Feelings

My uncle, who passed away this year, gave me a sage piece of advice once, regarding journal writing, which I assume can also be applied to blog writing. If you want your diaries to be truly memorable for the future, write about your feelings. Talk about how you felt today and the events will simply be the garnish. If you do that you will find that the Spirit will begin to communicate itself through the power of the written word. Although its hard to capture certain feelings in words, and more particularly to convey the strength or lack thereof of certain emotions, I will therefore attempt only to label the emotions I felt and not go into any depth on them. English is the best technical language on the planet, having the greatest vocabulary of any language on earth, but its not the best at conveying emotions. Roman languages such as spanish and french, have devoted a whole new tense to describing feelings. Its called the subjunctive and barely features in english, but I don't need to go into that now. 1) Working at an election day polling booth Stressed, Exuberant, Engrossed, Busy, Pleased, Miffed, Overfed, Disappointed 2) My best friends baby shower Redundant, alone, happy for her, bystander 3) My flatmate announcing she was moving out (the day I moved in) Shocked, alarmed, anxious, burdened (looking for someone else) 4) Getting an out of the blue email from an old flame the day after I had a dream about him Flabbergasted, wary, surprised, weirded-out, Curious, "What the hell!?" depressed, teary-eyed, sad, nostalgic, grateful that I've moved on 5) Writing during Nanowrimo Frustrated, agonized, mentally challenged, deranged, hopeful, enthusiastic, pleased, challenged, connected to my inner self - serene, peaceful, "In the flow" 6) Finishing training, starting my new job, customer services Tired, pressured, insulted, offended, ignorant, delighted, unsure, harangued, joyful, playful, adventurous 7) My flatmate offering/trying to set me up on blind dates Consternation, Resignation, rejected, grateful, naive, sad 8) Winning Nano! Elated, grateful, exulted, overjoyed... for about 5 minutes until I checked my emails (See #4) 9) My Work Christmas Party Alone, overfed 10) Being abused by a crazy Auckland driver Annoyed, vengeful, fearful, resentful of his idiocy, "Freakin idiot!" (Vengeance filled daydreams soothe my feelings hehe)

Deja vu theory

I saw an unusual house out of the corner of my eye, walking with my flatmate this morning, she said something to me and it was like I flipped backwards into time, like I'd already lived this moment before. When, I wasn't sure. But there was definately an otherworldly feeling to it. So visual cue + audio clue = deja vu, (from the french "already seen.") For me thats how it usually works anyway. Two or three events will combine in my consciousness to create that feeling that something is going on. I've had a few deja vu moments lately. My theory is that it means I dreamed it before, I dreamed about seeing or hearing something and then when it happens later my subconscious remembers it. One of my friends has a different theory. She thinks that before we came to this life we saw a preview of our life here on earth, and that we remembered certain things that would happen prior to significant moments - so the deja vu triggers an awareness that something important is about to happen. Another friend said she just feels like when she gets deja vu that its a personal sign to her that her life is going in the direction that its meant to. In any case, deja vu can't be predicted. It just sort of jumps on you without any advance warning. But its usually more memorable than other random moments of my day.

Finding joy in my creation

On Saturday i worked at the elections from 7:45am til 9:30pm thus killing any chances of catching up on my nanowrimo wordcount over the weekend. And having already worked out that i needed to have 15000 words by the 9th of november to stay on track, I was a bit stressed. I sat down last night to try and catch up and my mind went blank. The stress of what i was attempting to achieve hit me, along with frustration at the lack of forthcoming inspiration, and i resorted to menial tasks such as playing solitaire on my laptop, wandering around the house looking for things to do and eating even though i wasn't actually hungry. Then i wrote a brief discourse at the end of my novel on how much i hated my story and how horrible and boring it was, how i never want anybody else but me to read it and what on earth was i thinking and so on and so forth. Finally i went hunting for one of my old journals, from when i was overseas. Flicking open to a random page was a brief comment, Today we were talking to (i forget) and he told us a story. They were driving along the road when (?) yelled at him to stop the car. He jumped out and ran around a corner hand over mouth and threw up on the ground. Unfortunately, he didn't know it at the time but he was actually standing outside a huge restaurant with glass windows... and there was a family just inside staring back at him. As i read i laughed, as i laughed i relaxed and as i relaxed memories formed into ideas and ideas became words and before i knew it i was happy and the wordcount grew, which of course made me happier... and in the flow. I still haven't caught up yet, but when i woke up this morning i had a sense of hope. Creating demands a lot of a person, passion and enthusiasm and mostly love for what one is doing. To quote Orson Scott Card my favourite scifi/historical fiction writer, "A creator is one who is a part of what he creates." Just like the supreme Creator, who called us all into existence as well as this world, all creation denotes that He is there and that he wants us to be happy.

My nanowrimo

Username: Pianika Novel: Untitled POV: 1st person Wordcount: 7322 At this point in time, my novel is a random assortment of thoughts (in diary form) from a young adult female on her first major trip overseas. Sort of like Bridget Jones only she's kiwi not english, and she is a bit younger. it may evolve or change form at any point in time. I'm glad its only day 3.