and amazing family, here, and it’s all because of you. 

But, congratulations aren’t really necessary. In fact, I haven’t done enough yet to really feel like I deserve them. I know that being given a chance as an editor isn’t a monumental feat, but it means a lot to me… to be useful to my fellow TWC writers.

I’m taking it seriously, because I take each and every one of you seriously. I believe in you: As writers. As friends. As individuals. 

I want to articulate my intentions, plans, and desires. So that you know exactly what you can expect from me as an editor. I also want to make a pledge to the community, that I will strive to serve you to the best of my ability. 

Here’s How:

Accountability: I will always reblog my feature selections to my own blog, along with some sort of explanation as to why I chose the piece I did. I stand firmly behind every piece I feature and I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I do. 

No Favorites: I will pull all of my prose features from the All #Prose tag, not my dashboard. This means that even if I don’t follow you, you have an equal chance to get a blue tag as someone that I know by name. You also don’t have to follow me to be featured by me. This means that I will be spotlighting a lot of TWC writers that I’ve never read before. You can expect to see new or lesser seen faces. This is not to say that I won’t ever feature more popular writers (or personal friends), but it does mean that I’m making selections based on the best writing available (tagged prose) at the moment I am making selections. 

Nominations: I believe that you, as TWC writers and readers, deserve more say in the feature process. So I’ve opened my submit box up for prose feature nominations. Because I want to read the pieces that you would feel proud having represent our community to the rest of Tumblr. 

I promise 100% of my best effort to help keep this community vibrant, cohesive, and alive. But, I know I can’t do it all by myself. I really need your help. 

Successful tag editorship is based on response from the community. If I select lesser known writers and no one bothers to heart or reblog their work, I won’t be an editor for very long. 

I want to make a heartfelt appeal to you guys to please show your support (especially for user nominated pieces) by doing what you already do every day when you’re on Tumblr: reading, liking, and reblogging. 

And if you have time, please nominate pieces by your fellow TWC writers who you feel aren’t getting the recognition that you feel their writing deserves. 

As I have always said, features are not the end all be all of Tumblr writing. The truth is that no matter how many pieces I feature, the blue tags are meaningless without the support of the community. It’s the readers and rebloggers who ultimately dictate the success of a piece, a writer, or an editor here on Tumblr. 

I humbly ask you to please help me feed the community. 

Thank you.

Noelle

 

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PS.

You can always 

find some other

great writers/writing

@ Burning Muse.

Did He Suck You Dry?

You remember those brilliant but quiet moments when he stroked his thumb tenderly along the quivering slope of your bottom lip, as he asked you to enumerate your dreams. He placed a trail of small kisses along your face, starting at your chin, as you exposed your deepest aspirations to him like the vulnerable flesh of your throat; his mouth connecting the dots of your freckles, and you charting every one of your wishes like you were both mapping out the stars for one another…

Now that he’s gone, and you spend your nights alone, curled up in a little ball under the covers — as if you can hide from your loneliness — you can’t help but suspect that he only asked you to be cruel. So that he could ensure, when he finally tired of you, that he would take everything that had ever meant anything to you with him when he left. That maybe he was a sort of vampire who just fed off the lifeblood of your hope.

And you wonder, if at the very least, the best parts of you tasted sweet. 

Detour

Every day, little by little, life takes its toll. Small tributes of my soul adding up to just enough pocket change to cross another bridge. I toss my broken bits into the basket, and I’m not sure if they’re paying my dues or just going to waste.

Every moment, inch by inch, I’m slipping further away from myself. I’m a lone car meandering down a lost highway, disappearing into the fog… or maybe that’s just smoke rising from the back seat.

It stared with the idle flick of a cigarette, and ended with the heat of a funeral pyre burning on the backs of my shoulders. I’m pressing my foot against the gas, but you can’t outrun the flames when you’re the thing on fire. 

Every second, tick by tick, I’m being consumed by tongues of flame — lick by lick. There’s been so little left of me, for so long, that I’ve spent most of my life wondering, “where did the rest of me go?”

And when I had finally gotten tired of driving, overwhelmed by the vast amount of road left to travel, I collided with you like a safety wall. It was all metal scraping concrete, hot sparks, and kinetic fury…

You know, it wasn’t until I felt my body break against you… staring up into those cation lights that you call eyes… that I knew where the the rest of myself had run off to. When my vision was blurred by blood, or maybe some other kind of viscous fluid, I saw the best parts of myself reflected through the cracked windshield of my new perception, splattered against the rubble of your desire. 

Love was a bloody detour on the highway of uncertainty between me and oblivion…

And I’m happy to lie here in the aftermath of the wreckage. I could just lie here for hours, using up the last of my breath to distract and amuse you. 

I could just lie here, forever, to with you. 

I walked home in the middle of a protest rally. All sorts of signs and banners advocating for “equality” and “justice” and “humanity”. I stood at the crosswalk, and an old homeless lady stumbled next to me. She smelled like cold piss and warm vodka.

She babbled something in broken English, and then started singing — well, wailing actually — America The Beautiful. There was a sincere tenderness below the surface of her raspy voice. A naive sort of pride in her melody, like she still believed she had made it to the promised land. There was a bittersweet quality to her tone, like unscathed optimism that the American Dream was out there, somewhere, waiting to be realized. 

She held out her hand for some generosity… and no one dared to look her in the eyes; myself included. Surrounded by people hell bent on demanding change, and not one motherfucker had a dime to spare; not even me.

I got home and cried…

I’m still crying.

Inspiration VS Motivation

I often confuse the term inspiration with motivation. I should really stop doing that. The reality is that there is a world of difference between the two. We creative types spend a lot of time discussing inspiration. 

What inspires you?

That’s a great feeling, right? When your fingers are just twitching to find the keyboard. To be utterly enraptured by a feeling; streaming your ideas like you’re burning lines of fire across the sky. A perfect storm of consciousness meets vocabulary. Nothing really compares to how “right” you feel when you’re not just writing… you are writing. Fuck. I live for those moments…

The problem is that inspiration is fleeting. It comes and goes as it pleases. Which is absolutely perfect if you’re just writing for the sake of writing, or for the act of release. 

But if you have any professional aspirations, being at the mercy of something as fickle as inspiration can be an excruciatingly frustrating exercise.

Is today the day that the planets will align in just the right configuration to rouse the slumbering god of my creativity? Yes? Maybe? No? Am I going to be stuck sulking around my apartment in my PJ pants, eating snacks and wondering when my muse is finally going to get its head out of its own ass?

If finished pieces are the currency of our trade, then simply relying on inspiration is sort of like finding an unexpected $20 in your pocket. It’s like standing in front of the ATM praying that you can withdraw a few bills before the bank realizes that you’ve floated your rent check.

It’s awesome when that happens! But, can you realistically support yourself that way?

Now, I’m not talking about literally supporting yourself monetarily. What I mean is that if you’re looking to master your craft, you can’t be afraid to push past your comfort zone. The only way to hone your skills is to put them to use. Otherwise you’ll plateau at whatever skill level you’re currently at. In fact, lack of writing often leads to anxiety about starting again. So, truthfully, you may even find yourself backsliding. 

Motivation is the willingness to do something. If inspiration is like finding “free” money, motivation is getting a job and working every day to put something in the bank. It’s not a wholly certain thing. It’s like a job, you could lose it at any moment, but it’s certainly more steady than relying on the good graces of the cosmos. 

Inspiration is scrolling through facebook and having a gut reaction to a picture or post that just fills your head with a million great ideas.

Motivation is having the self-discipline to sit for a while and generate ideas, even when nothing really excites you. 

Inspiration is limited by a variety of variables; internal and external. Motivation is only limited by yourself; willpower, emotional/physical/mental health. 

If I have my choice, I’d rather write from the gut or the heart. I have a strong connection to those pieces. They feel like… being in love. They feel like they fit just right. They feel like home…

But, sometimes (if you want to write at all) you have to write from the head. That means flexing your imagination and finding some reason to connect with the material, even if you’re not in love with it. Even if it feels awkward. Even if you sort of feel like you’re trapped in an airport, trying desperately to get back to where you live. 

I believe that you can write about anything, at any time, and if you’re a half decent writer, it’s going to be interesting. 

And if you’re a great writer, no one will ever be able to tell the difference between the pieces that were birthed from inspiration and the ones that were earned through perspiration motivation. 

My goal as a writer is to become the best writer I possibly can be. Whatever natural talent I may feel that I have or don’t have, I understand that it takes a certain level of dedication and a whole lot of work to get my skill level and artistry to the same level as my aspirations.

Writing is work. 

Writing is beautiful work.


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Burning Muse Prompt: Inspiration

You’re Worth More

You spend your days doing your best imitation of a doormat, people wiping their mud stained boots all over your blank face.

Sometimes you want to scream and scream until you lose voice, because no one really listens to you anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to lose your sight and hearing too, because maybe if you were totally ignorant of the world around you then you wouldn’t feel like such an impotent disappointment.

Sometimes you feel like the unsightly shit-stain in the briefs of humanity. You really wish someone would scrub you out of the folds of history.

So you leave your heart in a cardboard box on the side of the street, like an unwanted kitten that you were too cowardly to drown. You toss your hope out the window, like a smoldering cigarette, waiting for it to be extinguished and flattened by the metaphorical wheels of an existential Mack truck. You give away the best parts of yourself from the back of a van, like you’re hocking lackluster stolen goods; VCR, chipped china, confidence, body, soul, and mind.

You undervalue yourself time and time again, like you’re the curator of some shitty cosmic garage sale that only sells things that no sane person would ever want.

But I want you to know that you’re worth more… No matter how much that truth hurts… You’re worth so much more than you could ever imagine.

And sometimes I think that’s exactly what you’re afraid of. 

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