DreamWard Bound After an Absence

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I have not posted in a while. It has been about 2 weeks. One week I was on vacation and the next I was sick. I went to work, since each day I thought I was getting better only to realize by the end that I was exhausted. I had no energy to work on this blog, write, or  do anything really. I am still fighting my lack of motivation and this cold, but I know I need to just start writing again.  I need to get back on the DreamWard bound road, so this is me trying.

After the vacation and new year I am wondering if I actually have the same dreams and plans I did in the beginning of last year. I keep asking myself what do I really want and what really is possible. I am sure when I answer all my questions there will be another post about that. I need to figure out the answers first and seeing how it’s taking me all day just to write this post it may be awhile before I can really answer what is next for my creative life.

Right now, I just know that I need to get back in the rhythm of my life that was before vacation and sickness. I also need this cold to fully go away, so that I can get back to training and actually start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes.

I will be posting all the things I wrote on my flights and during my vacation this coming week. One of the posts will be a start to a series that I hope will be more interactive, but  I will explain all about that later.

Since, I did not write or post anything this last week I will simply end this post. I hope you enjoyed this post which felt more like rambling than a DreamWard Bound Post.

A Late DreamWard Bound

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Today was a crazy day for me. I had very little down time, once I got out of bed. I cannot complain too much though, I started my day by running on the beach. I then went to my favorite cafe, The Windmill, and had a delicious breakfast with my roommate. We then went Christmas shopping before I dropped her off at our friend’s cook-out.  After I stopped in and said hello I went to back Christmas cookies with other friends. That was fun, loud, and enough socialization for me. I came home, made myself a dinner of rice and now I finally can write my weekly DreamWard Bound post.

I have been really focused on BJJ this week. Well, BJJ and Christmas stuff. I am going home this coming week, so need to have every Christmas thing done before then. I believe I finished my Christmas shopping today, but knowing me I will get home and realize that I forgot someone.

I did write a little and prepared a monologue to do. I actually have a few videos in my mind that I want to do, but haven’t had time. I am realizing that videos or acting is the first thing that goes in the later bucket, since they take a while to do. You see I have to do my hair and makeup before setting up my camera and making sure the light is right. I then do each video at least twice, but it is closer to five or ten times. Basically I need at least a solid hour to make one video. That is partly why I try to do more than one every time I record myself. I figure my hair and make up is already done along with the lighting and camera set up, so I try to do multiple.

Now that you know my excuses of why I did not do much this week here is the list I did do.

My Bad Morning (Short Story)

The Storm Outside (Poem)

Starting A Journey (random ramblings)

Pain So Good (Poem)

DreamWard Bound (Or The Fight Found Within Me)

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This was a good week. I may have not made a lot of head way with my goals and did not post five creative posts, but I did make a break through. A switch occurred in my mind this week. I did not realize it until I was at the gym today. I found the reason for why I want to work so hard to get to a different life. I learned something that seems at least deep to myself about myself.

The reason why I push myself and why I am dreamward bound is because I am fighting the little nagging voice inside me. The whisper in the back of my head that is saying, “You can’t. You are not smart enough. You are not good enough. You are not strong enough. You don’t really have talent.”

I also realized this week that this is the same voice that whispered to me through out my life. It whispered that I could not be a real artist, and I listened. It told me that I would easily blend into the background, so I let myself. This whispering voice told me that I was not good enough for all my dreams and I believed it.

Well, I started this blog and started to quiet that voice. I didn’t realize it at the time, but with every painting, every post, and every video I slowly started to not believe the part of me that said I couldn’t. Little by little I realized I am an artist and I am who I am. I also realized that I can do anything I want, because it may be hard but everything worthy of having takes something.

This week I realized that I stopped believing in the “no’s” my mind was whispering to me and started to prove them wrong.

The “I’m not smart enough” has turned into, “I will train my mind until I am.”

The “I am not creative enough,” has turned into a laugh, a smile and me telling myself, “Oh, yeah, sure. Watch this.”

The “I can’t”  has turned into “Watch me.”

Finally, the “I’m not strong enough,” whisper that has haunted me for so long has turned into, “Shut up, I’ll be strong enough.”

Basically, I am not going to live by the negative voice in my mind any more. I am done putting myself down because I try to lift everyone else up. I can see the amazing possibilities in everyone else up. Why shouldn’t I see that in myself?

All this said, I am hoping that you will see a different side of me. One with more energy and more conviction. I know that my main fight is not getting paid for my art, but being satisfied with it and using each piece to be better than the one before it. My fight now won’t be against the world, people, or status. It will be against myself from yesterday.

Basically I am taking one of my tips from my goal getter’s channel and applying it with super energy. I am going to focus on my behavior and actions, not the world.

Now that I got all that out, here is all the things I posted this week.

All The Steps To Achieving Your Goal (video from last Saturday)

Here I Stand (Video)

Travelling Bagel (micro Fiction)

Rush (Poem)

Can’t Hold Me Down (Poem)

Control of My Brain (Creative Ramblings)

 

DreamWard Bound for the week of Thanksgiving 2014

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After I wrote my last DreamWard Bound I thought this week would be super productive. I filmed two short videos. One video was an original monologue and the other was all the steps for achieving goals. I even edited my novel a bit. Of course when Monday came I felt drained from a headache and did not get to editing the videos. Wednesday was my free day, so I told myself I would edit them Wednesday. I forgot about shopping for Thanksgiving things and I also really wanted to go to the gym. After everything was done I thought, “it’ll be okay. I do more tomorrow, before Thanksgiving dinner. I mean I should be able to find time in the day to cook what I needed to and edit a video or write more, right?”

Thanksgiving came and it was an amazing day. I loved all the togetherness and love that was going around in the kitchen. I helped my friends prepare a great meal and we hung out a lot. However, by the end of the night I was done. I went straight to bed, telling myself that I had no plans for Black Friday. That would be the day that I came up with time to edit those videos and get ahead of my writing. I would even try to edit my novel, before going over my friends’ house to cat-sit for them.

I had all day on Friday, so there was no rush. I relaxed and went to the gym. I then did some Christmas shopping online, did the dishes, did a load of laundry. After all that was done I went to my D&D game night, well game time. We started at 4:30 so that we could be done by the time my friend had to go to the airport. Still I thought that I would right after I drove him and his wife to the airport,  or at least get those two videos edited. I even had one video up and ready to be edited.  I was done with any idea of being productive by the time I got back from dropping them off.

Needless to say, I am feeling pretty unproductive today as I write this post. I mean I did write some things and have those two videos that I will be editing after this. They did not disappear, so I can still do it. Still, I wanted to do more this week since I had two days off of work. A little part of me is glad that I did not do all the work I wanted to do, because I am now feeling more rested and ready to do more.

So, here is the list of things I wrote this week.

Prayer (from my SaltyLight blog)

Bubbling up (a Poem)

This Was Written By A Bagel (short story)

Goal Getters Channel (a write-up )

Yup, small list this week.

DreamWard Bound (November 22, 2014)

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I want to start this post off with some sort of creative and intriguing statement that will almost force you to continue reading. However, I am already writing this late and have a bunch of other things to do. I mostly am just excited to be editing today. I am putting aside all my excuses and reasons not to edit my novel. I am just going to sit down and edit it, once my to do list is done.

That being said, let’s get into what I did this week. First I revised my goals. I took off the painting goal and the Goal Getters goal. I took off the painting goal, because like I said in another post I want painting to be unforced and from my heart. I don’t want to have any pressure to paint.

I took off the Goal Getters goal, because I finished the steps and realized I was not getting the reaction I wanted. I will continue to post short videos on that and redo the steps. I am planning on recording another version of my steps and having it all be one video. I also took it off so that I can feel comfortable either adding more videos each week or less. If I don’t have a tip I won’t need to come up with it.

I also revised my reading and instead of reading the Bible in a year I am going to focus on just reading the Bible. Basically, I broke down this goal and made the “I will read the Bible in a year” goal the end goal. I realized I needed to take other steps to achieve that. The first step will be to read a book in the Bible in a month. That is more manageable for me now.

My goal about getting better family communication is still there. It is exactly the same, except I added a weekly reminder. Also, my acting goal is the same. I am almost there and I am excited to be almost to the point where I can schedule an acting coach. I will be really happy to figure out where I can go from here and what a professional thinks.

I did change-up my creative writing goal. One thing I changed is that it is now officially all creative writing posts, not just poems. I also made an end goal. After 85 posts with 5 likes or more I will start to make another book focused on poetry, but with short stories thrown in there too. I do have one poetry book out there already. It is on the shorter side and I found with publishing it you need at least 85 pages in order for it to be available to publish in a hard copy with Lulu. Once I have the 85 creative writing things I will edit, polish, and basically create even better poems from them. I will also try to add more content that explains the poetry or short stories, so you will not just be buying my blog. I do want it to be different and worth your money.

As for my other goals, I changed the deadline for my weight loss and moved it down the list of importance. I still want to lose weight and reach that goal, but it’s not as important as my creative career.

My last goal is my novel which is exactly the same. I just freed up a few goal slots so should actually be able to do it, now.

Other stuff I did this week was write five posts, publish 2 tip videos, and a reading video to my creative channel. Here is the list of all that stuff.

Tip: Plan your week (video)

Tip: focus on your behavior (video)

Reading of Proverbs 31 (video)

Bring Down The Storm (poem)

If I See You (poem)

To The Beach 

Here I Stand (monologue)

Timed (poem)

I love when I post more than one thing a day. Also stay tuned because I will be posting more tips on my Goal Getters channel, today.

DreamWard Bound (November 15, 2014)

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This week was a stressful week at work with later hours. It burnt me out most days and by the end of the week I was done with people and anything productive. I did not go to my improv group on Thursday or do anything Friday night. Instead both nights I stayed home and vegged out with YouTube, Pinterest, and Netflix.

I was able to get a lot done with my writing and videos the first part of the week though. I was able to record Step 7 of Goal Getters, which means it’s all tips now. I also recorded a monologue and an about me video.

The monologue was Dory’s monologuee from Finding Nemo. It has been my favorite one so far. It was fun and a character type that I would love to do more of. Of course it seems more people are watching the classic monologues from plays. That could be because they were the ones done first, so they have had more time to get more views. It seems though people are still watching them and as long as they are watching my videos I will be happy.

No was far as writing goes I wrote my 5 creative posts. One was about being a bagel, which will become a series and then a video series. The video series will happen when I figure out how I want to do it.

Also, during this week this blog reached 152 followers. I almost did an actual happy dance, but I was at work so only let out a tiny wiggle.

I believe that is all the news about my week. Here is the list that tells you what I did.

Step 7 (video)

Back Story (video)

Dory’s Monologue (video)

Magic Machine (A Poem)

For A Second Time I am a Bagel (short story)

Come and See (A Poem)

Sale (A Poem)

Fingers (Poem)

I really find value in seeing the list written out. I did eight things this week. That means I took eight steps towards my dream this week.

DreamWard Bound for November 8, 2014

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Warning: This post is fulled with a lot of excuses, but there is also some happy things in it too.

I hit the wall this week with my schedule. Last Saturday I only did the week’s DreamWard Bound post. I thought I would do some video recording on Sunday, but when it came around I did not feel well. This caused me not to get a monologue recorded for last week.  On Monday I realized I need to re-record step 7 of the goal achieving videos, so was unable to post it. I also was still not feeling great on Monday, so took a nap before writing. Tuesday should have been a day of recording but I just could not bring myself to setting up so I wrote more. I guess I just needed a week devoted to writing.

I also did not go to the gym at all this past week. I don’t really have a good reason or even an excuse for that. I just was so unmotivated that I did not go. I am now wishing I kept going to the gym, because it’s starting to be harder and harder to go. I have forgotten how great my body feels after and how much healthier I felt. It’s been two weeks and already I am forgetting why I go. This also makes it hard to eat right, because my brain goes why bother. I will be going to the gym after I finish this post, which I keep getting distracted away from.

Now on to the no excuse good part of this blog.

I am realizing more and more that I may not be able to do everything every day or every week, but that does not mean I will do nothing. Having my goals are great and I believe I have come far with what I do and how much I do, still I have to remember that I also have a full-time job, friends, and an adult life that will all take time away from my creative self. This is the life I am living now and I have to be flexible with somethings. Also, I shouldn’t beat myself up or put myself down because I didn’t have a twelve or thirteen hour day.

You see when I have my creative days, during the week, I wake up around 5:45 am , get ready, and go to work. After work I usually will  go to the gym (unless it was the last two weeks) then have a quick dinner, which most of the time I eat at my desk while I work. I will then write or edit my videos until at least 9 pm. If I am editing videos I will most likely stay working until 10:30 and then go straight to bed. This makes for a crazy work focused life, but honestly I do enjoy working that much. If I didn’t I would never make it the industry that I actually want to be a part of.

I know that one day I will wake up at 5:45 go to work and come home around 9 or 10 pm. The major difference being that the work will be what I love doing. I will have a creative career one day, but I am not there yet. I do see the journey and the benefits of all these long days and determined attitude. I am happy to do the grunt work that no one in the industry sees, so that I can be better and know more when they do see what I want them to see.

I believe that is all I have to say about my week, so here is the shorter list of the things I did this week.

I Am A Bagel (short story)

A Writing Experiment on Nothing 

Give me Happiness (a poem)

My Future (a poem)

Dream For You (A poem)

How Does My Marketing Show My Uniqueness? (A video)

This week's DreamWard Bound (10/25/14)

successIt’s noon and I already want to go back to bed. I don’t want to do anything productive, even though I have a bunch of productive things I need to do today. I want to be childish and throw a tantrum so that I don’t have to do it. This is actually how I’ve been for most of the week, which caused my week to drag on and on.

I just did not want to do anything this week, so I skipped the gym almost everyday and hardly worked or even thought about my goals. It seems to be time to get revive my excitement for my goals, which I will hopefully force myself to do after this post. Thankfully I do have a list of why I want my goals already started and will just add on to it. Reminding myself why I want the goals should help me push to work on them. Of course napping is sounding good, also.

Let’s get to what I actually did this week. I wrote 3 out of the 5 creative writing posts that I wanted  to write. I did record and post a monologue. I actually recorded two last Saturday but only have gotten around to posting one at this point. I also posted the fifth step in my goal getting series.

That is actually all I did for my goals. I only thought about eating right, did not go to the gym that much and  hardly talked to my family. I really was a hermit that only wanted to sleep.

Here is the list of the poems and videos that I did actually do.

Lucy’s Monologue From While you Were Sleeping (video)

What Is My Acting Style? (video)

Step 5 (video)

I Am A Dork (Poem)

Puzzle Piece (Creative Writing piece)

Time For A Time Poem (Poem)

 

 

 

DreamWard Bound on 10/18/2014

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This week was a productive week for me and it showed with my views, both here and on YouTube. I still have work to do to meet all my weekly goals and I am far from the daily habits I want to make, but I am getting there.

Let’s get what I did not do out of the way. It is the same as most weeks. I did not read my Bible, which I should be doing. I want to but I just never do. I did not paint, although that is not a goal of mine any more, the note that is tapped on my bookshelf says differently. I also did not work on my novel. I may today, but I am not sure. I will not be pressuring myself to do much today. I was crazy productive and this is my only day this week when I won’t be running around.

As far as my goal focused on talking with my family goes, I have communicated with them. I still want to talk more and strengthen our relationships more, but I am noticing an increase in communication and I am feeling more connected to them.

I worked out for half an hour at least every day except for Wednesday and Friday this week, those two days I just could not get to the gym because I was busy with work stuff. Friday was fun work stuff though. I was in a Hacker Kombat, which is a capture the flag style hacking battle. It was fun but meant that I was exhausted by the time I got home.

I did post a Goal Getter video on the channel on Monday. One person watched it, but I did get another subscriber to that channel. I am thinking that I will finish all the steps and tips that I have already recorded. If the channel is still not getting views I will nod my head and walk away from it. Until then, though, I will keep on keeping on with posting the videos.

Now, you may have noticed that I also posted a five of creative writing posts. I also posted a few words on the last acting video I did, since it was a Stated Song and wanted to explain why I did it. The write-up was a fast little writing thing though, I am not counting it towards my creative writing posts. Still, I did write five creative writing posts, which is my goal for each week. I really liked how most of them came out too. You should take a look at them. All the links will be at the end of this post.

I also, got to post two videos to my creative YouTube channel. One was the Stated Song that I felt I had to do. The other video that I posted was answering a question I found, that I think every actor should be able to answer. I will be posting more of those types of videos in the future. I enjoyed answering the questions and feel like I should. Also, it will tell whoever watches my videos a bit more about who I am.

I believe that is all I did this week. I wrote, posted videos and competed in Hacker Kombat at my work. Here is the list of all that (minus the Hacker Kombat, there is no link for that.),

Stated Song: I Want To Be Something (Video)

What type of Projects Do I want To Work On? (Video)

Goal Getters Step 4 (Video)

Stop (A Poem)

A Scene Inspired by Supernatural (Fan Fiction)

Play On (A Poem)

Words On Stated Song: I Want To Be Something (a write-up)

A Poem from Top Searches (… A Poem)

Beach Dream (A short story)

Wow, that is 9 things from these past 7 days that I did. I will say it again I was productive this week.

Another DreamWard Bound. (10/11/14)

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I woke up today with a nice surprise. I had heard my phone go off before I got out of bed. I figured it was a friend messaging me for some reason. When I looked however it was actually a list of emails. There was six emails this morning telling me people liked my Who I am poem. Every like means a lot to me, but the fact that I got six likes over night was surprising and started my day off right.

Starting my Saturday right  was important to me, because I have been sick for most of the week. It was not a debilitating sickness, just a cold that drained me of energy and made motivation hard. By Thursday I had enough of the annoying cold and decided to take the day off of work, which meant that I at least felt like I needed to make up my work. I was planning on doing that last night, but instead I took it easy and only wrote one poem. I did not touch anything resembling acting or editing my novel that I hoped to have enough energy to do.

This morning, however, I woke with energy and a friendly boost from those likes and went to the gym. Now, I have energy and motivation to work on a monologue, write this DreamWard Bound post, and most likely a few other things. We will see what the day brings though.

As far as my goals go I did not read any of the Bible, which is listed as my first goal. I did listen to the audio version a bit. It is always more relaxing and easier to listen to an audio book and not actually reading it. It also tricks me into thinking I don’t have to read it for myself. I am trying to break myself of that thought process though. I want to read the Bible for myself.

My second goal it the one about my family. I have gotten better at communicating with some,  but I still do not feel as close as I want to. There are still those who I do not text or talk to weekly. I am talking to a few more though, so that is progress at least to me.

Next is my weight loss, which I am happy to say I did a lot better this week with, even though I had no energy. I also did not have the biggest appetite. As of today I lost 5 pounds of the 30 I want to lose.

My fourth goal is my Goal Getters videos, which I did post this week. It was Step #3  in the steps I use to achieve my goals. I am thinking that I will start to do a step and a tip, every week. I have a bunch of tips and I keep finding more. I keep discovering other tips and I am thinking that I might as well share all the ones I have now. I still have to think about pacing myself though and not running out of energy or ideas.

Now, my poetry goal was not meant this week. I almost wrote five poems or posts, but taking Thursday off as a sick day made me miss one.  Also, having a cold made it hard. I did write four posts and one of them was my 200th post. I also wrote a celebration post for the fact that I wrote 200 post, well now it is over 200 posts.

I also recorded another monologue, which I did last Saturday. I was able to edit it and post it last Saturday. I also recorded a few question and answers about acting. I found the questions a while ago and have wanted to answer them. I did forget about them for a bit, but now that I found them again, I really wanted to answer them. I will be posting them once I edit them down and make sure they make sense.

I did not touch my novel and am taking away the painting as a goal. I will still paint, but it will be when I have something to paint and not painting because it’s on the schedule. Painting now needs to stay my hobby, not a goal.

That is all my goals for this week. I will hopefully be able to get be more productive at least with my first two goals this week.

Here is the list of things I did this week.

Step #3 (video)

I’ll wait (poetry reading video)

Storm’s Monologue (video)

Who I am (poem)

Myself (poem)

200th post celebration.

Poetry of Words.

 

I actually did not realize I posted/ published 7 things this week. I think this list is becoming more and more helpful to me. I do hope that the list is helpful for you or at least these posts are enjoyable.