I'm staring at a blank page.

Oh, how the blank page taunts me. 

I took a Domestika course--Creative Writing for Beginners: Bringing Your Story to Life. While I ultimately did not finish the course-- being unable to identify my "passion", the objective of the course being to write a short story about your passion through memories-- I did learn a few interesting techniques for helping to get unstuck when you're stuck. For when the blank page is MOCKING YOU. The instructor didn't mention any mocking, but you know what I mean, dear reader, do you not?

Perhaps you are asking, "But Corpus, isn't your passion writing? Or art? or somesuch?" And I would think, thank you for using the word somesuch; I like it and it's used so rarely these days.

Then I would say, "Yes, but...you have to be able to feel the passion and right now I kind of feel nothing but numb and achy at the same time." I did get an idea for a story, a story about the arguements I have in my head. A book about the different facets of myself that just seem to appear when I go about my day and the one I don't let out to play because she's not a nice person and you better believe she would just make a mess. She's gotten out before and it was not pleasant for me afterwards.

Of course it won't be a true story. No true events, that would be tedious and yet horrible for me and the reader. Just based on personal experience. 

Now this page is no longer blank. 

I do feel defeated for not having finished the course, but I did try very hard. I didn't quit at the first sign of frustration. It was not fault of the instructor, Shaun Levin, he was very encouraging, helpful, and kind, and had useful information. I may look at other courses by him. But this course was not for me. Maybe choosing a course for absolute beginners was the problem. I think of myself as a beginner because I don't have a college degree and I haven't published anything. I'm always worried the more advanced courses are TOO advanced and I'll end up drowned and quit in misery.

But I did not quit in misery. I made a conscious, thought-out decision to put aside a course that didn't cost very much ($12.00? I think) and didn't have a grade or any instructor feedback at the end of it. Since I'm not getting anything out of it I want to free up that time I was spending on it to find other courses for editing, illustration, and self publishing. I don't need my books to have illustrations throughout but I would like to design the cover myself. And possibly write a few childrens books later.

Aaaannnnddd...I didn't use any of the techniques for getting unstuck today. Well, we need a picture, don't we? I like each entry to have at least one picture. Let's dig in my photos and see what we can find.

You can tell I'm in a mixed state (the numbness and apathy, "I just want to sleep" of depression and the scattered, zippy, crashy "No, we must play XBox allllll daaaaay!!!!!" of mania) when I used more...er...formal sounding language and fewer contractions.

Here's a peacock I drew! Insert screechy peacock noise here.
I used a tutorial.