Waiting for the Right Moment

There are links on my page to websites and blogs that tell me how to get published and advise me to go! try now! send it away now! You never know, they might publish it!
...but that is just not how I operate. I have legitimate excuses, people, for why I cannot send away my writing yet.
I am really busy. Two jobs, two cats, two classes, two families, two weddings, too many friends, four siblings, two of whom still need care and feeding because they are teenagers and if you don't spend time with them they will go down the wrong path because they feel unloved and need guidance.
My boyfriend doesn't require attention most of the time, but he misses me eventually.
My mother needs almost as much care and feeding as my younger siblings it seems sometimes...
Did you know I haven't gotten more than six hours of sleep in two years? Never. I never ever sleep. I don't sleep and these links are telling me to write write write and send send send! Sure, I guess I will just do that then. But not yet. when I have time to breathe and sleep all the way from elevan pm to 7 am, and take a deep breath and look at my clean apartment without feeling guilty about all the deadlines that are rushing up to meet me, then, I will pull out some writing and click on some links and I will see about publishing my writing.
That is why I have those links there on both sides of my blog homepage. That is why I follow six publishing houses on my twitter account, and countless literary agents and authors, despite the fact that I rarely read their tweets. It's for later. It will be there when I have time and I'm ready to focus on publishing. Alexander Mcleod wrote that you can't be a writer and a runner. Not, if you want to excel at something. Right now, it seems I am a runner, but I won't be forever.

Of course I realize that everyone in the flippin world is busy... and no I am not under the impression that people who publish their writiing have an excess of spare time. I am only talking about my life, and my feeling that I am under too much pressure right now to pursue it. But the information is there so that I can do it when I am ready, and that is a comforting knowledge. Indeed.

The Art of Creating

I guess there were expectations for my blog that I didn't exactly meet. I meant to, like for instance, I went on that walk, and took those pictures. I just never put them up. But there's a reason...

I never walk around my neighbourhood, I don't even do my runs in my neighbourhood. The only thing that happens in my neighbourhood is my car gets frequently vandalised there. So, I will put those pictures up tonight, but I feel you should know that they don't represent the space where I create. I am bound to this space because it is rare to find an apartment building that accepts pets, and its conveniently close to one of my jobs and there's a grocery store and a tim hortons all within a stones throw of my front door. So lets just say this is the foregrounding of my photos.

The walk I took is the only walk I do take in my neighbourhood. Because, you see, there is one more convience about the space I live in. It is through a playground and around the corner from my Grandparents house. So I walk there as frequently as I can, which is never frequently enough, and I learn things like how to bake bread and make soup, and sew patches and quilt useful items like a laptop sleeve, or I teach my grandmother how to surf the interweb and download patterns and recipes, or stream videos like simple exercises for seniors. It's the only walk worth taking in my neighbourhood.

It seems like I should mention here where I am when I actually do my creating.  I create at the most inconvenient times. When I have an armload of books at Chapters I will suddenly become possessed by an idea that won't let me go until I swipe some till tape and write it down. When I am running around the lake and there isn't a pen in sight, I suddenly know exactly how to say that thing I have been trying to say. When I am driving in my car and my music is up and I have 57 kilometers between me and a pen and paper. These are the moments when I create.

Isn't life funny...

The End?

It is weird to think that the creative writing class that brought this blog into existence has come to an end. What will become of us now? Of course I plan to keep writing, and although I have two other blogs and a twitter account (mostly unused) I like to think  I will keep this one going as well. I rarely write anything on my other blogs, and 140 characters isn't really enough space to ponder through anything meaningful (I think) so I like to believe I will continue to use this blog to catalogue my writing trials and tribulations, and hopefully keep in contact with my classmates whose writing I have enjoyed an awful lot. It was a stressful semester and i don't think I will miss it. But I will miss the push to write. I will have to find a new way to push myself.

Some of us talked about the idea of sharing our 'other stories,' like the ones that we didn't get to workshop, or even other writing from outside class, I would be interested to know if anyone would like to do such a thing now that the semester is over. I guess leave me a message or send me an email  at j.janemorris@gmail.com if you do.
So, here goes, another ending, another new beginning.

Talk to you soon.

Jessie