A haven for creative people living with mental illness. This is the place where you can tell it like it is, not yet another place where you have to pretend to be someone you've been told you should be.
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Wicked Wednesday: The Devil In Reverse
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Come as you Are Party: What's Behind the Door?
Spirit of the Universe, is there any hope for me? I go through periods where I do better but then I go back to seeking validation from people who really couldn't care less about me. Am I really this broken, Spirit? Am I really this goddamn stupid and pathetic? Am I really going to spend my entire fucking life being nothing but a worthless wannabe?
I say I don't need people to like me, but I obviously still care about people's opinions enough that I can't set myself free to just write what I want. I say I don't care about people's opinions, but I obviously care enough that I avoid working on this project because I worry readers will think that I'm just rehashing the same subject because I'm too thick to understand it and too much of a whiner to do the work to make the changes.
I think I'm fucking hopeless, Spirit. Truly I do. Why bother trying? I'll never be anything but a fuckup and a reject. I truly was crafted from the leftover dregs of whatever rejected souls were cobbled together prior to mine. I'm a reject's reject. I want to give up but I can't stand being just a passive observer. Why was I born with such big dreams when everything I do turns out to be just one more disappointment? Why the fuck do I keep doing this?
I am and always will be fucking entirely alone in it.
Nonetheless, I enjoy analyzing things. It's another annoying and not particularly productive quality of mine. So here we go.
For each struggle and roadblock in your writing, can you determine which are internal and which are external?
Sure.
Being on disability, which doesn't pay enough to actually live on, is external.
By the way, I give no fucks if anyone reading this dislikes my split infinitive.
One reason I want to eventually publish one of my shitty volumes of crappy ruminations is that I want to show how utterly goddamn demoralizing, Draconian, and just completely shit the disability system in the United States is. When a person must either suddenly amass such significant wealth that they no longer have to worry about SSD and its plethora of shitty rules or they must keep their savings to less than $2000, it's bullshit, and it's downright abusive. In other words:
“I'm not totally useless. I can be used as a bad example.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Right, now that we've got the demoralization of being perpetually broke and afraid to do anything to better my circumstances bit out of the way, let's address the internal fuckery.
I've been unhappy writing nothing but pieces for consideration in anthologies, which is what I've been doing for the past six months. My labors of love, reviled though they may be by others, allow me to get to know my characters and through my characters, myself. I told myself that this was childish, and I needed to become a grown-up writer doing the adulting and filling my inbox with rejection slips.
While I think I should do more of that than I have in the past, I deeply dislike being depressed and utterly alone, so I've gone back to prioritizing my LOLs (Labors of Love), and anyone who doesn't like it can go fuck themselves. I realize I'm a friendless loser whose characters become her friends. Why the fuck should anyone else make it their business to sneer at this? Fuck off entirely.
People who sneer at the pain of others are shitty excuses for human beings anyway, and I wouldn't want to waste my time in their presence if you paid me. This includes those who ridicule the homeless, those who mock someone who can't afford the latest fashions (of course some of us simply don't give a flying fuck about the latest fashions), those who mock the physical appearance of others, and those who mock another's psychological pain.
If you're the kind of person who does any of the above, I'll say it nicely this time. Have a look at yourself. I mean a really long, hard look at yourself. If you realize that you don't want to be the kind of person who does this, then congratulations, you don't have to be. If, on the other hand, you're the kind of person who truly enjoys doing this shit, then fuck you.
The next three thoughts come from the 52 Weeks of Writing journal.
We avoid things for a reason, and my reason was that I was afraid to uncover the truth about why I wasn’t happy.
I've avoided writing my thoughts or working in this journal for that reason. I actually know why I'm unhappy but I feel like there's nothing I can do about it.
I'm unhappy because I live in poverty. Things would have to change significantly for this problem to resolve.
As for the writing aspect, I love the creative part of things, obviously. I enjoy editing. I enjoy formatting when it's going smoothly. I love self-publishing. Mostly.
Here's what I don't love about self-publishing.
I hate networking and promotion. I feel it eats up time that I'd prefer to spend creating. I'm shy and socially awkward, so interacting with others is always precarious. I'd rather leave the promotion of my books to someone who actually knows what the fuck they're doing, but when one's advertising budget is zero, one really doesn't have that luxury, so guess what? I'm stuck with my shitty networking and promotion skills.
I’d journaled before in my life, and it had always felt like a useless exercise.
This! I don't want to be spending time contemplating my navel or telling myself that:
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
--Stuart Smalley
Somehow those types of affirmations always feel like a bold-faced fucking lie. I don't feel like I'm anywhere near good enough or smart enough and I don't think that most people like me. I think some people put up with me, some of them feel sorry for me, most people aren't even aware of me, and very rarely, someone sees a spark of some sort of potential in me. I don't think anyone who really knows me could like me because I'm such a colossal garbage fire of a human being.
It can take an awful lot of times of writing down the exact same answer before the next layer surfaces or before you’re ready to take that deep breath and acknowledge what you couldn’t in the previous weeks.
I always worry about this. Why the shit would someone want to read a book where I reiterate the same thing fifty kazillion different ways and I still haven't figured that shit out yet? Why haven't I internalized my own bullshit enough that I can be a fully functioning adult at just nine days shy of being 57 years old as of this writing? I mean, fuck's sake, how much of a pig-headed fuckup can one person be?
Why would someone even want to read a free blog post about me trying to figure the same goddamn thing out for the bajillionth time but phrased slightly differently?
That's why I've been avoiding doing these journal exercises. Not because I think they're useless but because of what other people might think.
Fuck's sake.
Am I ever going to get beyond needing validation from people who wouldn't blow a fart in my general direction if they saw me lying in a gutter bleeding out?
Fucking pathetic.
For each struggle and roadblock, what do you need to overcome it?
For the poverty thing, I'd need the goddamn miracle of having a sudden influx of readers gobbling up my writing like I was the female Stephen King. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
For the other mess, I guess I need to keep needling myself until I genuinely no longer give any fucks about needing validation from others. I need to truly accept myself as I am.
That's another split infinitive, and I don't give a fuck what my grammar checker thinks.
Maybe that's a start.
~Ornery Owl is sick of her own shyyyyt and wants coffee~
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Come As You Are Party: Where the Hell are the Happy Lessons?
Spirit of the Universe, I'm tired. I'm tired of putting aside the work I enjoy doing in order to chase clout, money, and validation. I'm tired of fighting. I'm trying to do what's right, but often I wonder what any of it is worth. Can you give me just a little love here, Spirit? Anything at all? I'm not much for being touched but I could really use a virtual hug from some nice, non-creepy people.
Here is tonight's Big Question.
What are your current struggles and roadblocks when it comes to writing?
In January, it was getting any writing done at all. I struggled to complete a 5000-word story. That isn't like me. I average at least a thousand words a day. I should have been able to write and edit this story in two weeks.
Because I'm slow on the uptake, it's taken me a month to realize that I've been sacrificing my serials to write pieces for potential inclusion in publications. Writing one-offs may be enjoyable in their own right, but I don't get the chance to become personally involved with the characters.
My desire to form relationships with my characters could be because I rarely form meaningful relationships with other people. Some people reading may find this sad, pathetic, tragic, whatever. Other people's opinions on the matter are neither here nor there to me. Other people have a track record of not understanding me very well. I don't trust them damn crooked vultures.
I realized that one of my problems last month was neglecting to make a monthly list of goals. With my ADHD, this is a necessary step. I've also decided that I'd like to find an ADHD workbook for adults.
I have something to bitch about.
Tonight's Party Music
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
WTF Wednesday: Where Did the Joy Go?
Friday, January 21, 2022
Readers Roost: The Benevolence of New Ideas Review and Giveaway
Monday, January 17, 2022
About Me Monday: Why Do I Write?
Spirit of the Universe, please help me overcome my doubts and my need for validation. Help me to find happiness in writing and in life now and help me to stop obsessing over what I "should" have done. I cannot be anyone else, I can only be me, flawed as I may be. I cannot do what everyone else thinks I should, I can only try my best. Please help me to write what is in my soul and not to worry about what anyone else thinks about it. Please help me to be the best person I can be and to encourage rather than tear down others who may be struggling with doubt themselves. Please help me to do my best. Amen.
I will be answering questions from 52 Weeks of Writing throughout the year. I am already two weeks late and several dollars short.
This book contains a wealth of resources for writers. It is currently only $8.99 on Kindle and well worth the price. If you purchase it through this link, I will earn a small commission.
The first question is:
When you first started writing, why were you called to write?
I must have answered this question a million times in my head, but I think my best answer is found in my review on Readers Roost. You can also learn more about the book there.
https://ornerybookemporium.blogspot.com/2022/01/52-weeks-of-writing-guest-post-and.html
I'm going to plagiarize the most meaningful portion of my review.
I had to think back close to 51 years and I'm still trying to think of an answer to this question other than "I don't know. It just felt right."
I learned to read when I was four years old and by the time I was six, I had graduated from Dr. Seuss to Edgar Allan Poe. The first character I created was a fish named Bruce. Fortunately for Bruce, his adventures were much more Seussian than Poe-esque.
This question threw me off balance because I believed that "I don't know, it just felt right" was a flip answer. It took me more than a week to realize that it wasn't a flip answer, it's the answer that six-year-old me would have given. I didn't need a reason to write other than it feeling right.
As I got older, it became ingrained in me to analyze everything until there was nothing joyful or organic left.
So, there you have it. By the way, I'm allowed to rip myself off. I have my permission.
It's the middle of the month and I'm struggling with myself. Doubt always surges at this point. I think I've mentioned before that the beginning of the month starts out hopeful so I take on too much. By the middle of the month, I'm overwhelmed and hate myself for it.
My disability check comes on the third Wednesday of each month. This provides a modicum of respite. It doesn't last long.
The end of the month brings the feeling that I can't possibly cock things up worse than I already have, opening the door for the hopeful stupidity that marks the start of the month.
There is a cyclic quality to this behavior, which is part of why for ten years I believed that I had type 2 bipolar disorder. At this point, I am quite certain that I do not, but the diagnosis made sense because of the pattern of behavior and because of family history.
The question is, what the fuck am I going to do about this?
The answer is, I really don't know. In the past couple of years, I have made significant improvements, but overall, I'm pretty well fucked.
I live on average fifty miles from the nearest city. Going for weekly therapy sessions would be tremendously inconvenient and they didn't help me much in the past. I might respond to therapy with an artistic component. Mostly what I want is for someone to be my friend for an hour once a week, not someone who is going to try and prescribe me pills. The pills don't work for me and when I say that the response tends to be that I wasn't using them right.
Fuck it. I'll keep working on fixing myself, although there is the risk of creating a monster with that approach.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Here's what I was listening to while I created this post.

