Where Am I?

Where am I in my writing? The mind is the last frontier. Okay. W/ that being said I am in the right place. I am to rectify my life through writing. I am to give not for my benefit. It is so others benefit. Guthrie said something about why be singing a song to make someone miserable when one can sing a song to make some people happy? Prose carries that over. I love to play Dylan and his "awareness-life on life's terms" so called "hate songs>" Take tell it like it is and skip sugar coating to a new cosmic awareness? Where are you in your writing?

I have this year met twenty years after finishing my first novel and somewhat abnormally about being about oneself like most first novels are. Start now. Get it out of the way. Beat the odds, beatnik write-niks. First novel? It was/is about a subculture that stared into the fire dying after climbing all day, travelling to hot spots, jalopying around in budget cars' luck and fun-filled objective risks/dangers/kicks, mostly adventure seeking until there was no difference betw/ the dream and reality no flatlander could know. I can't emphasize that if you are waiting to start, start now. Word processor and a flash drive are cheap w/ the relatively incredible gains w/ understanding one's life, the world changes, and awareness plus the immeasurable brain/thinking skills' advantages that are reaped, yielded. My last count was including 12 volumes of scores/music compositions forty-five manuscripts to the last edit level plus a dozen healthy, lion's share of "sprouts." I cannot believe I had to make a major decision if I were going to write any more. (Really the worst scenario.) I decided to keep writing? Why? I realized not only had I filled about two hundred fifty pages of some cool shit. I learned how to really write beyond the academic world, a free soul amongst as equally free souls, real "monks" that showed up in the right place, right time, ... serendipity/synchronicity. Life is like that; small right decisions what ever right is, maketh big changes/differences. Better doors open up. You know (know you will now.), if things are going to change, you gotta make some change. Advocate for your right to vote yeah to obtaing permission for yourself to write. Ugh. Aaargh. Through everything, loss of a relationship, loss of a childhood dream (teaching college), "misplaced" friends, homelessness for seven months (It was more like an extended climbing trip w/ no climbing.), buying my own home w/ cash, over ten years at a very rewarding job (Careers are jobs one never quits.), maturing relationships w/ my family, seeing my father turn eighty in good health, living through and thriving beyond survivng giving to my community, a redefined community, having my undergrad and graduate education, and essentially house paid off, plus starting and running successfully my own small business, I some how held tightly, embraced creativity and my sense of G_d, that higher power. (In these times, postgrad university paid, a home paid off, and one's own business up and running are a triunal miracle.) Have faith. Watch the laws of the street. Be merciful. Don'yt bite the hand that feeds you. You are not alone. Help someone. A deeper sense of humanitarianism surfaces. It really was not my will. I had no chance to respond any other way. It was a baptism by fire, like Yvon Chouinard at the fire and anvil, forging step by step hardened, forged stepping stones.

Change makes change. Work begets work. (If nothing is knocking at your door, make the opportunity happen w/in you.) If you have issues w/ immediate gratification, writing will calm the mighty beastlie problem. Write w/ the view you are going to write shit. Do it anyway. It is not a choice. Editing is a time for that resolution. Just produce. Get the aim of 10K hrs. are going to pass by til true mastery. Not going for it? Take what you want. Leave the rest. For literally watch the journalling, not the clock. Keep record of your cognitive life. Keep touch w/ your emotional life. Practice life skills of awareness and mindfulness. It is apractice, not a terminal summit. The apogee is the process, the progress.