Have I gone too far?

I'm starting to wonder if I've gone too far with my memoir rewrites. At the beginning I vowed I would only fix a couple sentences and mend grammatical errors. But now I find myself rewriting entire paragraphs! Yes, I do have paragraphs. The formatting of this blog doesn't allow the indentations to appear. So I just break up my story into spaced chunks.

So I'm rewriting entire chunks now! Soon it'll get to the point where I'll delete an entire entry and just start from scratch!

I'm just trying to improve my writing. Is that such a bad thing? Am I taking this too seriously? I mean, they do sound better after I'm through with them. They make more sense after I revise them, they truly do. I still don't have an outside opinion though. Damn.

Memoir rewrites!

I started to write a blog about some of my obsessive compulsive rituals involving food, but had an attack of writer's block. The thought of writing more memoirs kept taunting, teasing and tempting me. I couldn't settle upon another idea for a memoir, nor did I want to make this blog redundant, so I resisted the urge. But the urge grew stronger, and my obsession with self-indulgence and rich details began to consume me. So I decided to re-read my already published memoirs. Doing so left me dissatisfied and frustrated, for nothing about my published works sounded right. The language sounded stilted and awkward, and I found a few grammatical mistakes peppered here and there. My writing didn't make any sense, and didn't sound as intelligent as I had previously thought.

So I decided to fix it. I've started rewriting them, though not completely. Nothing drastic, just a few touch-ups here and there. Rewrite a few sentences, add some semicolons (the semicolon obsession persists!) and fix mistakes. I'll add more information in some places, to flesh out my already florid and corpulent details. I have a few doubts about this clean-up though, a feeling that I'm simplifying my work and making it as dull as Stephenie Meyer's prose. A writer is often her worst critic though, so I need a second opinion to tell me if these changes are for better or worse. Unfortunately, it looks like my followers don't seem very interested. I think perhaps they don't really care about the memoirs (which is why I've decided to avoid them from now on). I must admit that the memoirs are more for me, than the reader, and I use this blog as an outlet for my memories and opinions. I didn't start writing to garner attention (though that is an incentive, sometimes); I started writing for my pleasure, a reason I think a lot of people start writing for. Very few people write for unselfish reasons I think.

I've begun to doubt my talent. I suppose a lot of writers doubt themselves, like Stephen King. He was never going to publish Carrie, but his wife took the manuscript out of the trash and convinced him to go through with it. Sometimes, all a writer needs is a sensible person to slap them in the face and say "you don't suck!". I haven't had anyone do that for this blog though. This little corner of the internet goes widely ignored, no matter how often I pimp it out to friends and loved ones.

But I'm going to keep on trucking. I enjoy writing, whether or not anyone notices that I'm doing it (though it would be nice if someone did). I'm going to obsessively rewrite my self-indulgent, florid memoirs and maybe even write some new ones. At some point, I'll write some regular blogs, when the mood takes me and my mind allows me such a boon. Who knows what I'm going to do next with this blog, or if anyone is going to ever see it? Maybe it won't be such a big deal if I stop thinking about it.

What to write next?

Now that I've finished my third self-indulgent memoir, I am at a loss of what to write next. Should I discuss politics or literature? Should I write an articulate rant? I considered writing another memoir; perhaps about something that has nothing to do with amusement parks. I have also considered editing all my memoirs, for I feel that they do not have enough semicolons. I do not know why I treat these memoirs with such reverence. Perhaps it is the amount of detail and work I put into these, taking days or even weeks to write even a single entry, editing and re-editing them. I certainly don't put as much effort into my other entries.
If I wrote another one, what would it even be about? One idea I had was that I would write about a trip my father and I took to The Shelburne Museum. I've also thought about writing about another amusement park trip, but I was afraid I would make myself redundant.

Normally, my mind is swimming in ideas about what to write, ideas I quickly forget due to the fact that I've got the attention span of a squirrel. But lately, I've been having some 'writer's block'. I don't know what ideas to use (if I can even conjure any to begin with) and when I do actually start to compose something, I begin to doubt its quality. Am I using too many details or not enough? Is my grammar correct; where do I put a semicolon? Did I use that semicolon in my last sentence correctly?
It seems of late, that my anxiety has gotten worse and worse. Every aspect of my life is fraught with intense feelings of anxiety and nervousness. My mind overcrowded with screaming obsessive thoughts. Then, the depression and the despair sweeps through. Nothing seems right, and everything my friends do or say annoys me.
I've had a lot of unwanted drama in my life lately, most of it of my own making. Things I should have left unsaid, now out in the open. Misunderstood words coming back to bite me in the ass. It feels like my life is falling apart, and at this point, I'm willing to let it. What else can I do? There does not seem to be much I can do to stop fate, so I am going to have to take things as they come, and learn to accept the inevitable.

Back to normal blogging

After that lengthy memoir, which I'm sure none of you read, I'm quite pleased to return to my old method of blogging. But with a new feature- The Image Macro of the Day!
I'm not writing this blog for anyone's pleasure but mine. Here, I can rant, share memoirs and hone my writing skills. If someone comes across it and enjoys my work, that's fine, it will give me some small joy in my life.
So many people write solely for page views and drama. But I write for the joy of it. My mind is filled with many tumbling and rumbling thoughts, dancing in my skull. Yet my memory is like sieve. Often I will lose these great thoughts, in that great river made of lost memories and ideas. I must harness these thoughts by blogging them, a reservoir of sorts.
I want to become a better writer. I want my ideas to come across clearly. I want to write stories that make people think, that make people feel. I want to write things that are beautiful and disturbing, I want people to question their world after reading my books. I am greatly inspired by Stephen King.
I have other life goals. One of which is to visit every single known cemetery in the state of Vermont. So far, I've been to five of the cemeteries in Bellow's Falls, one in Burlington, one in Bristol, one in Swanton, one in Windsor, one in Lyndonville and one in Bennington. I just noticed three out of six of these towns begin with the letter B. The ones in Bristol and Burlington, I visited as a child. The rest I have visited in my teens, with the exception of Bennington. I visited that one the day before my birthday, thus making it the first cemetery I visited on the cusp of my twenties.
That's right, I suppose I'm in my early twenties now. I turned 20 last Tuesday. Most people my age look to this as a time of great change. Not so, with I. I felt the last of my childhood slip from my fingers, on April the 14th. The days of innocence and freedom from logic are forever locked in the archives of memory, only taken out to be mused upon, never to be relived. I am no longer a child, not even close, I am a woman now. A woman, what do you suppose that means? What does in mean to be a woman? Women are the bearers of life, but not all women bear children, women are the owners of wisdom, but not all women are wise. To be a woman is a complicated quilt. We dance the complex dance between weakness and strength, domination and submission. To some we are considered helpless, to others we are considered tyrants.
Women cannot be categorized. Everyone has tried to put women into neat little categories, but like cats, we cannot stay in one place for too long.
You may notice that I leap from subject to subject, like crossing a river by jumping rock to rock. Free writing is a favored method of mine.

Macro of the Day: