I didn’t shop for Black Friday. I never do. It’s the day after Thanksgiving though, and I’m with my family at the cabin we like to stay at at Sequoyah State Park. It’s thundering outside but it is nice. We are cozy and Harry Potter is on the TV and board games and puzzles are underway. I’m eating a piece of pecan pie and it is a delight.

I read my friend Kim Ventrella’s upcoming book, Hello Future Me, this afternoon and it was so very good. Exactly what I always expect from Kim but her writing always impresses me, even though I know she’s a great writer. She mentioned me in the acknowledgements. I think this is my first time to appear in those for anyone. It feels nice and a little surreal.

Black Friday would be a fun name for a book. Some kind of cool horror story that takes place the day after Thanksgiving, right? I wonder if someone has already done that?

So, I’ve been doing Morning Pages since October 15. It’s basically where you do three handwritten stream-of-consciousness notebook pages every day, preferably first thing in the morning, and that will help you to be a better artist. Or writer. Creative. We’ll say creative.

I am sick of Morning Pages. I will finish my first notebook in a few days (which is a LOT of pages) and I am planning on quitting there. But I wonder if I will write more without these, or less. (HINT, I haven’t been writing much AT ALL.) So Morning Pages didn’t save me from this ridiculous writers block.

Maybe the next thing will.

New idea – to blog and write fic and not worry about finishing my novel for a few days, at least. Going to the cabin we visit each year at Thanksgiving and I am fantasizing that it will give me the hard reset that I need. Hopefully.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. I thought that I might as well, since I am trapped at a dance convention in Tulsa, listening to all the electronics around me. Someone is watching a ball game and it’s hard to not listen to it. I hate when other people don’t use headphones. I would like to watch a video myself, but I forgot any headphones and so I’m not going to do that. It’s rude.

I’m writing a column for the local newspaper now, about the arts council in our little town. I’m just doing it volunteer. I am planning to write about the dance convention in the next one.

I’m on sub again, with Candid Dates. I feel confident.

I’m also reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and I’m trying to follow the steps. I’ve been doing Morning Pages for six days, although I didn’t really know much about it. I’m counting today as my first day for The Artist’s Way, so now I have a week to do Morning Pages, do the Artist Date, and do the other assignments. Feels a little overwhelming. I don’t even know where I’d like to go to spend two hours with myself. I’m going to have to think on it quite a bit, I’m afraid.

I’m not sure if the Morning Pages are helping very much, but maybe they are, seeing as how I’m actually writing on here and I’m reading the book. I wish I had something else to read up here. Maybe some good fiction. All I brought to read was this book and I did my weekly pages, and a book for the ladies’ class at church but that book is kind of dull and I have until next Sunday to read the chapter. I also read from the book of Daniel today but I did eight chapters and I’m going to save the other four for later this week. That needs to be done by my Bible study class on Wednesday night.

What else. I’m volunteering at the community theatre, running movies and videos and music outside their haunted house. Only three more nights for that. Then it will be time for Thanksgiving and Christmas! What a year it has been.

I’m tired of this conference and of Tulsa. I want to go home. But they won’t be done until after 6 pm. Sigh.

I am down. Depressed, I guess. I’ve been here before.

The difference this time is I know how to fix it. But I can’t. Long story short (without spilling all the gruesome details) is that I feel that I am in a place where I can no longer be true to myself, and to what I believe my soul is called to do, in order to please someone else. Good joke is that the other person isn’t even happy with my efforts anyway. Which I suspected would happen.

And I know no one reads this, really, but if someone did, it would be so obvious that of course I shouldn’t compromise my own self and well-being and basically my SOUL for anyone else. But it’s not always that simple, I guess. Or maybe it is and I’m so messed up to even understand it.

Only a small handful of people know what’s going on with me, and those that do don’t really care about my truth or what is happening to me. I’m only told that I am wrong, and I must change. Do they not understand that denying my own internal truth is destroying me? I suspect they do, but they don’t care. No one cares enough to try to really understand me. Not something I can really be mad about, since it’s rather hard to explain it myself.

But. I do know that if I allowed to just be true to myself and to my understanding of God and the universe, I am happy. Blissfully, joyfully happy, optimistic, calm, and completely full of hope and peace. But no, they tell me. I’m wrong. I’m bad. I have to stop. I have to deny it all. It doesn’t matter if that sends me spiraling into a pit of confusion and darkness.

Can you imagine having all that internal peace and joy and completeness? I never could, until I discovered it and accepted it, along with everything else in my life and existence. Now imagine finding it, and then having to leave it behind. To place it on someone else’s altar, to please them, even though you are sacrificing yourself to a place where you are only focusing on the thought that at the end of this life, you will be able to be free from the denial of your own soul. Counting down the days, almost, even though there’s no way to know how many days are left.

Anyway. I’m not talking about writing, even though writing isn’t getting any better with this tied around my neck. And now I have critique group tomorrow and a writing retreat tomorrow and I don’t want to do either. I just want to do nothing in my bed and feel sorry for myself.

Sorry this was dark and weird. Like I said, I’m not great at explaining it. But I know I found my truth…and I had to turn my back on it. And it’s pretty awful. Hopefully things will be better soon. idk.