A new day, a new perspective.

After sitting down I realize why I rarely sat from this side of the table. The big window on a sunny day produces glare on the screen. It’s too late for me to turn around now, so I’ll just have to stick with it.

What to do today? What to write?

I’m not sure. I know that it seems like I am not working on my script today. I have a coffee meet up later today with Loretta to just catch up and stuff. It’s a little tradition that we have. We meet up anytime I’m in town just to catch up and it’s been a while. It’s been a year.

It just hit me how sometimes I don’t see some family that I’m close to for years sometimes and others I meet up a few times a year. Proximity I guess. Proximity.

* * *

All I did for the most part yesterday was just researching about Iceland and watching YouTube videos.

With Iceland, I wanted to know where I can see the Northern Lights in or around Reykjavik and there seems to be many options. Researching it more, reading blogs about the people and the place, it seems to be a pretty awesome place. The people are nice and there is no crime and they love their nature. It sounds like a paradise that I want to be a part of.

I hope that it’ll be a good trip for me, exploring and venturing off on my own like I usually do. If I see the Northern Lights, that’ll be a perk, but I think I’ll still enjoy the trip if I don’t.

I can’t believe it is a month and a half away and there’s so much that I need to prepare for. I can’t wait.

* * *

My beloved.

What am I going to do with you? How are you going to treat me when I’m there and what the fuck am I going to do?

I still don’t have anything planned yet. Maybe I’ll do that today, plan.

Plan where to eat. Look into things to do. Hell, maybe even go back to a museum. No clue. Open schedule.

All I know is that it might be cold and it’ll be a different New Year’s than the ones I usually partake in.

* * *

Short stories.

I started to read a collection of short stories, written by mostly YA authors and they seem like the right format for me. They seem like a good start in prose. I should focus on that and not the long form novella or even novel. Those will be things that I’ll work up to, but not now. That’s just too daunting.

I just don’t know what to write about. Well, I think I do. Loss.

Loss.

Loss.

I can write about loss. I can write about the pain. I can write about alienation.

I like thematic collections. I think it works well, especially in anthologies and in photography collections. They work. A unifying theme to connect everything together.

Maybe that’ll be my focus next. After this script, I’ll start writing more prose.

I need the challenge, I need to do it.

My heart doesn’t seem like it is in anything else and I’ve always been uncomfortable with my prose. Maybe this is it.

Maybe.

* * *

The Coffee Shop

You know how sometimes you have these great aspirations of wanting to be something or doing something more than what you are doing right now? How maybe you want to be a great prolific writer or maybe an auteur like Wong Kar Wai making works of art that moves millions of people?

You want to be that but there’s this little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you can’t. It says that you aren’t’ good or talented because it knows exactly what you are capable of. It knows how many things that you have written or shot or created and it knows that you have potential to do better than what you are doing right now, but it also knows that your full potential will never be enough.

Now, do you listen to that voice and stop trying then and there? What do you do?

I have that voice. Logically, the voice makes sense. His argument is sound. I am aware of what I’m capable of. I know that I haven’t reached my full potential yet, but then again, I am a dreamer.

I can do better. I can be that magnificent artist that I so yearn to be. I can be him.

Do I fight on, trudge on writing and creating and never amount to anything because I reached my potential and it just isn’t’ good? Do I live with those foolish notions and unreachable dreams and waste my life away?

Do I?

What do I do?

There’s the other side of me that will just say fuck it and do it. Try to become that great writer or artist and fail hard. Stop being told what to do and find out for myself. That’s the side that you listen to. That’s the side that should drive you. The side that wants to prove everyone, even yourself wrong.

I’m glad I also have that side of me to balance the realistic side. The optimist side for the win.

That’s what I’m going to do.

Besides, I’ve always been the type that will have no regrets if I try to work on it. I would have regrets if I gave up and never tried. I’m just happy doing it. That’s what I’m going to do. Just do it.

* * *

I am truly rumbling now. I am truly looking and stretching this time out doing my finger taps with anything that comes to mind. Even if it isn’t good.

I think I have ran out of things to say. Maybe next year won’t be a blog heavy year. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll be a more productive year in terms of creative writing.

Blank slate. Blank page.

White space that just needs to me marked up.

* * *

The Coffee Shop

This has been the busiest that I have seen this little shop. It’s an early Monday morning and people are out in force.

There’s in love new couple before me, sharing little tidbits about their lives and their many adventures in their past and hoping to plan some adventures together in the future. Their heads are huddle together over the bright screens, each sharing their little digital scrapbook of research they’ve done over the years. Both of them sharing their ultimate bucketlist locations, hoping that one of them would match and that would be their first true trip together.

Then there is the large group of high school or early college kids in the back table discussing a project they have to work on together over the break. I wonder what they are, since it is Winter Break and there shouldn’t be any classes. Maybe they are a social meet up group, coming together to discuss their own little projects; a writers group.

The boy with the laptop sent in his short story submission the week prior and now they are all coming together to dissect it, rip it apart, hoping that they are giving him good notes. I wonder how their dynamic is.

The couple seems to be giving each other little pecks and kisses for each little thing that they agree on. It’s cute, but sick at the same time. Makes me just want to rip their heads off and put them together in a forever lovelorn kiss in the grave.

Romantic.

The kids table becomes rowdy as they get into the thick of the critique. One boy’s comments about something that can be changed gets bounced back and forth, back and forth, with everyone inputting their little snippets into it and they are all rolling with it and it comes to a big conclusion that everyone is excited about. Laugh and cheers abound and the sole girl in the group doubles over with a knot in her side from laughing too much and a little snort sneaks out, which makes all of them laugh harder and more snorts come from her.

It’s cute and all of the boys fall for her all at the same time. Their laughs subsides and the girl feels a little uneasy as she scans the faces of the boys with the soft eyes pointed at her. Each and every eye staring at her and then the uncomfortable silence falls deafening.

She excuses herself to go to the bathroom, not because she wanted to go, but to escape from the adoring eyes. As she walks away, a small smile creeps on her lips, flattered that for the first time in her life that boys are looking at her like these boys were, with affection.

With the girl gone, the boys fall back into business. The funny thing about them is that they didn’t notice how the other boys were looking at her, each believing that the burning in their heart was their own and wasn’t shared by the others.

Soon, they’ll find out as they each vie for her attention and then things will get out of hand. The group will dwindle through time, each saying that they are busy, but they just don’t want to continue because of the competition and the girls is left clueless and alone not knowing what the fuck happened.