Notebook Addiction.

Well, I have a serious problem that all started when I made it up in my mind to become a writer. I have an addiction to buying notebooks of all shapes, colors and sizes (no actually that is a lie, I actually have a very strict criteria when it comes to purchasing paper products) and then never writing in them.

Silly as it sounds I draw inspiration from seeing an empty notebook just waiting to be filled with words. Only problem is, I want to wait until I have the perfect thing to write in them before I even attempt to fill them with anything. If on the first blank page of a notebook, I write something that is not glorious enough for my tastes, that notebook will almost definitely never be written in again. Currently I have 42 notebooks all together. Only 20 of them actually have stuff written in them, and only four of those 22 contain more than a few sentences.

So! To rectify the situation I have made a pact with myself. Post National Novel Writing Month's tax on my mental state and my sleep, I will fill one notebook a month without purchasing another until I do not have such a ridiculously high number of empty notebooks. Will I stick to this goal? Probably not, but I will try it nonetheless. Like most projects I start out full of steam, only to fizzle out in a few short days. However, Nanowrimo has definitely taught me a thing or two about perseverance so I shall fight the good fight.

In other words....I'm baaaaaaack.

Cheers

Love...overdone and way past cliche...

Yet so many seek it and desire to make it yield to them, take notice of them and scoop them up and coddle them with affectionate words and liquid soft kisses for the rest of eternity. Sadly, this is not at all true. Love is not a person or a thing that is capable of finding a person and lacks the ability to encompass and overtake all aspects of said persons life.



I used to think that I had to wait for Love to come to me and place me in the center of the whirlwind that so many people talk about. I used to believe, foolishly, that once I found love everything else would magically fall into place and my life would gain that gold-coated fairytale substance that leads to happily ever after in beautiful marital bliss. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.



On one hand, I was stupid to think that love can fix everything and anything. That love can make a broken person whole, no matter how much you adored the person (or they adored you), no matter how good the sex was, no matter how "dynamic" you appeared to everyone else. On the other hand, I continued to seek it, even though this enigmatic sensation, concept, desire had caused me much heartbreak and pain. If you don't have a clear definition of what love truly is, it can lead you in circles and make you go mad, searching for something that is so concrete to everyone, but fails to exist for you because you don't know what love truly is. You see, my epiphany, revelation, whatever pretty synonym you want to call it, occurred when I evaluated myself, and all of my failed/botched relationships, to see what I was doing wrong, why the love I had for that person, and the love that said person had for me, was never enough to go the distance. Well, after much thought and painful deliberation, I came to the realization that I had no freakin clue what being in love really meant.



Love is not a ride. It's work. It's a choice. It's a decision you have to stick with. My best friend and my lover once told me that you can "fall in love" with whoever you spend most of your time with. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I realized that what he said was totally true. YOU make the choice to stick it out with the person you're with, or abandon them for easier walking. YOU make the choice whether you want to put aside you're selfish desires in order to see and do what is truly best for both of you. YOU make the decision to accept a person for who they are, imperfections and all, and instead of nitpicking you encourage them to be the best they can be, support them as they take tentative first steps in an unknown direction, and love them when they fall down.



People think love is a selfish emotion, but real love is the purest emotion that exists on the earth. I used to think that love was about what he could do for me, not what I could give to him. In truth, love is a giving emotion, and the best example of what love is meant to be is the love of Jesus Christ. People think that love is this obscure thing that can't be described in simple words, a sensation that only poets can truly express, a feeling that none can really describe the same way twice. But the definition of love is plain as day as it is expressed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7



"Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand it's own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth prevails. Love never gives up,never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."



Doesn't sound too easy does it? It's not meant to be. If love was an easy feat to accomplish, it wouldn't be such a wondrous and fulfilling experience. The image of love has become skewed and cheapened in this society, and too many people walk around with the WRONG idea of what love truly entails. Now, no person on this earth can uphold the above Biblical "love mantra" ALL THE TIME. We aren't perfect and there will be times you get annoyed, stay pissed off with your significant other for something that happened ten years ago...blah blah. In the same turn, the above statement does not just apply to just romantic relationships, it should apply to EVERY meaningful relationship you are in whether it's family or friends.



The beauty of love is when you know what it is, and you can uphold its true values, and when someone shoots it right back at you. When you put the word of God, and God himself, in the middle of the relationship...it will flourish because He will introduce you to the concept of unconditional love. Now this does not apply to abusive relationships (as any person with common sense SHOULD know) however, knowing what love really is will allow you to truly love others and love yourself.



In regards to myself, when I stopped looking for love and started living it, It blossomed before me in a beautiful relationship that has only flourished over the years. There's none of that "I'll die for you," "I can't live without you," stuff. Instead, my lover is my best friend whom I can tell anything to without fear of being judged or cast aside. He is an unbelievable support system who can cheer me when I'm right but will quickly let me know when I'm wrong. He loves me flaws and I'm undoing all the incorrect conceptions I have learned throughout my dating life to do the same. It's an ongoing and a forever changing process.



Love is an action word. Love is not something to live or die for. Love is not a knight or beautiful princess that will walk out of the glorious sunrise to kiss you passionately and rescue you from whatever evil lonely circumstance you are in. The best way to find love, is to really know what it truly means. Only then, can you hope to experience it (devoid of any pitfalls, toxins and traps) for yourself.



God Bless.

Random musings....

Okay, so maybe not quite as random as last night. That was pretty freakin random.

Today was pretty low key.... nothing much happening.

*DING* Kat just had a realization. This is not a journal. This is a blog. A blog is a commentary on a specific subject, not day to day events (unless you're really important) So, I shall try to make things a little bit more focused from here on out, but i cant make very many promises.

I should be working on my story. (I am kind of pissed right now though because it sounds like I am killing my keyboard because I have to type so freakin hard to get the keys to register on this flippin thing, garg! It's messing up my flow.) I realized that I have a love hate relationship with the book I am writing. I would love to finish it, perfect it, submit it. But I hate the HARD WORK that it takes to write it.

I'm sure writing a book isn't as hard for me (since I am deeply in love with written words) as it would be for some, but it is still REALLY HARD. Yea you can write a book anywhere (bus, home, bathroom, work) with any kind of media (pencil, laptop, blood, snot, marker) but it takes a whoole lot of mental concentration that leaves me utterly drained. Inspired? Yes. Creative? Yes. Drained? O hell yea. But with hard work comes great rewards (if you're working hard the right way and boo to all the slackers that get rich while doing nothing!) So onward ho! Towards a novel.

Cheers

Have you Ever Heard the Wolf Cry to the Blue Corn Moon?

Oh yea. Pocahontas. Dig it.

Life is odd. Odd like starting a blog with a line from a movie ten years old.

I started talking to a person, I haven't talked to in ages. And its not as bad as I thought it would be. But then again, I have changed a looooot so maybe it was my immaturity that was causing the problem. Who knows?

I just realized. I don't feel like blogging tonight.

I just also realized, I need to start doing stuff I don't feel like doing.

So on with blogging!

Um...HI JOHN!....I know you're gonna read that eventually and shake your head/come up with a smart alec comment. So harhar in advance.

Blackberries are cool. Techy piece of shibby technology.

Okay, I really don't feel like blogging. NO stop, you shall keep writing, even if it's nonsense.

No Drama is great. R. Kelly suxorz. *next song on Ipod* Why the freak am I listening to R&B anyway? *next genre*

GOD I LOVE BEING WEIRD.

Okay, now that I put that out there. My work here is done.

Cheers!

It's been awhile...yet again.

Well things have changed drastically once again in my life, rendering me technoloically speechless for quite awhile, hence my hiatus. Forgive me! Not that anyone's reading this lol.

I have ditched story planning, character development, mapping, setting up and breaking down. No structure, no anything. I just started writing. And suprisingly it works. Ahhh the wonders of the universe. Odd how things work out in the way you don't really expect them to.

It's been a summer, so far, or rejuvination, revelation and restoration, woo points for alliteration. I have decided to turn my life over to God, including my writing life (uuggghhh that was hard) and my relationship (equally as hard) but things are working really well for me.

Well I suppose you really can't care about a character until you truly know them, and I also have realized that I have failed to introduce myself so let me do that now.

I am Kat. I love words, I love love, I love life. If I had to describe me in one word, I think I would chose....Hodgepodge because there is not one single word that describe me very well. But Hodgepodge is quirky and unusual enough to manage well enough until the Oxford English Dictionary evolves enough to create a word that encompasses the personality of me. I adore my family and what few true friends I have (a very hard and ongoing life lesson learned) and I'm fiercly loyal to those who are loyal to me. But that doesn't really matter all that much. What truly matters is, I am living in a world all my own. If you're lucky, you can experience my world of vivid oranges, belly-laughs, silliness and an overall awe with life. It's a great place, I promise.

Okay, so now that the preliminaries (which I didn't handle in a very chronological sort of way) have been taken care of, I shall move on!

I have several people to thank, for the production of this blog.
God: For giving me the talent to express my self in written format.
Stephen: For FINALLY writing a blog and inspiring me to restart my own defunct blog.
Myself: For being a genius.
Haters: For teaching me sooo much about myself and empowering me through their base and ignorant actions.
Kyle: For NOT calling me so that I have time to actually type this instead of yakking away on the phone for hours (Love ya babe)

Well thats all folks! Til next time (possibly months from now)
Cheers!

Gentle Encouragement

Even though I am currently sick, I received a far more meaningful medicine than Theraflu or Vicks could ever give me....a 10 minute chat with my creative writing professor. I was nervous about going to talk to him, even though I have no idea why. Perhaps I was afraid of hearing something that wouldn't help me at all but only add to the confusion that alreay surrounds my writing life. Within the firs couple seconds, my fears were laid to rest.

"What makes you think your work is good enough to be published." Awkward almost condescending question no? I thought so too as I worked to make it clear to him that I was aksking an earnest question, not trying to be a smart alec. Fortuneatly, he already realized that.

To summarize the conversation he stated:
1. When everything just magically clicks and you can actually see what writing is all about (not sure if that was just for him or if all great novelists have experienced that.)
2. Don't give into the starving artist mentality (people who create to create and don't care if they get a dime in the process although they are trying to make a living off of it secretly)
3. Have confidence in your writing and polish the pieces that you really care about.

I think I can do that.

Now I'm inspired and chomping at the bit to make something of myself, not as a journalist as I originally intended/came to college for, but as a writer, a novelist. I think I can do that too. Oddly enough, that brief encounter also encouraged me to start a writing blog (the more writing the merrier) and even if no one reads this, at least I'm putting it all out there. Perhaps some hopeful yet scared writer will stumble acrosss and realize that they aren't alone.

Well, I'm off to one of the 23 empty notebooks I have accumulated in all shapes, colors and sizes (notebooks and stationary are my two greatest addictions) to write a story. We'll see how it goes.

Cheers!