Blog Commentary: I Should Really Try to Finish Something. Anything.

Hello, Dear Reader.  Blog Stumbler.  Internet Wanderer.

If you poke into what I've been doing here, you know I started Project Once Upon a Time as a challenge to write the beginning of a story every single day for a year.  It took me longer than a year, but I persevered to 365 starts and was proud, but I didn't want to stop!  It was really a lot of fun to start all these stories; yes, sometimes a brain-wracker, but fun to push myself.

My second challenge to myself was to go through the giant list of beauty pageant questions I had for my Public Speaking class students.  The first bunch were from ones I'd use in class, and the next, larger bunch were from the list of any question I found but deemed too difficult (or inappropriate) for my class.

Well, I finished that list with my previous post: "What motivates you?"  So, now what?

I think I ought to finish (or, at least, continue) some of these stories.  When I chose my major in college, I wanted to be a writer.  I pictured wallpapering a room with all my rejection letters.  I pictured getting piles of magazines in lieu of pay for published stories.  I pictured Being a Writer!

You see how that worked out.  I'm a college professor who wishes I wasn't.  I am an improvisational comedian who wishes I could play for a complete living (it's a partial living right now.)  I am a closet writer.  This blog has been my peek out of the closet.  As of today, four people subscribe to my blog.  Three of them I know personally and one dear girl is apparently just a very nice person.

Blogs are vanity.  I know.  But the public nature of this blog has, at least, motivated me thus far.  I'm hoping it will motivate me to continue, finish, and, perhaps, even dare to try for some rejection letters.  I am not sure the format I will use to continue some of these stories, and I may mix some other story-starts in, too, but this is where I will begin.

Thank you, whoever you are, for reading.  As always, if you have comments or questions, please interact.  I'm around.
Karen

What motivates you?

Pay attention to the weight of time.  The increase in weight is imperceptible at first, but it builds, and if you fail to notice, it will crush you.

A flutter of panic in the heart when the heart realizes its beats are finite.  The agonizing regret of misused moments that add up to hours, days, weeks, months, years that could have been used.  Pairing the crush of time with tired bones, fear of pain, and dread of failure makes each day less likely to be "the one" where it all changes for the better.

Motivation should have started when there was what seemed to be an eternity of time, but eternity breeds procrastination.  Wisdom would say that even now there is an eternity of time compared to the weight that will be added in another ten, twenty, or thirty years.  My age could double, and yet now it feels too late.

Fear crushes motivation.  Action crushes fear.  Doubt crushes action.  Doubt and fear build upon each other.  Action builds motivation.  Analysis: act.  Even if you're wrong, act.  Be wrong.  Be disappointed.  Be reprimanded.  Lose a job.  Lose your money.  Catch a cold.  Fight for change and be thwarted.  Whatever you do, though, ACT.  Be excited for the failure so you can banish the fear.  If success comes, be delighted, but delight in the disappointment, too.  Act to banish fear and doubt.  Act to boost motivation, and motivation will boost your action.  Time will lift from your heart and the ache will lift from your bones and you, in thirty years, will look back and you can say that every moment was used to its fullest.

Do you think you are pretty/handsome?

Trolls, by their nature, are solitary creatures.  They live alone because they are extremely territorial and will fight to protect what they see as theirs.

After a troll is born, its mother will nurture it for no longer than three months.  After three months, a toll baby will open its eyes and, because eye contact can be a threatening gesture, the mother will abandon it to the elements.  The baby trolls that survive learn quickly to survive and will, once they realize what trolls are like, shun their own kind.

Names are rare among trolls.  If a troll lives close enough to humans, he or she will quickly become known as "The Troll".  Trolls do not normally think of themselves by name.  Rarely, trolls even achieve language; however, there are always exceptions.  Cassandra the Troll is one such example.

How would you react to your best friend telling you she was pregnant?

Holy crap, Amy!  Who's the father?  You're freakin' forty-two years old!  Why would you do this?  How can you even...  I mean...  Okay, I'll ask.  How can you even hope to pay for a kid right now?  Wait!  Where are you even going to put it?

Geez.  No.  Seriously.  You live in a one-room apartment over a garage.  You barely have room for your cats, so how will a baby and all its stuff fit in there?  Hold on a moment...

When did this happen?  I mean, when are you due?  Have they been able to tell you about this baby yet?  Is it...okay?  I know we're not ancient yet, but, still, the odds of genetic disorders goes up.  And since when were you regular enough to even get pregnant?  What are the odds of that?  Alright, back to the genetic thing.  Is the baby okay?  Can they tell?

No, wait.  Go back further than that.  Who's the father?  How did you...  Who did you...  When did you...  Was it...natural?  Did you purchase a...um...donor?  Does the guy know?  Will you tell him?

Yeah, you're right, I think I'm hyperventilating.  I've got to find a paper bag.  Hold on...

Okay.  I'm back.  While I'm breathing here, you tell me.

Uh huh.

You only have how long left?  That'll be this year!  Okay...  Breathing.

Uh huh.

No, I don't remember you telling me.

Uh huh.  Well, I don't check Facebook regularly so I didn't...

Uh huh.

Okay, that's good.  But what about...

Uh huh.  And your parents are alright with that?

Ha!  I'll bet they did!  Was it your mom or your dad who...

Oh, my God.  Well, that's good, I guess.  Okay.  Hey, can you paint your old room purple again?  Ha!

Uh huh.  You're naming it what?

Weren't those your cats' names?

Ha!  You can't do that!  Do your parents know those were your cats' names?  Ha!

Huh.  Well, all right.  It sounds like you have it all planned out.  That's good.  I'm just so shocked.  I thought it would be you and me who never had kids.  Now it's just me, I guess.

No.  He's had a vasectomy.  Unless a miracle occurred between the tubes, it's not happening.

Yeah, well, I guess yours is a miracle.  Congratulations, Amy.  Hey--at least it's not twins!

What?!?