Essentially life is something that is imperfect, reactants form products, but it’s never 100% complete, because as the products form some move backwards towards the initial state, an equilibrium may lie far towards either the reactant side or product side, but it’s never complete, life is messier than that.

Day 2, trying to write at night, it’s 10:33 PM, I was kind of ready on time, I was looking for writing jobs… I thought if I wanted to write articles it would be easy to do, but it’s not as easy as I had supposed from the other side of the fence. I’m sure that there are good projects out there, but so far I’ve found more scams than reasonable projects. Perhaps from the work at home flood, or perhaps it was always that way “in real life”.

Interestingly I don’t want money so much as I want accountability, I was interested in having a writing coach, therefore paying the writing coach, so earning something from writing would seem worthwhile and found money has no bills attached.

It took a long time to set up an upwork account, everything didn’t work it seemed, the ID upload, the profile picture, seemingly everything, yet in the end it did and I applied to three projects (which I noticed were already full of enough applicants by the time I did, not a day later then the projects were posted).

Freelance sounds really cool, but actually, I guess it kind of means scrounging for jobs. I’m a freelance writer now I guess. I’ve said that for awhile, but I haven’t looked for jobs until today.

So was that or wasn’t that avoiding writing?

Today I had a free sample with a writing coach, which I don’t know about fitting into life right now.

Before the meeting I was thinking that I do always seem to have success at meeting goals for life, just that it comes slowly. This year I did a few good things, learned to cook, taught multiplication, adjusted to teaching for dyslexia, over coming shyness a bit, pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

One thing that slows me down is a lack of prioritize what project matters when I have no way to know which one will pay off and what will lead to something that I find rewarding, I basically will never know before hand and if I wait to know to start I will never start.

I like to do too many things…. or many not too many, but I have trouble picking and sticking to one project all the way.

Things I like to do:
1. Educational Diagrams
2. Metrics for Emotions
3. Educational Graphic Design
4. Digital Illustration
5. Writing Books
6. Reading Books
7. Comic Books
8. Research
9. Teaching Art
10. Teaching Martial Arts
11. Teaching Outdoor School – Charlotte Mason Inspired
12. Reading Advocacy
13. Math Advocacy
14. Science Advocacy
15. Game Design
16. 3D Sculpting/CAD
17. Banana Exercise Classes
18. Stoic Philosophy Everyday Life Applications
19. Blogging
20. Self Help Class Design

So, it’s not for lack of skills, passion, or interest, but lack of determination and focus to commit to one project and finish it.

I’ve been gravitating to writing a book as a project to get out of my comfort zone, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, yet there are fears of it shattering dreams I’ve had since childhood.

I really fell in love, married, and a few years later, it’s not all picnics, it’s almost completely not picnics. I don’t know if I’m ready to let writing a book become real and stop being a fantasy.

I don’t “really” know what I want to do, I don’t “really” know what project is the best use of time or resources, but to live is to not know and do something isn’t it?

I really enjoyed the session with the writing coach, she had climbed Everest, but still struggled to actually start writing a book afterwards for two years. It’s so common a thing, so human a thing, but I look down on myself instead of looking for a way out of the writer’s block crevasse.

My son is throwing the biggest fit tonight, as if he knows I’m trying to peruse my life goals, there are certain activities that kids have a radar for and don’t tolerate without a fit. I don’t know why using the bathroom is not acceptable, leaving to get them a candy from the other room gets a pass? How do they know at age 1 and why do they hate when you seek independence, how do they even know? Maybe I can tell what I was meant to do in life by how much my kids resent me trying to do it? If they let me with no fight, that’s not it… just kidding.

My husband is helping my son tonight, he seems okay, he was awake anyways so, that’s nice that this second day, though difficult didn’t end in me giving up.

I’m supposed to know what I want to do, so I said I want to write my book and the two after it that I see in my mind as one unit.

Hopefully by 12-31-2021 I am done with the first book, I want to get started today and tomorrow.

I’m writing an article, but I hope that making the space for writing, defending my decision to right, strengthening my resolve, I hope that it creates the castle in my mind where I can sit down and write “the novel”.

I was trying to find the difference between the writers who do write and the ones who don’t. I’m attending two writer’s groups now and I notice nobody are flakes or untalented in either group, but the ones who are writing are driven and focused.

I’m trying to be focused and determined starting now.

To be focused I know one particular problem I have is wanting to jump from project to project.

FOCUS
Writing the trilogy’s first book due end of next year.
Writing freelance articles at least trying.

The writing coach told me to “do” not “try,” but I’m such an honest person, I don’t want to confuse the difference. What I’m doing for now is trying, because trying is the most I can possibly commit to right now.

Possibly I have to light the fuse and run rather than waiting for the fuse to light itself, but also I’m not going to throw a grenade until I have a target and I’m not sure if I do.

I was in bed with my baby who usually doesn’t throw a fit from 10-11 PM, but tonight did, my husband asked me to take the baby, but at least he helped for a long while, I took my baby, fed him, he fell asleep and I got out of bed to finish this article.

It may be insignificant to everyone else, it may be optional, it may be non-paying, but it mattered to me.

I have this superstition growing that if I write, my writing will find all the readers it needs to, whether that is 0 or 1 or 1 million, kind of like a “Field of Dreams” if you build it they will come kind of superstition.

Today I resumed outdoor school after being inside while we were all sick, I served the three meals that feels like three thousand, I did the laundry, the dishes, I did enough, I gave my daughter a kiss, looked at her for who she is, helped her with math, I did at least 200 things that I “should do,” but I think this article at 11:31 PM is the first thing I’ve done that “I want to do” that feels like it matters to me.

I know the kids are supposed to matter to me, but I want something that belongs to just me, without them, I guess I want some self, some individuality, I want to be an adult that can speak as an adult.

I had almost forgotten what the adult world was like and I don’t mean in a “adult movie” way, just a normal adult way. Being able to say things like DMV instead of “the place where all the driver’s licences are given, where you will go to be able to drive safely and get the privilege of sharing the road that your taxes pay for, taxes are added to items we buy and also taken from our income at the federal level, if you care about tax rates you can vote, but your vote doesn’t decide what will happen, it’s a community effort… that’s right the popular vote doesn’t always decide the president, it typically coincides with the electoral college, the electoral college was decided a long time ago when those in power didn’t trust the average person, who was not very well educated at all, sure there is corruption and confusion in the system, but that does happen in most large countries, well we live here because our ancestors were moderately destitute, so they came as workers here and now I need to go to the DMV”.

Going to the library branch writer’s meet up reminded me of that adult world.

I don’t know how many ABC videos it took before I forgot who I was, how many Baby Signing Time songs, but I so miss the normal life.

I miss being sick and laying around the house in bed, without helping anyone else get water or deal with anxiety or talk about their feelings or feed others.

My 4-year-old wants to be a baby again, and I want to be a single adult again, not to date, just for the purposes of not having to help anyone at all on an average day.

I look back on the days I used to call off from work for a food poisoning or stomach flu and they now seem like a high water mark, because I got to lay down and not get up to do all the things I usually do, I got to curl up with a book or a movie and take a nap, I got to order take out and not split it three ways and serve it and clean it and answer questions throughout the meal about the inevitability of death as well as how if my daughter can escape to another planet she can then marry her brother, which she knows we don’t want her to do… ha.

There used to be silence. I used to eat my snacks by myself. Those were the days.

But I guess no one loved me. That was harrowing.

One one side there was abundant rest and barely any love, the other side abundant love and barely any rest.

I suppose if there is a heaven it’s the only place that has both rest and love.

If I write every night it won’t be so hard to start writing about the book characters, or research, or scenes, and if I write the book time after time, one day it will be done, and I think someday I’ll know if it was the right thing or not, but someday way after I did the work of it and I will have to do the work knowing full well that I don’t know how successful, lucrative, rewarding, helpful or significant it will be to me or anyone else.

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

– Martin Luther Kind Jr.

Tonight I’m taking the second step, on an invisible staircase, to a place I can’t see, in a building I’m unfamiliar, with in a country I can’t name, but somehow it feels right. Thank you for helping me take that step, thank you for the welcome, or begrudging acceptance, into the world of the night writers it’s unexpectedly nice to be here with you, across time, writing under the waning crescent moon.

🌘