WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE PATIENT IN LIFE

I am a writer and that means I'm, by nature, awkward, moody, prone to anger, and sometimes arrogant  given my own feelings on life. My experience, my background, and my nature often times put me in a spot where it's difficult to see certain things. I may write a political entry, an entertainment entry, or an entry about life itself. What I write often depends on my mood, but chances are that as I go I will miss a thing or two. One thing that I learned while working on my MFA was to be patient.

As a writer I wanted perfection, the white elephant that does not exist, except for in fairy tales. I wanted so bad to write a perfect screenplay that some times I would drink myself blind with frustration. During a drunken attempt at perfection I decided to take a nap. When I woke up some twelve hours later I looked at my computer screen and I had one word on my screen, patience.

I realized that I was not happy because I was so impatient. I was reminded of all the conversations that I had with people not only in school but throughout my life. Everyone from my father, to my brothers, to everyone I ever met that succeeded, had real patience. Patience is that one virtue that you can always gain if you are willing to open your eyes for a quick second. There is something about patience that just  makes success and life in general, that much better.

Patience is not easy to come by and sometimes it's nearly impossible to get. I don't consider myself a fully patient individual yet but I am getting there. I am surrounded by people I don't always agree with, techniques I don't like, and views I want to wipe my ass with, but I am somehow able to bypass that and look at the long term. The word long frustrates everyone because it implies wait, suffering, and a lot of headaches that are impossible to handle.

In life nothing you do will ever be perfect, but learn to wait, learn to be patient and ultimately the payoff will come around.

WHY BLOGGING IS NOT FRUITLESS

I used to think of blogging as another way for over opinionated people to spew their pseudo intellectual pearls on to the rest of the world. I will go as far saying that the word blog itself made me want to throw up in the sense that it was a word used largely by people that I perceived to be complete assholes. One day a childhood friend said "You should start a blog" and I decided to give it a shot just to see if I could be a lesser evil. The first year I had this blog I only put out some six blog entries total and did not bother to look at stats or anything of the sort.

As time went on I kept hearing that question about why I wasn't doing anything with my blogs. I never bothered to answer because frankly I felt that I did not need to do so. One day everything changed as my paid writing assignments started to wane a bit. I began to wonder about my writing and how I could stay relevant to myself. I was reminded of a tidbit  read my first day of class in Full Sail's MFA in Creative Writing program, that tidbit was that writers write. I hear that over and over and I realized that I would be doing myself a grave injustice if I stopped writing on the basis of what I was or was not earning.

Over the last six months I have been averaging something close to thirty entries a month and over that period of time I have been reminding myself of several things. First thing is that writers starting out have to be consistent in order to get somewhere. The second thing I remembered was that writers must self promote in all possible avenues. Every writer has a strong point and that can be anything from telling a story, to relating facts, to giving an opinion. I was reminded that building up volume of work helps get your name out there. In a six month period I have managed to build my stats to nearly 14,000 views in over 180 entries. I have finally taken in enough income to buy myself three candy bars from my google adsense and I am seeing exposure of my work in other countries even if it's only ten people that hit the page.  

If I continue to go at the pace I am going I know eventually I will hit some sort of niche. Blogging also makes social media useful as it's good to showcase your work in facebook, and twitter as well as google plus in order get that work in front of as many people as you can and make sure they are as varied a crowd as can be. The bottom line is that if your serious about getting exposure and building something relevant to put in your resume a blog is a great way to go.

THE TORTURE THAT IS WRITING

I must have read enough about writing to teach a small village. I spent countless hours working on an MFA with the focus on Creative Writing and one thing never changes, writing is pure torture. Some people love torture and I guess writing is that type that drives you insane but you just can't get enough of. There are so many dimensions to writing that just seem so wrong.

The first thing about writing that bothers everyone is subjectivity. You can write something that you hate and everyone else loves and something you believe to be your best and everyone thinks is absolute crap. No matter what you do or don't do you always have that nagging "I want to be liked" feeling when crafting a story. There's that desire for perfection that you end up having to cut out in order to do what's right for the story.

It doesn't really matter what you do you will always find a flaw with what you write and when someone else point's it out you will be infuriated but the fact is that fresh eyes see far better than a tired mind. Writing is a passion and like all passions it can be unhealthy in multiple ways. Ultimately writing is that ex girlfriend that you loved but drove you insane, that parent you idolized but could not stand and ultimately it's that one fantasy that will be as painful as it is joyful once it becomes reality.