qualms and misgivings

Ok. I have a feeling this is going to be a very long post.

Have been debating whether or not to lower this blog to the level of a journal in which I thrash out my inner moral and existential conflicts/ ruminations for the internet world to see. Apart from a few posts such as ‘and she shall be called woman’ and ‘white fear’ I’ve steered clear of this for several reasons.
1. I know that people (friends, family, acquaintances) read this blog from time to time, and I would never want to hurt or offend them by disrespecting their beliefs. But I think that there is a difference between objecting to something, contesting a point of view, and being disrespectful to a person, and I think most people know this. So, I’m going to put that worry aside….
The next two reasons, I acknowledge, are inherently narcissistic ones:

2. These kind of questions are for me the most important questions in my life – discussing them for everyone to see is kind of like bearing my soul. This is what I am pre-occupied with most of the time. This is the ‘inner me’. Also I feel completely inadequate trying to talk about ‘big grown up things’ like philosophy and religion. Sure I’m fascinated by them, but it’s not like I have anything new to say…

3. Writing is my ‘thing’. Or what I consider to be my ‘thing’. It is difficult not to let my entire self-worth depend on whether both I myself and other people perceive me to be a good writer. I know this is going to sound incredibly melodramatic, but writing becomes almost a terrifying prospect for me sometimes. If I fail at writing, I fail full stop. I feel as though I have worthwhile things to express in words – on paper. My greatest fear is that I won’t be able to ‘get them out’. It becomes almost an exhausting prospect, then, because when trying to express myself, I’m using the very medium in which my entire self-worth seems inextricably embedded in – written words. Consequently, I’m hyper-conscious when writing that whatever comes out on the page when I’m putting 100% into it, is (at least as I perceive it) the sum of myself. That knowledge, and the knowledge that someone else, someone reading my writing, could be doing it better, could be more articulate, more eloquent… well it’s almost paralyzing.

I guess the connection between 2 and 3 is obvious. Using the medium my self-worth is ingrained in to try and convey the things most dear and important to me – things I’m still figuring out, things I don’t know enough of yet to even form an opinion on – seems like the hardest thing in the world. Why? Because my pride and self-esteem are both at stake. I’m putting the extent of my skills and knowledge out there while knowing that they are insufficient.

The biggest temptation for me is to procrastinate, or even refrain from writing until I ‘know more’. In my head, there is some kind of obscure level of understanding or general knowledge I need to reach before I can legitimately attempt to write about ‘the big stuff’. But I was talking a couple of months back about this with Alice and she said something like ‘when will anyone ever be done learning?’ So I think I need to relinquish my pride on this one.

I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye today (which was on my JANUARY summer reading list). Even though it’s soppy I’m putting in a quote that comforted me when I read it.

“You’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and sickened by human behaviour…. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer , someone will learn something from you.”

This kind of prompted me to reconsider my reservations about expressing my thoughts. Sure, I’m not a theologian or a scientist or a philosopher or even a phD student. If any one of the above took me to task I’m pretty sure they’d annihilate me. But that’s not the point, is it? I have no delusions that my writing is pure poetry or that any of my ideas are original or that I comprehend the obscure thoughts of philosophical genuis’ . But I want to learn, to improve, to understand, so there’s no reason for me to be ‘ashamed’ of where I’m at now. And if people read this and think “god, that person’s stupid, they have no idea what the fuck they’re on about” well, they’re probably right! But I’m choosing not to care (or at least to try to not care ) Because I don’t think I’m going to find the answers I’m looking for if I avoid questioning and formulating and expressing my thoughts. I think actually that for me, that’s exactly the way in which I might find a way to make sense of things. (That and alot of reading, of course…)

to zine or not to zine….

Just a few short days ago, life was hectic. I had too much work, too many assignments and not enough time. Now, looking four months of study-free existance in the face, time seems endless, empty and unexciting.

Yesterday, I went to Sticky – an independent publishing shop that sells various Zines, Graphic Novels, and other self-published goodies. Despite my aspiration to be published, I hardly knew what a Zine was until a few weeks ago reading about the ‘Riot Grrrl’ Zine fad of the 80s and 90s – a feminist forum for mostly white-middle-class American punk and alternatives attempting to be heard. Zines rose in popularity immensely in the 80s due to the availability of photocopiers and the convenience of mass-production … they were cut-and-paste style brochures, handwritten, often with poor graphics or personal cartoons. At Sticky, there is still alot of Zine’s looking just like that. Others are a bit more advanced, pretty colours, sophisticated designs, glossy paper, evidence of the 21st century and the existance of photoshop. I bought one zine entitled Murder Can Be Fun, an anthology of zine work called Doris, and another self published book of random stories. It got me thinking about making my own zine, after all, it seems like the simplest way to get your name out in the field of writing and publishing. But exactly how I will slant my zine I don’t know. I have alot of pretty photos I used in my ‘vintage photoshoots’, alot of short stories and articles I’ve written for Uni… but how it will all fit together I’m not too sure. Also, does printing your work in a Zine mean that actual publishers or magazine’s won’t publish it because it’s already been distributed? I don’t want to waste my best work in a crappy pamphlet if there’s a chance an actual publication would print it.

While contemplating the relatively empty summer that lies ahead of me, I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to write as much as I could and see if I’m really serious about it. My growing concern that for a 2nd year creative writing major I have done pretty much crap all in terms of actually getting my writing out there is starting to buid into a panic. So really, I now have the time to really research the industry, practise my ‘craft’ and try to get something published! It’s kind of scary though, as with anything, because of the fear of failure. But it’s a risk you have to take to get anywhere, so… no excuses. This Blog is the perfect place to write my ass off, and I’m going to do it.

Today I designed a potential zine cover – with the same title as this blog. I’m going to keep working on the potential zine as well as other stuff. I need to buy some more of the magazine’s I’d be considering submitting to: Voiceworks, The Big Issue, Frankie…. and I need to find out about a truckload more like them (if they exist!). Maybe volunteering for a local newspaper wouldn’t go down too badly either. Lot’s to think about. I’ll keep you informed!