Sherri Cornelius

Energy

There’s a certain amount of trust that goes along with putting your art in front of the public. You have to trust is that people will accept the work as your own truth and appreciate your candor, even if they don’t get it. You also have to trust yourself to weather criticism. You have to feel safe in your writing space and in your community and between your ears.

It also takes a certain amount of energy to trust. Trusting is something you can decide to do. You can create pockets of trust within an unsafe environment, if you have enough energy. I’ve been able to do this in the past, but I’m currently undergoing a massive restructuring that I can see now has been going on for a couple of years. Call it a mid-life crisis, or depression or whatever, but both physical and mental energy has been low, and the little I have is going toward figuring out more important stuff. Life stuff.

At the moment I have more energy than I have in a very long time, and I’m shocked to realize how small an amount it is.

However, even that small amount more will make it possible to start allotting a little more energy toward recreating the pocket of trust around writing. It will be a slow build, but I think I can do it. I would at least like to try.

I expect this will be the last post in this series. I figured it out. There’s always been fear and distrust and a reluctance to begin and self-sabotage, but the difference in my production has been the energy. I push and push myself, thinking I have something to prove or someone who’ll be disappointed, and when I don’t produce what I’ve decided I should, I beat myself about the face and neck and call myself a lazy slut. Yeah, that’ll motivate a person. Geez.

You can’t get blood from a turnip, and you can’t use more energy than you are producing. At least I know now that the problem is not with writing itself. That’s a relief. Instead of being angry with myself for failing, I can be compassionate and gentle, conserve my energy, redirect it from worry and concentrate on ways to make my life less stressful. I think that’s pretty good advice for just about any situation.

Hopefully pretty soon I’ll be able to blog about why I can write.

My little experiment with You Are the Muse on Thursdays hasn’t really worked. Originally I thought YAtM needed its own space, but I was too afraid to give that level of commitment when I didn’t even know if I could sustain it for a long period of time, so I left it here to see how I would do. Several weeks later, YAtM grew legs and walked out into the world.

I’m happy to announce my new blog, You Are the Muse. I’ve moved the YAtM posts from here to there and added a couple since, while I waited for the right time to tell you about it. Everything about this is different from anything I’ve ever tried before. It might not be an original concept, might not even be very important in the grand scheme of things. It might not turn into anything at all, ever, just me pissin’ in the wind here. (Hard for a lady, but not impossible. ;) I might not ever finish, but it’s asking me to begin.

I tried to box it in here where I’m comfortable but it never felt right, so now I’m trying to let it go where it wants, without a plan or even a destination. There may be many changes in the early days while I adjust course. I have a feeling I won’t be able to see the turns until I’m right upon them.

It’s funny how a blog about finding the muse within oneself seems to be coming from the outside. It might be the only way my subconscious can get around my inability to promote myself. I mean, who am I to tell other people what they should value? Am I really so audacious as to think I might make something out of this? Really? I can only do it if it’s not me doing it, that’s what I think.

And so I ask for your help on behalf of this-thing-that-is-not-me.

Here’s what I need, and you may do any of these or all, whatever you feel comfortable with. I understand you might not be interested in the subject of the new blog, but your friends might be. Anything will help.

1. On Twitter: Follow YAtM on Twitter, and if you feel so moved, give a #FF shout-out
2. On Facebook: “Like” the new YAtM Facebook page and share with your friends. I’ll be suggesting the page to my friends, to make it easier. Subscribe to YAtM with a FB app called Networked Blogs. It’s a safe subscription service, with no spam whatsoever. Very unobtrusive. I’ll also be sending invites for that.
3. On your blog: If you think your readers will be interested, give YAtM a mention and/or put it in your blogroll. I’ll return the favor. I invite you to write your own post about creativity or the muse and tag it with You Are the Muse, or send it to me as a guest post, or both. I have two lined up, but would love more.

I think that’s a good start.

I imagine I will still post here with news of my life, but I might be a bit busy with YAtM for a little while. I would be EXTRASPECIALLY HAPPY, NO LIE, to hear your suggestions for features or improvements. This is a project for all, not just for me.

Thanks for all your support.

I must say I have reservations about re-opening Sherri Blossoms. All the old fears and pressures return as I open Live Writer and begin to type. Have I really taken enough time off? Do I have anything to say? Will blogging still be a bore, and is it worth the energy?

The answer to all those questions is: I won’t know until I try. And so I begin.

I’ve spent the past two months adrift, a necessary thing, releasing old ideas about how this blog, my career, my relationships should be. I played at NaNoWriMo; wrote parts of books and stories, but nothing that lights my fire; joined OWFI and planned to enter their annual contest in several categories, and actually got quite a bit done in that direction; accepted the fact that crappy stuff happens all the time, and I have to learn how to write anyway.

I think I finally settled on a blog theme that works exactly how I need it to, and will build it over time. I might post writings here, stories that maybe aren’t worth trying to sell but still have some entertainment value. A new About Me page would be nice.

I’m accepting the fact that the blogging community has changed immensely since I started. It used to be the way I communicated all the parts of my life, but I have Facebook for the more mundane stuff now. I used links and images, and I thought about SEO and getting the blog out there. That helped in the beginning, but dang... If you enter “Sherri Cornelius” into Google, Yahoo, and Bing, you will find this website in the top spot, not to mention various others of my hangouts in positions below that. I’m “out there”, mmkay?

The writing of the blog never bored me, but all the side work did, and I guess I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to. I don’t want to imagine what I can make of this place, but to be surprised with what it becomes.