There are moments when I feel like I should be “committed”.  I have always run from those moments, until recently.  The term “commitment issues” has always frightened me.  That is as honest as I can be.  

I have feared commitment because I did not understand commitment.  I now have no need to look that word up in a dictionary.  I can trust my judgment, use my common sense, and know I am on the right path.  I have feared writing; not knowing what words might appear.  I have feared life, not knowing if I was prepared.  I have feared insanity, not knowing if I was sane.  I have feared death and I am alive.

I do not know all the answers; I just need to ask the right questions, of myself, to know what is inside of me.  I am committed to being alive.  I am a writer.  I am now committing to my writing.  I have many basic human needs and one of them is to write.  I was afraid to let it manifest; I am not sure why.  Then I realized, to be a writer is to be an instrument.  My body, my thoughts, my spirit all come together to make me.  I am the vessel.

Having determined this, I have made a decision to try to publish.  I may be successful, or I may not; time will tell.  I can face a fear to meet my needs.  That is who I am.  I believe that anything is possible.  I believe I am a writer.  I believe I can achieve this long-time, now committed goal.

I am now, once again, content.

What is the point of writing, if the title is pointless matters?  Pointless matters, is my way of exploring, it is a title that gives me permission to write aimlessly.  The reasons are unclear to me at the moment.  I confess I am currently feeling a little muddled.  I do know, however, that I did want to write all day.  I have spent my day, so far, trying to take care of things that I feel are significant.  I have had a nap because I am not physically feeling well today, I’ve cooked, cleaned, washed, and I’ve tried to meet my son’s needs.  I know this is important to me, and so I do it.  There are always reasons why I do things, even if I do not see the point in them.  I do the best I can with what I have at the moment.

I believe that is why it was so important to me to write this right now.  To just be in the moment.  As I was taking care of “things” today, I was writing in my head.  I was content that I was doing what needed to be done.  I was writing funny, clever things, I was amusing even to myself.  I was exploring pointless matters in my head and there was a point to them.  I’m not sure what it is right now, because at the moment, I am feeling very tired.  Not discontented exactly, but I seem to run out of steam.  Perhaps that is because I have been so busy in my mind lately.  Perhaps that is because my body is fighting off something.  Perhaps that’s because I am afraid of being content. 

I do know that I am afraid of many things.  Some of the things that frighten me are troubling because I cannot pinpoint why.  Other times, I am very aware, full of excitement and energy.  That is life, it is never still, if it were a flat-line it would be death, I think.  The thing is, I feel I have more questions then answers.  Just when I get it right, or think I may have it right, it changes.  Time changes.  If I do not write about pointless matters then I will not be able to find the points that do matter.

So what are pointless matters?  I’m not sure I know.  I do know that it seems to be the opposite of things that have a point. I do know that a point can be a message, or something like the tip of a sharp needle.  A focus point.  A thing that guides can guide me to the answer.  I have a personal theory I am experimenting with.  I keep asking myself why.  So far, doing this has been very enlightening, though at the moment, I’ve lost the purpose of it.  Matters are things that are important.  Matter can also be neurons, electrons, protons, organisms, I think, if I am recalling some of my science properly.  Without giving myself permission to explore pointless matters.  I would get hung up on the thoughts themselves.  I would right now be finding the proper definition of matter, from a dictionary, textbook, or encyclopedia.  Doing that would take me away from my writing.  I have previously determined that it is important for me to write.  Knowing that, believing that, is why I am exploring right now.

I have recently been playing word games with myself.  I have discovered a circular pattern in my thinking.  I was never aware it was there before.  There may be a reason for that.  I think of a circle as round.  Never-ending.  It reminds me of rings, wedding rings and marriage.  It reminds me of the song “the circle of life”.  I am alive.  Perhaps that is the point of this.  I still do not know.

I am distracted by my son.  Sometimes distractions are important.  They change our focus, which can point us in a new direction.  Is it important for me to spend time with my son, absolutely, and so I will, in just a few minutes.  That is not a life or death decision at the moment; he is fine, if not entirely content.  I will see what I can do to help him feel more content soon.  I am his mother that is what I do.  I try to help him as best as I can.  I also know that I cannot help him as well, if I am not content myself.  I feel content when I am writing.  I feel I am discovering important parts of myself through the process.  I cannot spend every moment of my day writing though because other things need to be done.  I am not sure that I prioritize well, but I am trying.  I know that I have obligations and commitments; I am trying to meet those also.

I think there may always be a point, even when we do not see it.  Sometimes, I know, it helps to ask why.  If I do not capture this moment, I will not be able to capture it, to discover the “why”.  Y is often represents an unknown quantity in math.  Math and science use formulas.  Formulas and math are explained in texts.  I know texts are a way of communicating knowledge.  I am always trying to gain knowledge.  I don’t know if I will gain any from this text, but that is the point in exploring.

My next challenge will be to actually post this.  I believe I can do that, since I’ve done it before.  The challenge for me is to not edit it, to avoid the temptation of fixing the words and the structure in an effort to make it more readable.  I know when I do so, my message gets skewed.  Having said that, I feel I need to just go with my gut on this and post it now before I give it further thought.  Otherwise, the moment will change, and the message might too.

P.S.  I am posting this without editing it. Bravo Ruth!

My name is Ruth, and to further introduce myself, I will (with hesitancy) say that I am a conflicted writer that has a history of taking common, everyday events, ideas, feelings, and words, and turning them into personal stumbling blocks.  Now that I’ve revealed that much, I feel this might be a good time to state why I am writing here in the first place.  I came across Wild Mind quite by accident and discovered it is valuable to me as a writing resource.  I am curious to learn more about blogs in general, since I’ve had little exposure to them, and I am intrigued specifically with Gloria’s blog concept as a whole.  For me, even the name Wild Mind is inspirational, full of exciting possibility; it resonates with me in a way that few things do, I can really identify with it because I am mystified with how the mind works, and consider my own mind to be quite chaotic and wild.  Add to that mix, my belief that writing is my passion, a component that is a principal building block in the architecture of “me”, and it is not surprising that Wild Mind feels like a familiar home to me, a place of comfort, an area where I might be a little more relaxed and let my guard down.
 
My life could be compared to a juggling act.  I juggle concepts, fears, questions, stresses, ideas, problems, thoughts, priorities, needs, goals, desires, experiences, writing, services, parenthood, livelihood, distractions, experiments, finances, approaches, diets, relationships, time, resources, anxiety, skills, circumstances, emotions, obligations, perceptions, tasks, frustrations, schedules, opportunities, and more; there is a distinct possibility that I might juggle as much as a person who could define himself a juggler.  Using this analogy, someone might conclude that I am an atrocious juggler and I need to find a new pursuit immediately, another person could find my perseverance admirable and therefore declare me a successful juggler, simply by virtue of the fact that I carry on, making a valiant effort even if the goal and results thus far may be vague, or the attempt itself appears futile.  After all is said and done, it basically comes down to personal philosophy and perception, and because I am still exploring my own understanding and beliefs in life, the unsettled chaos in my mind is constantly throwing me off-balance, which is not necessarily a desired circumstance when I am attempting to juggle (unless I believe that I only grow through my adversity, in which case I might view being off-balance as a ideal circumstance).   As a further demonstration of my convoluted mind, I will say that I am fretting right now that comparing my life to a juggling act is a not a good analogy.  I wonder if a reader might interpret “juggling act” as a phrase, being a complete concept in itself, or if it might also be interpreted as one two words, meaning there is a key word in the phrase.  If the key word is interpreted to be the action of “juggling” the reader may understand it in a very different way than if the key word is interpreted to be “act” which could be viewed as either an action, design, or a performance.  Words in the English language often have multiple meanings, and synonyms further add to the likelihood of miscommunication, so I find myself in a huge and ongoing struggle with the idea of using a word correctly or making a wise word choice.  I tend fret that I will not find the words that I need to accurately convey my message, which I then worry will cause me to over-explain my thoughts, and perhaps become redundant, repetitive, boring or difficult to understand and appreciate.
 
Gloria offered me this opportunity to contribute here as a writing experiment.  At the time I thought to myself, “Hey, I can do this!   I want to do this!  Of course I can write on a writing-related topic, because writing is an essential part of me, I have plenty of thoughts and feelings to share on the subject!”   But the key word for me is “experiment” because as a conflicted writer who constantly juggles ideas, which includes the concept of exploring my writing through experimentation; this was opportunity I could not resist.  Then I had a setback, or to be more succinct, I created an obstacle.  I enthusiastically said I want to contribute here, which is completely true, yet for me, writing is not just something that I want to do, writing is an act of expressing who I am, which is my purpose for writing about me right now.  As an individual and self-proclaimed writer, I cannot think of even one aspect of my life that I do not consider being relevant to writing.  My immediate problem now becomes selecting a writing-related topic for this first post, which I consider too broad a range to work with, and so I need to select a sub-topic that I feel I can write about.  A reader might think that since I have identified a goal that I am in fact, a step closer to reaching it, and hopefully, eventually, that will be true. 
 
Instead I find myself in yet another self-made quandary.  I am confronted with the confounding conundrum that I am as an individual, which is problematic for me in writing terms.  I have the impression that my mind is chaotic, which is in all honesty a great source of stress for me; paradoxically, I believe that referring to my mind as chaotic or wild, is a critical statement that is representative of some of the illogical and unjustifiable expectations I place upon myself.   Even as I deliberately choose these exact words, I am hypercritical, thinking that I may be inspiring the undesirable perception of writing drivel or of having a highfalutin pompous attitude.  Filled with self-doubt over my inability to follow some basic writing guidelines, like “less is more”, “show don’t tell”, and “be concise”, I again begin juggling.  I read and self-edit along the way, with a handy-dandy dictionary, a spell-checking tool (which I don’t always trust), and a magical phenomena many refer to as a thesaurus.  I am ambivalent about these writing tools, I feel an affinity to them and still I unrealistically expect them to create, when I know, intellectually, that they are only unchanging pokerfaced witnesses to my musings.  Again, I find myself lost in a sea of words like how and why, and I worry while I search for a raft to keep me afloat; then it comes to me, in the form of a memory.  I remind myself that words are only words until put into context, which is what I am actively striving to do.  Still in a quagmire of sludge trying to center my attention on getting myself out of this muck, there is now a shift in my focus.  This change forges a bridge where I am tempted to criticize myself for resting on my laurels as I contemplate the universe, which would not be an entirely inaccurate description.  However at this time I am still juggling; as I ponder a plan of action and seek insight about my own motivations and current perceptions, I take time to reflect knowing that if I am not actively being reflective, I cannot detect changes in my perception.  I need to be aware in order to conceive a purpose, and feeling debilitated by a lack of purpose, stops me in my tracks.
 
I see the proverbial light of recognition beginning to course its way through the density of the gray-matter in my unruly mind.  Due to the thickness this light needs to travel through, it must meander until it locates the floodgate valves which will allow it access to a permanent residence amid the mass.  
 
The evolution of writing this is also a personal journey.  I did not lack ambition, tools, experience, knowledge, resources, inspiration, perseverance, criticism, or conflict and still, nothing.  I could not reconcile my shortcomings with clichés, formulas, self-imposed deadlines, or analogies.  Being excited and enthused about writing here was not enough.  Word selection, context and sentiment, were not enough.  Even a self-professed desire and thirty-plus year’s worth of defining me as a writer could not tip the balancing scales for this Nike-wearing juggler with a “just do it” approach.  While many of these elements are found in some well-written or popular pieces of writing, there is an element that is essential to the formula that I understood intellectually but, until now, was unable to consciously apply to my writing; writing with purpose can be the revelation required that allows a writer put aside self-created obstacles in order to write.  This particular journey was fueled with aimless determination and passion and I hit several speed-bumps along the way, which I will lovingly refer to as works-in-progress but which are, in fact, about a dozen partially-written Word documents stored on my computer, and numerous notes, insights, and inspirations I have tucked away for later writing adventures.  As an experiment I would say that writing for Wild Mind is challenging and rewarding thus far and I am interested to see what may develop next from this initial conclusion.  My preconceived notion was that I might impose deadlines on myself, to post here once or twice a week; however the progress of this journey has taken much longer than I anticipated.  To arrive at this point in my trip, I have invested about two weeks of juggled time and six hours of actual sit-down-and-write time to achieve one post; I am reluctant to commit to a self-imposed writing deadline for a subsequent post, but am now determined to approach my next one with purpose.  As an evolving individual, this process has given me valuable data to consider and reflect upon to see how I might benefit from this experience in other areas of my life.  As a writer filled with conflict I am, at this moment, feeling more capable and better equipped to find the purpose in my next writing effort.  As an insecure human, I will quickly and proudly acknowledge this accomplishment.  As a ruthless self-critic I will beat myself over the head for taking this long to make it here; then in a moment of self-sympathy I will make amends and give compensation by conceding that I have earned some self-recognition for a success achieved in the company of conflict.  The self-doubt, anxiety, and guilt that tend to be constant journey companions to me, were forced to take a backseat when purpose provided a map, which turned into the metaphoric key allowing me to take the drivers wheel and steer myself toward this destination.   
 
There are numerous writing resources that can instruct and inspire and motivate; I consider Wild Mind an excellent one.  I formed this opinion based on two principles, the first one being that because it is internet-based it has inexhaustible growth potential and infinite links to other writers and resources, the second being that its broad concept is inclusive.
A writers’ life is oftentimes described as lonely, I am not convinced that description is accurate or typical, yet with a Wild Mind concept which is inclusive and inexhaustible, there becomes a number of options for a lonely writer that desires companionship during his journey. 
 
There is a famous quote by Napoleon Hill that goes like this: “Whatever the mind can Conceive and Believe it can Achieve”; I will refer to this as a CBA theory from now on.   I have been reflecting about this very quote during the entire two-week period it took me to write this so I am not surprised to see the theme it represents carrying over into my writing.  I am impressed with what Gloria has produced with Wild Mind blog, and I imagine this theme was evident in her creation.  My hectic writer’s mind allowed me to find the CBA theory relevant for me to write with purpose, which I construe as further evidence that a CBA theory is one that may become significant to me in all aspects of my life.  I needed to conceive a purpose in order to be able to believe that I could effectively communicate through writing, and believing that I could write effectively gave me the confidence I needed to be able to post here. 
 
Conceiving Purpose
Believing In Me
Achieving Results
 
I would not say there is no purpose for my juggling act because it does fuel my conflicted persona that allows me to recognize my mind as being chaotic and wild, but believing that I am a writer is my purpose for writing. 

This site, Fiction Critique, was submitted to my resource directory a few days ago. The site is offering critique and editing services to writers but who is offering this service? There is not one singe word about the “editor”, who he/she is or what credentials he/she may have. The only contact information is an email address and a P.O. Box in New York. I checked the whois for ownership of the domain name but it’s “private”, meaning you or I can not see who owns the site. That is very annoying when trying to confirm ownership of any kind of business or service online. So, what is this editor person hiding and why would anyone use the services of some unknown entity?

Needles to say, I will not be adding this site to my directory. I can not, or will not, support a site that doesn’t provide verifiable information on its creator. I’m writing about this particular site but I could be writing about any site offering a product or service that chooses to hide their identity. Potential clients should be wary of using a service like this without knowing who they are hiring. Buyer beware!

There are legit editing/critique services that I have written about and/or have added to my resource directory. The Editorial Department and Dave King: Editorial Services, both of which co-authored the book, Self Editing For Fiction Writers, a book every writer should have on their bookshelves.

I came across a site calling itself a “Book Club” with the tag line, “Bringing Voice to New Authors.” The domain was purchased in March, 2006 and currently has 19 new authors who have put their manuscripts on this site for “Club” members to read and comment on. I’d be surprised if they actually have any “Club” members other than the authors. Who would pay $25 per year to read unknown authors work? I’m not sure who this site is actually marketing to. It appears that their focus is on marketing to authors who have not been able to get their manuscripts published through normal publishing channels. Not that marketing to authors is a bad thing but what does an author actually get from placing his/her book manuscript on a site like this?

Here is what the site claims they offer:

For authors, this site gives voice to your stories and excellent feedback from the members. It is for authors who are leaving no stones unturned in their efforts to get published. Our authors want out of the slush pile–or at least on top of it–so their voices will be heard.

It goes on to state that there is NO compensation for authors who places their book manuscripts on the site. Read, NO compensation! So, how will this site help get their authors out of the slush-pile? Well, they also market to agents and publishers. They even have an area setup specifically for them. They call it, “Special Invite For Agents and Publishers”. They ask publishers and agents to “Use this site as your pre-ranked slush pile.”

Pre-ranked slush pile? What does that mean and why would a publisher and/or agent care? It seems that this site encourages their members to read and review the new authors work. The reviews are supposed to “help” the authors hone their writing craft and rank the manuscript accordingly. Okay … I guess that could be a good thing but I’m not so sure an agent or publisher would take much notice at this point. Maybe if the site does well and it actually gets a large group of non-author members, then the agents and publishers might take some notice, though I doubt good agents and publishers have time to surf the net looking for that rare gem just waiting to be discovered.

Here is what the site actually offers un-published authors:

Your book will be featured when it first arrives. It will be featured both on BloodyGoodRead.com and on our sister site: UnreadTreasures.com.

You will receive feedback, from members, fellow authors and possibly even agents and publishers about your book. If there are problems with a portion of the novel preventing it from being the success you want, this feedback can be invaluable and is very easy to retrieve.

Your book may be featured in ‘top ten’ or ‘best of genre’ if it scores well (based on downloads and review ratings). Which means, if you have a really great book that is well liked by the members, the book will continue to receive high visibility, making it more likely to be read by an agent or publisher.

You can review ‘real time’ statistics about your book.
Your book’s statistics on average rating and downloads can be retrieved instantly, providing you with a real time view on your book’s popularity.

Certain aspects of the presentation of your novel can be ‘tweaked’ real time by you. You may improve the ‘marketing’ of your novel by improving the header and cover blurbs and by selecting better review headliners as often as you like.

Your bio is placed on the website. This enables members, agents and publishers to get a better understanding of you and what makes you special.

All of the above for a mere $250 per year for one manuscript or $600 per year for multiple manuscripts. The manuscripts are setup in pdf format with cover art by a “In-House” artist and an author’s bio page is included. I don’t know … the bio pages have very little content and took almost no effort to create. Turning a manuscript into pdf is a no-brainer and uploading it take seconds and adding the html can be done in minutes. The artwork is probably the most time consuming. $50 per year would be much more appropriate if an author really thinks this is a good thing to do.

Personally, I think it’s a big waste of money and time. Author’s can join a writing critique group and get the same feedback, probably better feedback and the likelihood of a reputable agent or publisher ever seeing their work is almost none existent. There more likely to get vanity press type publishers interested in their work then a real publisher, one that doesn’t charge you for publishing your book.

The sites design does not look professionally done. In fact it looks very amateurish and not very appealing with strange color combinations and bold brown text!. It doesn’t showcase the author or their manuscript in a professional atmosphere nor does it do anything to excite potential “Club” members to want to sign up and download a book manuscript. And why would anyone want to read a book on their computer? Non-fiction does far better in the ebook marketplace than fiction will ever do, especially in a pdf format. Fiction readers want to sit in a comfortable chair with book in hand.

The developers of this site may believe they are offering a valuable resource to new authors but I believe the developers are getting far more than they can possibly give their authors. My advice is to run in another direction and take your cash with you!

Go to the site, Bloody Good Read, and see if you can find any real value in placing a manuscript on the site, even if they didn’t charge way more than they should and leave a comment if you don’t agree, or even if you do agree.