Acceptance
How do you accept what you cannot change?
Maybe that's too big an assumption on my part, and you don't even try to accept the problem (let's say), but fight fight fight away until you surrender. You likely make yourself miserable in the process. I know because stubborn insistence on what I want rather than what's before my nose has long been my MO.
Acceptance is my friend. The other way is not.
So, back to the how of acceptance. When I can't change "it," I write a story about "it," dumping all those feelings about why "it' is wrong. The first draft is usually shit (see Hemingway quote from May 2013). Once all those feelings have cleared my system and stare at me from the page, I start playing.
How to render "it" unrecognizable to family, friends, and prominent players should I ever publish?
1) Change names - No, Sister, the watercolor artist is not you.
2) Alter locations - That large southern city couldn't be Dallas, where I lived for 45 years. Couldn't be.
3) Change the perspective or point of view (POV) of the story. And this practice eases me into acceptance.
Typically, I write my lousy first draft in first person. "His eyes never met mine when we talked as if he searched the hallway for a woman more worthy of his time." Oh yes, I'm fuming at that point.
Then I change the POV. For example... writing the entire scene in the inattentive man's point of view. I find that he's shy or simply not interested, but he's unhappy nonetheless. I see me and my situation through his eyes, and sometimes unflattering truths emerge. Always, I learn from the writing.
Here's to acceptance! Never my first thought, but the one that brings me most peace.
Maybe that's too big an assumption on my part, and you don't even try to accept the problem (let's say), but fight fight fight away until you surrender. You likely make yourself miserable in the process. I know because stubborn insistence on what I want rather than what's before my nose has long been my MO.
Acceptance is my friend. The other way is not.
So, back to the how of acceptance. When I can't change "it," I write a story about "it," dumping all those feelings about why "it' is wrong. The first draft is usually shit (see Hemingway quote from May 2013). Once all those feelings have cleared my system and stare at me from the page, I start playing.
How to render "it" unrecognizable to family, friends, and prominent players should I ever publish?
1) Change names - No, Sister, the watercolor artist is not you.
2) Alter locations - That large southern city couldn't be Dallas, where I lived for 45 years. Couldn't be.
3) Change the perspective or point of view (POV) of the story. And this practice eases me into acceptance.
Typically, I write my lousy first draft in first person. "His eyes never met mine when we talked as if he searched the hallway for a woman more worthy of his time." Oh yes, I'm fuming at that point.
Then I change the POV. For example... writing the entire scene in the inattentive man's point of view. I find that he's shy or simply not interested, but he's unhappy nonetheless. I see me and my situation through his eyes, and sometimes unflattering truths emerge. Always, I learn from the writing.
Here's to acceptance! Never my first thought, but the one that brings me most peace.
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