JonathanA's Journal

Okay so today I think I'm hitting a lower point, one that I was concerned would come after hitting an optimistic peak earlier in the week. The problem, I think, is some unacknowledged (up to this moment, at least) anger combined with exhaustion. This week has been a grinder, no doubt, and I'm feeling it pretty deeply at the moment. Who do I really take that to? No one, that's the issue. I thought that I had gotten through some of the heaviest of the issues yesterday afternoon, but I found that there were some issues with a legal document later in the afternoon, so I'm going to be spending this afternoon writing up language for that document. Not to mention that I spent this morning involved in meetings and writing up a business requirements document. It feels like this job is creeping over and consuming my life outside of work. I even found myself thinking about it lying in bed last night trying to go to sleep. Just not good stuff. I mean, I have learned two things about myself this week: I could manage. And I would never, ever want to.

But that isn't really the source of my anger. My anger is coming more from a lack of support and contact with one of my sponsors. I've been working pretty hard to stay in touch, and there hasn't been feedback or support on the level that is implicit in the relationship. I had been trying to be understanding, but I think it's finally just come to the surface of my consciousness that I'm feeling abandoned and resentful. I mean, this isn't the first time it's happened to me in a program; I've gone through a few sponsors in other programs and struggled with these feelings when, inevitably it seems, they drop off the face of the Earth. And I admit it, I'm angry and resentful this time, too. There are lots of reasons why...we had an agreement to start with, and I feel that I've been living up to the spirit of the agreement, while he has not been. Given the difficult situation I'm in emotionally, I just need more from a sponsor. So I think it's time to start looking again. I always hate this process, but it seems I go through it so regularly that something inside me must want it or need it.

On other topics, I managed to source some creativity again on the way home yesterday; something clicked inside, and I had a new scene for the short story I had been working on come through me. It took the story in a new direction, away from the one I had been forcing. That sent the story off toward an ending that I hadn't envisioned in any way. I guess that's another lesson for me to learn - I need to stop forcing the flow of a story and ride with it when I'm writing my first drafts (or perhaps all the way through). I had forgotten all about the organic process that happens when a character seizes a story about the throat and leads it through. Maybe that's another key that's been missing in my writing - letting my characters do the leading. I tend to picture my scenes cinematically rather than getting in touch with the characters' thoughts as much as I'd like. I'd say this might even be the source of some of the blocks that I'm experiencing lately. I need to know what these characters are feeling. I did get in touch with one character recently. Very closely, in fact, and was able to write a couple of pages pretty quickly. Here's what just rolled out of my head once I got in touch with her: