Q. Who makes you feel envious? What do they have/what are they doing that makes you feel that way? What do you think that means?
This feels like a loaded question, but I will take a stab at it. I am envious of Melissa Etheridge because she can play the guitar like it's a part of her. Watching her hands slide up and down the neck, her fingers easily finding the frets and the notes, without even looking - ah. It's beautiful to watch someone caress a guitar like that.
It takes hours and hours of practice to know how to do that, time I did not devote to my instrument, so my envy is because I know deep down that the reason I can't play like that is because some part of me doesn't want to. But my goodness, she is a joy to watch when she performs.
I am also envious of Janet Evanovich. She writes the Stephanie Plum books. I saw a show on her, and she said she works 60 hours a week. She published and became famous because she works hard at it. I worked hard at my writing, but it was news reporting, and that does not make one rich or famous, especially when one writes for local publications and doesn't seek out better opportunities. I settled for the small potatoes and did not go looking for the meat.
Now that I have time, I am not working on long form writing. I still write articles occasionally and I write in my blog. But I can't bring myself to commit to something long.
If I examine both of these, I think it means that I want to be good at things without putting in the hard work first. I want to be a great guitar player without the practice, and I want to be writing best-selling novels without having written non-selling crap first.
Of course, the hard work must come first. I put in hard work on other things I want, so I can only assume that while I am envious of these two, the things they do are not really things I wish to accomplish, for whatever reason.
February Journal Prompts. Join up at Kwizgiver's.
I envy people who have other folks they can get together and sing and/or play music with. I'd even be happy to simply sit in the background and listen to others sing and talk, like the artists do on Country's family reunion. Years ago I had a few opportunities to sing with others in the kitchen (usually beer was involved). But it was so much fun, beer or no beer. When I visited my sister when she was a winter Texan, we'd always go to a couple of "jams". I thought how if I lived down there, I'd be taking a turn every week.
ReplyDeleteI liked reading about your writing. I enjoy long form. Where I struggle -- freeze, sometimes -- is when I'm given a character count and told to be "clever." That happens all the time in digital. "You have 85 characters. Now be clever." GULP!
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