A WORKING Magic Wand ...

News from the weekend front:

Wow, this magic wand really works! I waved it over myself and doink! HAPPINESS! And what happened then?

• 15 hugs today ... at least 4 from men (I know!) ('phfina's panthery claws must have been trimmed or something)


• 4 kisses from four girls! SQUEE! Three even ITRW! (*thud* faints!)


• Called my mom! She was happy to hear from me! I was happy with her! Aw!


• Smiles, smiles, and more smiles. (REAL smiles! Happy smiles!)

Didn't swing on a swing, nor smell flowers. I'll work on that today.

kisses, 'phfina

Epigrams

So I'm off to enjoy a lovely weekend, and I started it off at 4 am this morning reading a couple of epigrams. So, share-time! Enjoy.

"Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back."
Publilius Syrus

Ἄνθἐ ἀμέργουσαν παῖδ᾽ ἄγαν ἀπαλάν.
Σαπφώ

kisses, 'phfina

Magic Wand

Okay, whoa, Whoa, WHOA! and STOP!

Okay, sweeties, I love you; every one of you, but, sheesh! the significance!

Really! Look, you're going through stuff. I appreciate that. I'm going through stuff, too.

So I have a special request. When you write a PM/email to me, don't send it until you:

1. go to your mirror, smile a happy smile, then return to your computer, then


2. read your PM you're writing to me as if you are the receiver.

Smile still there? Okay, send it. Smile gone? Then revise the PM/email and sit on it for a day and start over at step 1.

Look, you don't need to sugar coat stuff to me, and I sure am planning on staying out of diabetics anonymous, but if you're going to send me what's so, then just be ready, 'cause I'm going to send you what's so and in spades right back. And this doom and gloom I've been getting? It doesn't work. It doesn't work for me and it doesn't work for you. Who wants to live doom and gloom? I don't.

SO! I have this magic wand here. It has unlimited charge, and bink! waving it discharges:

Happiness
Smiles
Laughter
Joy

I give you permission to borrow my wand (I have lots), to use it, on yourself firstly, and then give it to your friends, too! BONUS!

And, oh! Step away from the computer, please: go outside (yes, I know! Ooh, scary! Outside!), smell some flowers, swing on a swing, ride a pony, kiss a girl (ask her first), get some hugs, call your mom and tell her you love her. I'm going to do those things tomorrow (except ride the pony).

kisses, 'phfina

Bon Voyage, Jocelyn Torrent!

Well.

Jocelyn Torrent just published her final chapter of Rose Read, and with that is leaving fan-fiction. She's moved on with her life from fan-fiction.

God, I'm going to miss her and her writing.

Can't say I didn't see it coming, however. There were signs along the way, with long periods of silence here and loads of activity elsewhere. She's gone off to college, she's, well, she's put together differently than me: she has her friends and her self-reliance. Who needs little old fan-fiction when there's so much life to live? She didn't say this at all, of course, and she left very high recommendations to me.

Thank you, Jocelyn Torrent, for that long and beautiful run. I'm sure I hear the cries of despair echo across the fan-fiction community. Mine, too.

And in all that, I wish her well. And happiness. And I'm grateful for the tremendous amount of time she invested into her every story, every chapter, and every single review she received ... she responded to every one of them. There is an example of a writer on fan-fiction to follow.

It makes me wonder a little bit for myself. Do I tire of writing? ... Well, yes. At every chapter. Do I see myself calling it quits? No. Did JT ever see that? I don't know, perhaps in her second year (as I am now in mine), she just saw all this stuff to write about and not enough days in her life to write it.

Am I losing a friend? Yes, I think so. That's what happens in life, doesn't it? You get close to somebody, as a friend, and then she moves or gets an entirely new set of interests, and you try to stay connected, but that communication goes from daily, to ... never. Or a few years later, 'hey, how's it going?' and then nothing again.

So I'm grieving my loss. My loss, for JT is going out into that big, huge world of endless possibilities were she's probably learning and discovering and just filled to the brim and then overflowing with friends, happiness and joy. And for that my joy for her is great.

And for me, too. Is there joy and friends and endless possibilities to be found here on the little e-world of ffn? Oh, yes, indeed: there is. It's here for me, it's here for you, and it's here for JT if/when she comes back. Or if this indeed her final hurrah, it's still here for her and for anybody, just as the world outside of ffn has that for her, and for anybody, too.

JT is gone into that great big wild world, she says a sweet goodbye. I'm still here, sweeties. I'm still here, waving to JT's ship pulling out with my (well-used) hanky, and then, turning away from that ocean of the world, having taken it all in with my salty eyes and the smell of salt from the ocean filling my nose, and I walk back to my home, open up my laptop, reflect for a moment at the bittersweetness of goodbyes ... and now work on that next chapter, which is today: chapter 9 of "Our First Time."

kisses, 'phfina

The stranger in the mirror

What if. What if I'm really ... oh, God, I'm so lost. What if I'm not really this brave and bold and confident girl that I know I'm just pretending to be, all toppy and in control, because that's how I see I can survive, how I can make it through life, but what if I'm just a girl who wants to be loved and who wants simply to love and all this shit of all my confidence is just an act saying that I have it together, but I know I don't. I thought I was supposed to be finished asking these questions in high school! That was too hard already, and now I'm facing them again? And it's like nothing that I've lived is helping me cope at all! And if I'm not brave and bold and confident, but really, really, really this shy little weak thing ... I mean: how do I be now? Who the fuck wants to love a weak little mousy girl? I'm not that! I can't be that! I can't. How can I look in the mirror now and say 'I'm beautiful' like I asked you to when I don't even know what the 'I' is anymore that's supposed to be beautiful?

You know what did it to me? Me in a yellow sun dress, picking flowers. I just saw me like that, so happy, so loved by a woman who's so powerful and confident that she can just hold me as I sleep and just be there, just so be there that I can just give myself completely to her and just let down all my defenses and defensiveness and just be with her as just me and not pretend to be confident or strong or whatever.

And that's so not how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the strong and confident one, independent, the kick-ass girl, reliable, a world-class writer. I don't need to be supported. I support.

But then why does this one little figment call to me so powerfully that I can't even think. And so just one little fancy and my whole world is ... in turmoil.

God, I haven't slept, and now I have to go to work and pretend to be a cheerful-busy barista. Maybe work will clear my head of this shit, and I can go back to pretending to be me.

But we've got to survive somehow, girls, right? And we so can't let anybody see into us. Because then they'd 'find out,' right? And we can't allow that, now, can we, Rosalie ... and Jasper? Yeah, spoiler alert, and yeah, I write what I know. This next chapter is just so much fun.

"Update soon, 'phfina." Yeah. Thanks for that. Here, have a cookie; sorry: there's some salt on it, and, yes, I just washed my face.

Yeah, my next screed will be about updating soon. And no, you can't push me even a tenth as hard as my demons push me, so you are so not allowed to have pity parties ... like I do. Yeah, working on that, too, okay?

kisses, 'phfina

My December

What if this is my December? And, yes, even what if December is my time of year? And I can have fun, like Oskar, playing in the snow with his Papa (Låt den rätte komma in), but there's also no denying that December gets dark earlier and more often, and it can be cold, bitterly cold, and quiet, so I can feel alone, and in that aloneness, lonely.

I can make a snowball in my mittens, and walk to work in the dark, both ways, and make snow angels, and I can do all these things.

And I can look out the window at that uniformly grey sky and at that uniformly white ground. And the snow falling, as it has fallen so much this last winter is a lovely sight. But it's a quiet sight and a sad one. I wonder as I hear the feather-soft pop of each snowflake touching the ground, was that snowflake an angel? Was she sad to fall to ground? Was that her dying, like the grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die? The inevitability of it? And ... but ... was she relieved that her time had now come to an end?

And I look at the untouched snow-covered ground, and admire the purity of it, and feel regret when my feet plod through it, making tracks in that snow, marring it. I wonder if that is my life: me, plodding through it, determinedly at times, sad at others, dancing and prancing even others, but making a mark on the world, and then the snow, falling behind me, erasing my tracks from sight and from memory.

Forever.

p.s. Happy 'ffn birthday' to me: I've been (delurked) on ffn for a year now. Yay! :)

On Writing Well

"'phfina, you write so well! I wish I could write like you do!"

No, you don't wish this.

I mean: really.

'Reaching' my skill level? I mean, do you even want to? 'cause every frikken chapter it's almost like that: I sometimes get sick, I always cry, at every single chapter I write, and then when it's time to publish the predominant thought in my head is 'I've fvcked this up, so badly, they are gonna find where I live and get medieval on my ass ... and then crucify me.'

Do you want that? Does anybody? I sure don't. I just wanna read good fiction. That's all I've wanted to do. But no. Now I have to write this shit and it fucking kills me every single chapter. And then some reviewers as soon as I publish say 'update soon' (and it's not their fault at all: they are brave enough to ask what at least a hundred other people dare not to ask) and then I'm in the bathroom, puking my guts out, 'cause I know I have to update soon or else I'm disappointing somebody, maybe even hundreds, no, now it's even thousands of somebodies, breaking their heart, but that means I have to look in the mirror into my soul and write something that isn't sh1t this time. Again.

Joy.

You want to write like I do? it's easy. It's so easy.

You put your heart on the line.

You put your heart on the line, knowing somebody will step all over it, and you do that with every single chapter. Knowing more and more people are going to get out their stomping boots on you.

So, that means: right now. You're PMing me or you just publish that brand spanking new chapter of yours. I mean: great! But did you put your heart on the line? Did you really, really write that stuff that really, really happened to you ... you know, stuff that's happening right there, right in your fragile little heart ... you know, stuff that really matters? So that, for example, you really, really told me how my story really, really impacted you? Or in your story, I read it and I'm like: oh, God! That's real. That ... God! I'm gonna cry and laugh and hug my pillow and call my mom and ...

See? That is what your writing from your heart will do. I know: I have PM after PM telling me exactly that. And you will know that, yourself, too, because when you do that, you will have that deluge of PMs, too.

So, share. Really share. Don't partially share, but get it right out there, and put your heart on the line. What else is your heart for?

And when I say share, I mean: share.

"'phfina, when 'you' said 'you' wanted to kill 'your'self, it brought me back to that time when I was 10 and I had the razor out and I was crying so hard I was screaming because I couldn't even see bc my life was so black and ..."

Or maybe that didn't happen to you, maybe:

"When 'you' brought that boy into 'your' room, that put me right back to my first time when he told me he loved me and I told him to wait but he wasn't waiting and he just pushed into me and then nothing and then I felt so used because he was like, 'well' and left and then afterwards it was all weird! And, God, I felt ..."

But how the hell do I know, and how the hell can I connect to you, if you don't share from the heart, but speak in generalities? And when you do really share from the heart, if I have one drop of charitable blood in my body, how the hell can I not cry with you or how the hell can I not rejoice in your triumph or joy?

Did you give me the chance to do either in your writing?

If this is something you aspire to ... something you need to 'work on' you work on it everywhere, including every single time you have another person that you're with, communicating face to face or otherwise, otherwise you aren't working on it, you're just saying you have to work on it, and that ... well, you tell me.

I just write from what I know and what I've seen, and I put my heart into it. If you did just that, you'd probably been twice the writer I am, bc your experience? Do you know how many girls have gone through the same things you have, and are just waiting for that one voice to say: 'Yes, it hurt,' or, on the flip side, 'Yes, it was wonderful' and they have that connection to another soul in the whole world where they had thought they were all alone?

And that's all there is to it. Well, that's all there is to 'writing at my level.' Not writing classes, not nothing, because high school has all the writing you need to share authentically from the heart.

So that means the only thing you need is to want it and then be honest and open about yourself, knowing full well that your going to get hurt, and then your writing?

You won't be wishing you could write as well as I can. I'll be wishing I could write as well as you.