Growth

Hello, there 😊👋🏿

Today, I’m going to talk about growth. I typed up the post below sometime early last year to write out my feelings during a time when I was frustrated. After I finished, I forgot about it and never looked back at it. At the end of August, I read it again and realized how much I’ve changed in a year. Check out what I wrote last year:

One thing that I notice about myself is that I tend to abandon the things that I enjoy doing to get work-related things done. Pretty much after my first year of college, I’ve given up doing the things that gave me the most joy, which were playing my music, writing my stories, and reading. My excuse was always the same. I’m too busy with schoolwork. When I get a break, I’ll focus on my writing. When I get a break, I’ll start playing the piano again. I’ll reteach myself how to play the guitar when I’m not bombarded with schoolwork.

As I got closer to graduation, I realized that I hadn’t worked on any of my short stories and manuscripts in years. I was always too busy writing essays for my classes. I’ve always enjoyed my creative writing classes because, obviously, I got to write creatively. I did tend to wait until the last minute to get my stories written, which caused a lot of stress and rushed, half-assed stories. It’s probably because I was thinking of it as more of an assignment since I was getting graded on it.

Anyway, I got a full-time job at a social media marketing agency a few months after I graduated. I’ve been there for a while, and I noticed that I was falling into the same trap again. I’m always too busy to read, write, or play the piano. I sometimes take extra steps to prepare for work while I’m at home, and that takes so much time out of the things that I want to do.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I’ve been having a lot of mixed emotions. I want to do blog work at my job, but I’m so terrified that my workload won’t allow me the time to get it done to the best of my ability. It’s like college all over again. I write a half-assed blog that I couldn’t put more thought and effort into because of my stupid work. I don’t want that.

I want to work on my own personal writing. I want to publish some of my short stories online for some exposure or something. I want to go over my finished manuscripts and get those into books. Staring at a computer for seven to eight hours a day for work makes me not want to look at my laptop again for the rest of the day, but I need it so I can write my stuff! I’m also worried that I lost my touch since I haven’t touched any of my stories in so long.

I’ve been getting a little better about reading recently. I read Sharon Draper’s newest book, Blended, back in February, and this month I’m reading The Hate U Give. The goal is to get through my giant stack that was growing ever so slowly over the past few years.

I also get to my piano every now and then, and when I play, I go all in. The lack of practice shows because some songs I knew how to play perfectly, I mess up on a lot. The more I practice again, the better I’ll get.

Okay, so I know that I need to force myself not to let work get in the way of what brings me joy. Even writing this makes me feel better because I’m writing something for me and not for a client. I digress a lot because, well, that’s what I do when I get in the zone. I’m a storyteller, and I tend to go into detail a lot, even with the things that don’t necessarily relate to the story I’m trying to tell…like what I’m doing now.

The point of this whole dissertation is for me to realize that I let work or school-related tasks get in the way of my creative writing for myself. New Year’s Resolution three months too late: focus on my personal writing. I’m setting a goal for myself this year. I’m going to enter a short story of mine into a writing contest or literary magazine or whatever that’ll get my writing published and out for the world to see. Yes, my job is like a stepping stone to my career path, but I don’t want to do social media marketing forever. In fact, I learned that I don’t enjoy writing for other people and doing what they say. I write for myself, where I don’t have to follow the rules, and I can let my imagination run free, and I don’t have to post stuff about industries that I find boring or don’t care about.

I’m going to conclude now before I go on another tangent.

So, this was in March of 2019, I believe? Boy, have I grown and evolved since then. I’ve become more serious about my writing, have 6 chapters out of 15 of my manuscript edited, blogged at my job (then stopped), went down to part-time at my job to focus on my writing, freelanced for a different agency for a bit, and am doing an internship as a lifestyle magazine writer for Society19. Peep my articles here! Haven’t gotten better with my reading, but that’s because I’m writing so much now. And it’s hard to pick which book I want to read. And I’m probably just making up excuses again. 😂😭

As I write and blog more, my calling is becoming clearer each day. I was created to create. I am a storyteller, and I feel complete when I’m working on a blog post or my manuscript. I’m so excited about becoming a published author! Thanks so much for reading!

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