Archive for ‘things that are hard to admit’

September 21st, 2012

I’m All Out of Control

by Holly Dodson

I hate feeling helpless.  It’s the absolute worst feeling in the world to me.  That sinking in your gut when you know your personal fate lies in the hands of others — it’s something I avoid as much as I can, if I’m honest.

Recently things in my life have been snatched out of my tight control, and I’ve had a bit of a hard time adjusting.  (Who am I kidding, I’m still not adjusted.)  I was sitting at my desk today thinking: Maybe I was a turtle in a past life.  Because when I feel like I’m being attacked by the universe, all I want to do is close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and pretend like none of it exists.  If I had a handy shell, I’d totally disappear into it.

That probably just means I need therapy though.  lol

Super Spawn started Kindergarten at the end of August.  He’s a full-blown big kid now!  And Mom over here is learning that once they hit that level, any ounce of control you retained at the pre-k level flies out the window like a dirty kleenex.  Forget those lovely evening chats about school, because by the end of the day he’s so over-stimulated all he can manage is to cry or stare at the TV and drool.  (Okay, he doesn’t drool, but it paints an appropriate picture for you.)

Then I totaled my car.  (And now it’s my turn to only manage crying.)  Which, everything is fine — well, except the car — but STRESS, OMG STRESS.

I swear I had a point when I started this post.

Oh well.  That’s where I’ve disappeared to.  Life.  Watching Doctor Who.  Attempting to breathe.  But I miss you guys.  I miss writing.  Haven’t been doing much of that either.  Well, I have, but I haven’t.  I’ve got a new sorta-kinda-almost-done-but-not-really draft.  I need to force myself to get back to it, it’s the only way to relieve some of this life anxiety – to just write through it.  :)

So brace yourselves, my dear lovelies, because you never know what I’ll say next.

Categorylife, Mom Stuff, Super Spawn, things that are hard to admit, Uncategorized | Comment3 Comments »

May 23rd, 2012

The Constant Battle

by Holly Dodson

This post could start out a lot of ways:  “As a writer” would be one.  “As a mother” would be another.  Or “As a woman” could be yet another option for an appropriate beginning.  Actually, there are probably a thousand ways you could start this post, because it’s something we all think about, and we all struggle with forever and ever no matter what:

Insecurity.

I think writers as a whole are a notoriously insecure group of people.  Perhaps it comes with the territory.  Which, if that means anything, it’s that we’re not alone in the way we feel.

A couple of perfect examples of how NOT alone we are would be this post from Rachelle Gardner (a literary agent) on the 7 Bad Habits of Successful Writers, and Shannon Messenger’s video blog on Friday the Thirteeners about giving up.

But when you’re in the throes of an oh my gracious I suck and will always suck and nobody has ever sucked as much as I suck in the world of suckdom moment…well, sometimes company isn’t enough.

So this post — this whole thought process, I suppose — has been a long time coming.  Over the last few weeks (or, you know, forever, but just more so in the last few weeks) I’ve been struggling with my own insecurities.  That ever-constant plaguing thought: I’m not good enough.

And well, fact is, maybe I’m not.  Before you go lashing me for that statement, let me finish.

What I’m talking about is this dream — this goal of publication.  This continuous effort to reach out and blog and network and build a platform and write book after book…

Writing in itself is incredibly hard, as I’ve talked about before.  Add on all the extra pressure of trying to get published or building a name for yourself online, and you’ve got a pot ready to boil over.  And that’s okay.
Something I’ve come to terms with in the last couple of weeks is that maybe this feeling is something that needs to be embraced instead of pushed away.  I think a right lot of us are constantly battling that fear, pushing it off, trying to move forward without it.
But the fact is, it’s that fear — that worry that we really aren’t good enough — that keeps us pressing forward in the first place.  That’s what helps us grow.  What helps us reach heights we never dreamed were possible.
And you know I’m right.
Count this as me embracing my insecurity, saying, “Yeah, maybe I’m not good enough, but I will be one day.”
Then I want you to say it too.  Because no matter how badly you feel about your writing, your life, your anything today, the thing is: you can change it for tomorrow.  All it is is a choice.
And that, my friends, is my deep thought for the week.  lol  I always seem to come back from my little blog breaks full of these ponderings, don’t I?

Categoryinspiration, life, things that are hard to admit, Writing | Comment1 Comment »