"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
Ernest Hemingway
This year, around Mid July, I started writing a daily journal - not a online blog but in ink and on paper in books that could be held on pages that could be turned. I was trying to make sense of everything that had brought me to the point of my life I was at and needed a outlet for this. I was also determined to turn my life around and wanted to document the processes I was going through and the progress I was or not going to make.
Basically, I had suffered some ill health in the form of a severe case of bronchitis, my band had fallen apart just as it was about to go to next level and to top it all off my relationship fell apart horrifically and left me high and truly dry. As you can imagine I was in a pretty low place but I was determined to make things better, find positives and see if I could change my life for the better.
I set myself goals and challenges that I knew would help raise my spirits and bring me focus and all the while, everyday, when I woke in the morning I would find myself sitting on the loo writing about how I felt, then later in the day adding more to the pages before finally reviewing my day as a whole at the end.
My first journal lasted from Mid-july just after everything turned to shit right through to the end of August where within its pages it marked occasions such as my 30th birthday, my first lay since being made single (lol) and trips up to Nottingham and ultimately down to Cornwall for 4 days of soul searching, self evaluation and trying to work out my next move. All very significant things that I am glad I have a record of. This first book would not make easy reading for some, there is a lot of emotion poured into its pages - sometimes the journal was my therapist and at other times a punchbag, either way it absorbed my life like a sponge and reflected answers in its ink back at me like a mirror allowing me to see who I was, where I was and what I needed to change.
My second journal I actually bought when In Cornwall on the aformentioned Soul searching trip and I will always treasure it. Inside it documents from the last days of August right up to today, Halloween. Two months that have really seen me turn the tide on my life and had me learn so much, and all so embark on a journey to really improve and anchor myself... and also have a lot of fund too! I know I am going to look back and read this journal and be grinning at some of my exploits and taking stock in some of the crucial life lessons I have had the benefit of immortalising in paper. Again things have not always been perfect in this time period but life generally is not a bed of roses and you have to take the rough with the smooth and experiance both to the full.
Tomorrow, I start to write in my 3rd and final journal of 2011, it will document the last 61 days of the year and it will be interesting to see where I am after the challenges of "movember" and then finishing the year strong. All I know is I am changing for the better and always trying to push myself further and that is why I am a different person to who I was 6 months ago just as I will be at the start of 2012 if things keep going as they are.
I have a new appreciation of many things right now, even the bad stuff. We all get some evil times thrown at us and will visit our own personal hell through heartache or whatever else is the cause, pain is inevitable - but there is a lesson in all of it and as long as we try and find the that lesson and learn something then non of its in vain. Whether life brings me tears of Joy or sorrow I will carry turning those tears to ink for future reference.
catharsis [kss]
n pl -ses
1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) (in Aristotelian literary criticism) the purging or purification of the emotions through the evocation of pity and fear, as in tragedy
2. (Psychoanalysis) Psychoanal the bringing of repressed ideas or experiences into consciousness, thus relieving tensions See also abreaction
3. (Medicine) purgation, esp of the bowels
[New Latin, from Greek katharsis, from kathairein to purge, purify]
Ernest Hemingway
This year, around Mid July, I started writing a daily journal - not a online blog but in ink and on paper in books that could be held on pages that could be turned. I was trying to make sense of everything that had brought me to the point of my life I was at and needed a outlet for this. I was also determined to turn my life around and wanted to document the processes I was going through and the progress I was or not going to make.
Basically, I had suffered some ill health in the form of a severe case of bronchitis, my band had fallen apart just as it was about to go to next level and to top it all off my relationship fell apart horrifically and left me high and truly dry. As you can imagine I was in a pretty low place but I was determined to make things better, find positives and see if I could change my life for the better.
I set myself goals and challenges that I knew would help raise my spirits and bring me focus and all the while, everyday, when I woke in the morning I would find myself sitting on the loo writing about how I felt, then later in the day adding more to the pages before finally reviewing my day as a whole at the end.
My first journal lasted from Mid-july just after everything turned to shit right through to the end of August where within its pages it marked occasions such as my 30th birthday, my first lay since being made single (lol) and trips up to Nottingham and ultimately down to Cornwall for 4 days of soul searching, self evaluation and trying to work out my next move. All very significant things that I am glad I have a record of. This first book would not make easy reading for some, there is a lot of emotion poured into its pages - sometimes the journal was my therapist and at other times a punchbag, either way it absorbed my life like a sponge and reflected answers in its ink back at me like a mirror allowing me to see who I was, where I was and what I needed to change.
My second journal I actually bought when In Cornwall on the aformentioned Soul searching trip and I will always treasure it. Inside it documents from the last days of August right up to today, Halloween. Two months that have really seen me turn the tide on my life and had me learn so much, and all so embark on a journey to really improve and anchor myself... and also have a lot of fund too! I know I am going to look back and read this journal and be grinning at some of my exploits and taking stock in some of the crucial life lessons I have had the benefit of immortalising in paper. Again things have not always been perfect in this time period but life generally is not a bed of roses and you have to take the rough with the smooth and experiance both to the full.
Tomorrow, I start to write in my 3rd and final journal of 2011, it will document the last 61 days of the year and it will be interesting to see where I am after the challenges of "movember" and then finishing the year strong. All I know is I am changing for the better and always trying to push myself further and that is why I am a different person to who I was 6 months ago just as I will be at the start of 2012 if things keep going as they are.
I have a new appreciation of many things right now, even the bad stuff. We all get some evil times thrown at us and will visit our own personal hell through heartache or whatever else is the cause, pain is inevitable - but there is a lesson in all of it and as long as we try and find the that lesson and learn something then non of its in vain. Whether life brings me tears of Joy or sorrow I will carry turning those tears to ink for future reference.
catharsis [kss]
n pl -ses
1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) (in Aristotelian literary criticism) the purging or purification of the emotions through the evocation of pity and fear, as in tragedy
2. (Psychoanalysis) Psychoanal the bringing of repressed ideas or experiences into consciousness, thus relieving tensions See also abreaction
3. (Medicine) purgation, esp of the bowels
[New Latin, from Greek katharsis, from kathairein to purge, purify]