The first day of the story

The stories are there, and actually I've already told them in other forms- plays, and even one screenplay, to say nothing of the countless times I've told the stories to my friends, my co-workers, shown them to audiences at my little theater.

And the support I've gotten is humbling. In fact, my significant other wonders why I think I only have seven stories to tell for my whole artistic life- he wonders why I don't just make up more to tell? He says I'm just that odd writer who doesn't quite want to be a writer. And he wonders why I don't sell them? (Doesn't that take a really long time?)

What's the point of just going from one story to another to another? Isn't seven enough? Seven that have taken a luxurious amount of time to write, not one after another after another, taking minutes or hours to write?

and selling them......something is wrong with my creative self- it has some kind of deficit, losing focus when I feel I've done all I can do to write the story down. I feel guilty because it's a hobby.

After I write them, I move on. And my family wants me to "succeed", they want me to say........."this happened to this work and that happened to that work"......It's Christmas Eve and I'm going to move my stories forward over the next 365 days, I promised them. This is not a New Year's resolution- I mean, who would I be fooling? THIS is spirit. This is BELIEVING. This is FOLLOwinG MY BLISS.

And then after promising them I drive through a blinding rain, 20 miles an hour on freeways, and I get home, turn up the heat, feed the cat and say.....Who am I fooling? I can only promise myself that I can check out HOW people do this every single day for the next year- how they live their dreams, how they get their work out there. I may not act on any of it, but I'm going to find out how they do it. I know, I know, it's territory that has already been covered a billion times.......but this is another distraction, I suppose, to keep me from truly following my bliss. But it's the promise I made to myself and not the bloated one I promised my family.

And as I write this, I just feel inadequate that.... on this silent night, I understand that the words to describe my Christmas Eves have already been written by someone else, so much better than I could write them.....silent night, holy night. sleep in heavenly peace.

Waiting now for Santa. Gonna eat cookies. Night night. Who am I fooling?