Peace and Writing

You can communicate through pictures, music, words, and expressions of all kinds and forms. 

And I love communicating through a weaving of expressive but intricately linked words that umbrella an array of emotions, images - or stay just a state of being at having been connected on a certain empathetic level with someone, even for just that moment.

So communicating through words completes that cycle I want to repeat in getting ideas/perceptions out of my head and portray them through words, to have someone read them off on paper or on screen and have them understand what I had wanted to say.

Be empathetic and reach out to those around you, talk with them, write to them, sing with them, and hug them.  Make sure they know that you're communicating with them and love them so.

Things were going just jolly when Magna, god of Water Guzzling Giant Island appeared to me. 

Okay, maybe things weren't exactly 'jolly', but it was feasible I tell you.  My family was suffocating me with their needy 'love' and I hadn't known who I was in a long, long time.  But things were feasible, and I thought I would die cooped up in my henhouse of a home, just as it was the only place I had known inside and out - in minute details, out of all the places in Water Guzzling Giant Island.

Then, as I had said, Magna appeared to me in a vision.  It was daytime when the surreal phenomenon occurred, in a hazy dazy sort of a snap into consciousness, and I had felt Magna there - in that state of being.  'Are you afraid?'  That thought clinked itself into my conciousness, and I willed myself to succumb to the fear.  'Yes, I'm afraid,' I answered, 'very much so.'  And I swear I could feel my heart pounding to get out of my chest.  In a moment's time, eternity had elapsed and I was left alone again, out in that daylight, wide open space, miles of green meadow spreading out before me in every direction - possibilities just endless.

Then, I started to run wild, felt the wind on my face and my expanded lungs, and I knew that some shackles had been broken free - at that instant things went from 'just jolly' to 'intensely happy'.  

I am free!   

We've all been guilty of putting off work or even something we enjoy doing because of a lack of motivation.  It seems like the passion and the inspiration was too far a goal for the means to justify the end, and we are eaten up with the mundane. 

As a freelance writer this can get repetitive, especially so when you're faced with your self-doubting demons, because truth be told, there's just no one around to give that extra little push.  There is usually no rush, I mean, even with the deadline looming, you know that you'll get it done in time, especially if you're the kind who push for those last minute rushes of adrenaline when all your inspirations and motivations fall into place to give you just enough boost - enabling you to finish you work just in time to save your hide.

If the last minute rush works for you, good for you.  But we still need to figure out ways to keep ourselves motivated enough to stay above the turbulent waters that is the uncertainty of a career as a freelance writer.  Because if you don't stay motivated enough to keep you in business and keep you moving along in your career, then you're doomed for failure - there is no backbone of a danwei nor a consistent track record in the form of full time employment to keep you intact - you're your company and backbone.

With the above said, I would suggest the following ways to keep yourself motivated as a freelance writer with a home office:

1. read other blogs by other freelance writer so that you can get an idea of how they schedule their work and push for success; you can learn and get motivated to do so yourself.

2. research your career prospects - know what's in store for the future of a freelance writer; this way you'll know what you're up against and how your path is cut out in front.

3. make a work schedule - however preliminary; you can make changes as you go along, but it definitely saves you heartaches and headaches to have a basic outline in your mind - and on paper - about how you're looking to ideally implement self-discipline day-to-day.

4. turn a little music on and don't be afraid to indulge some time of the day in your favorite hobbies - all workers, self-employed or not, need a break in between work, and for you as a freelance writer it is especially the case.

5. above all esle, be patient with yourself; no one knows you better, or should know you better, than yourself.  It is always good to pat yourself on the back for accomplishing something, however trivial or big, day in and day out.  If you should fail one day or the next, don't get disheartened and have peace with the fact that you can always try again tomorrow to do better than today.

Happy freelancing!  Ah, it is the way to live and work!

It's been almost 7 months since Noah Grey decided to go offline, and I've been missing him ever since. 

No, I haven't known him personally, but I really felt like I connect with him on an empathetic level that comes with being in absolute awe of a beautiful beautiful soul.  He is a bipolar with autism, a brilliant photographer, and a self-proclaimed odd-ball that doesn't harm mostly.  And he has endured so much in his years that it pains others to even just read it off on the screen from his journals/larks online - oh, and the photos he took - they helped him with stepping outside and venturing into the woods nearby, and it was that passion that had made him so strong a personality and yet so delicate a soul.

You know how the saying goes about how a phoenix never dies and is but just reborn through having been completely obliterated to ashes?  Well, I don't buy into that crap.  To me, he doesn't need to suffer so just to prove that he's a phoenix.  To me, no beauty for beauty's sake should be borne out of suffering.  Beauty was there all along, inlaid as with the shine that already makes a diamond, and it itself was turned into the phoenix after the obliteration through fire and hell.  But the person, the possessor of the diamond of a soul never did reincarnate, and was gone. 

And I think if there was a 'right' and 'just' thing with the world, it should not have been so.  I cannot accept the fact that just because the diamond was preserved, that the fire of hell was 'right' in its own rights. 

No!

Freelace writing should be about writing for a living.  And you can't write for a living unless you get into this mindset that you're in business, you're not just doing this for the extra income nor for the momentary rush of bringing in money with your hobby.  You're a business owner and it fuels your motivation that much more if you can get yourself in this mindset early on.

As a freelance writer, you're paid to write, yes, but you're all on your own when it comes to motivating yourself, putting yourself out there, and achieving what you want to achieve in your business.  It may be called the 'home office', but don't ever get into the habit of cutting yourself slack just because you get to work at home all day.  Rather, you should be motivated to do more because you're in your most familiar and comfortable zone. 

I know that everyone wise have talked about 'pushing yourself out of your comfort zone' - so you can get the incentive you need to push yourself further out - but I would also like to think that staying in your 'comfort zone' should not be the reason to slack off either.  We didn't want to deal with the 9-5 set nor the moral-breaking and stifling environment that comes with the old office life.  We hold our creativity to a much higher standard and our self-discipline to a much higher rung than would those office goers, and it is all the more reason for us to stay motivated in our 'comfort zones'. 

On some days, you know that you're in business and you're ready to roll.  But on others, it may not be as easy to stay focused and motivated to get what you needed done done, but just make sure that we all know that we're in business and not just any freelancer with a desk, a laptop, and a home office. 

What do you do when you're feeling all out of motivations and inspirations?

She was far away from home and wasn't sure of the way back.  Home seemed so much like the dream that had tugged at her reverie, not much of concrete material.  It would've helped if she had kept the little note her lover had written her, back at the hotel, she thought, as she strained to remember what it said and how it had felt eminent with bringing into focus something she knew she had missed.  Perhaps a big clue that would point her in the general direction of where she should be headed.  But yet, like all things with a dream quality attached, she couldn't remember for the life of her. 

Wandering on the deserted route, with branches strewn across the road, possibly from the terrible wind and rain last night, she couldn't have been more surprised to discover him.  He was there squatting to the side, wearing bright colors, yellow shirt, red jacket, and bluest of sky blue jeans.  He looked up when she got close enough to see his face.  It was daylight, but she felt as if she was pulled into a deep reverie, and it was serenity a night as a night can be so serene.  Oh yeah, she remembered what the note had said: It would've felt like that the gods had intervened, if you ever find what you're looking for. 

I think that the term "soulmate" can be used to extend to musical instruments as well, because they carry a companionship quality to them that make them quite sufficient as any human a "mate".  I had my guitar for when I'm all out of writing and other musings to carry me on a more productive vibration day in and day out, and it has treated me blissfully with its tendency to groove and in making me groove with it.

As with the upkeep of all soulmates, it is good to keep the relationship nourished and pampered, so I always find time to practice with my guitar, even when I'm not altogether musically inclined at that particular moment.  Those times spent are repeated and cherished because I rarely find anything so precious in the world as two beings feeling each other's groove, and getting used to the rhythm of one another.

Should you find your soulmate in your instrument, be it writing, painting, or strumming, continue on getting in tune with your mate and make the best of your times together.  It feels blessed to be so accompanied by a mate that generally knows no bounds in following you to all ends of creativity.  Don't you think so?

Shanghai is a metropolitan.  It has all the glamor and clamor and bustle of a metropolitan, and it has the gutters like all metropolitans.  

Here, like all good metropolitans, there’s a commonly felt urge for being restless.  The neon lights don’t dim and glitter, they shone bright and flash bursts of loud colors in the oddest of hours.  Sure, there’s an imposed curfew here, for all partying and night groping to stop at 2 in the morning.  But being that I’m no party animal and never will be, I could hardly testify whether that night groping did stop at 2am, or it only took a taxi and continued on home for even wilder slugging down of toxicants and dissatisfied bouts of hell raising.

Metropolitan as it were, there doesn’t seem to be much else going on, aside from the general restlessness.  People come, people go, and they stick to their old ways and old customs, even after having gone places.  Girls with master's degrees stress over the fact that they can’t marry before 25 years of age.  Young man 23 or so, not liking nor terribly disliking that he has to be a dull dentist after graduating, but sees no other alternatives and is restless.  

And for the past 7 years that I’ve lived and learned here, I had felt restless as well, until only recently.  Because, you see, I realized that I can tune in to my inner resolves and be motivated to take my restless somewhere where it can be tamed productive.

Welcome to Shanghai!  Don’t be restless.

You write to express your ideas.  You write to make clear of your ideas for others.  You write to impress, to educate, to commemorate.  These are all good reasons to write.  These should be the reasons you write, and are exactly the reasons why I strive to write.

I've struggled with writing all my life because I struggle with making clear for myself what it is that I want to communicate with others through writing.  And through growing to be an adult and meeting new people, I've been learning and growing as a writer and as a communicator. 

It is fascinating how much the internet has changed the lives of artisans such as writers.  We had thought that we would become extinct or be subjected to mediocre slaving by the machines and technology, and here we are, with the internet enabling us to be better equipped to do our job and connect in ways that would not have been imagined possible.

What would you imagine possible in another 5 years for us?  Please dream big!

(Photo Courtesy photos8.com)