Frustrated

Apparently paying to have my domain redirected/merged didn’t update my links to the new blog OR move my followers to the new domain. Ugh.

ashleycliston.com

Sometimes when I get paid, I do stupid things.

Sometimes when I do stupid things, I can talk myself in to believing that they’re gloriously wonderful investments. So what did I invest in today? Myself.

More specifically, my future. In a very, very small way – but still. I decided to spring for a domain and webhosting. I am now the proud owner of ashleycliston.com.

I’m behind on word-count, I struggled to get in a measly two thousand words yesterday while I was struggling through writer’s block without coffee (I managed to kill my coffee-pot – don’t worry, he’s been adequately put to rest and now resides in coffee-pot nirvana and his replacement was picked up this morning. Rest in peace, old friend. May you never again be left running for 12+ hours, washed furiously in scalding water only to be turned on again immediately). Why am I tearing up over my coffee-pot?

Anyway. I want to be held accountable. I want… some tangible reminder that I need to keep going – even on the days I’m fighting through writer’s block, even on the day’s I’m breaking under the weight of self-doubt. Why? Because the simple fact of the matter is, I’m not myself when I’m not writing. Whether or not I’m ever published. Whether or not anyone ever reads the words I’m putting down.

Now, justifications aside… I also really just wanted prettier theme options.

The First Step to Improvement is Admitting Your Flaws

I was somewhere around eleven or twelve when I started writing. I also had a very strict mother who was about as conservative when it came to parenting as she was liberal when it came to politics. Around eleven or twelve you start to rebel – and the stricter your surroundings, the harder you rebel. At least, that’s how it was in my case.

photo credit: Sarah Haines ☾ via photopin cc

So take a little girl. Make her shy, make her the proverbial ugly duckling. Put her in a very protective environment where every single solitary aspect of her life is decided for her – from her wardrobe to her haircut. Shelter her – don’t let her walk to the park with her friends, thoroughly vet every parent she’s going to spend time with (to the point where every activity she’s present for has to happen at your house), screen her phone calls, and clean (read: inspect) her room once a week and read every note you can find to see what she might be up to. Read her diary. But (the ‘but’ is the important part here) give her books. Lots of books. So many books that her bedroom can’t hold them and she has to have a separate playroom just for bookshelves. Buy huge crates of random assorted books at yard sales and give them to her and never think to maybe inspect them for content.

This is how I was created.

Everything I ever learned was from a book. Babysitters Club. Fear Street. The occasional super-smutty romance novel that someone had thrown in their $10 book crate (which, when I think about it, actually taught me awful, extremely un-useful things about real-life relationships).

So when I started to finally write (because I’d finally found a friend whose parents passed ‘the inspection’ and I could hide my notebooks at her house), my characters were the opposite of everything I was ever allowed to be. They were the most fearless and the most beautiful and the most powerful. They wore the coolest clothes, and they never actually had parents – because in my opinion at the time, parents sucked. Everyone (including especially me) wanted to be them. They were the most extreme versions of Mary Sues I’ve ever encountered.

Everything was over-described (most especially my female characters). There was no actual plot. Ever. There were some brief and fleeting ‘disasters,’ but for the most part, my perfect characters lived fun, exciting (but perfect) lives. And vicariously, I lived through them. Which was the point, I guess. My best friend at the time, she was the real writer of out of the two of us (plots, disasters, flawed characters, and all). I was just writing to escape.

I no longer possesses any of my old stories (I couldn’t keep them safe from prying eyes) – but I remember my mistakes every time I write, every time I plot, and every time I craft a character. I think of those same mistakes every time I greedily inhale theories on plot structure, every time I make a spreadsheet – every time I lovingly craft a seismic shit-storm to throw on my already half-broken characters.

Maybe no one will ever see how much progress I’ve made – and that’s okay. Because I do. And that’s what matters.

Why did YOU start writing – and what were your biggest mistakes when you started out?