it's just a TV show

            I hate it when my husband tells me “It’s just a story” or “it’s just a movie” or “it’s just a show, it isn’t real” or he asks me “Why do you care so much? It’s not real?”

            I can’t help it. It makes me flame. I’ve lost count of the number of times his off-handed aforementioned comments have left me more pissed off than I should have been (I’ll admit that much), stomping my way down the hall and into my office, where I once again take solace in my books, my music, my movies, my computer.

            Such is life for way too overly imaginative, creatively minded me.

            Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the fact that I’m a writer?

            Oh shit. Probably should have mentioned that earlier.

            I tried to explain it to him tonight.

            That as a writer, over 95% of what whirls around like a maelstrom in my brain every minute of every hour of every day (when it isn’t song lyrics), is those characters that “aren’t real” to most people. And plot lines, random name and story ideas, movies I loved, books I loved, random things that inspire me along the way.

            I’m a writer. If not for things that “didn’t exist”, my brain would be almost entirely silent almost all of every day.

            But it isn’t, as those of you out there who are fellow writers, fellow movie buffs, fellow fanboys and fangirls and music buffs—fellow imaginative and creatively-minded people will attest.

            Life is what you make it. And what the hell kind of life can we ever hope to live without passion in it, without love—love of life, love of loved ones, love of what we do, love of the things we find joy in—the things that we’re passionate about, the things that drive and inspire and move us—to do, to partake in, to create for ourselves?

            I’m a writer, and a lifelong self-admitting bibliophile. I’ve been in love with the written, spoken, and sung word for my entire life. Since I was four, I can’t remember a time I wasn’t madly in love with a book—with the worlds that lie in wait between the covers, in the movies, on the TV screen, and more often than I’m comfortable admitting, in my head, in the worlds that exist there, and the characters that live and breathe within each and every one of them.

            I have been writing stories, poetry, and songs of my own since I was 8 years old, which means that I have of my own free will, sat down to homework of my own assigning each and every night (most nights for 8-12 hours at a sitting without blinking), spinning out tales and creating characters and dialogue and situations and creating worlds that “aren’t real.”

            When it comes to the work of others—books, poetry, songs, movies, TV shows—I’ve always paid more attention than most of the people I know in my day to day life.

            I don’t know why.

            Is it because I’m a bibliophile? Is it because I’m a writer? Because I understand how much work and thought and effort and time they pour into their work, as I always have?

Maybe it’s just because I’m overly imaginative, or my empathetic nature?

            I’ve always had this uncanny way of being able to feel the feelings of others very deeply, the same as I’ve always felt things in general very deeply—when I love, when I hate, when I despair, when I rage, when I yearn, or desire, or despise, or loathe, I do so with every single fiber of my being. Down into the depths of my deepest heart and soul.

            I always felt that it was my empathetic and strongly passionate and feeling nature that helped me dive into my work as hard and deeply as I do—that it added to the realism and the depth of my work—that it made it easier for me to convey the feelings of what I was trying to put across to possible readers, and what my characters felt.

            After all, what good is a story, if you can’t move others to feel? If you can’t touch them through your work? If you can’t share stories with them that haunt them, or inspire them, hurt them, or heal them?

            What good is a story, a movie, a book, a song, a poem, a painting, a portrait, a work of art at ALL, if it doesn’t affect those who see/hear/feel/taste/touch it?

            This is why it pisses me off when he tells me it’s “Just a show”… it’s “Just characters, they’re not real.”

            No shit, Sherlock. (no offense to Sherlock in any of his incarnations, be they movie, book, TV show (hell yes I’m a fan. Bring it on BBC. And hell no, I still haven’t forgiven you for the end of Merlin. That one seriously hurt.)

            I know they’re figments of someone’s imagination.

            But you know what? Those figments are put forth into the world meant to inspire…

…to teach.

…to touch

…to move.

…to hurt.

To heal.

To convey human emotion, in all its sometimes painful, generally messy, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, passionate, and sometimes horrendous glory.   

It was created by emotion-feeling people, for emotion-feeling people.

It was one person’s way of opening their heart and soul, laying it bare before our feet and saying “Here, come crawl into my brain and give me a moment of your time, and I share with you the endless galaxies that exist within my innermost heart and soul.”

            But don’t ask my husband.

            After all.

            “It’s only a TV show.”

avsongbird vlog #28- a long weekend

Inspiration- a drabble by avsongbird

                You never know when inspiration will hit you, or where it will come from. It just hits you, like lightning. And it catches your soul on fire.

               I’ve always considered myself a kind of lightning rod. I never really understood why. Was it my imagination, my open mind, my sensitive and caring nature?

               All I know is, that lightning struck me for the first time when I was young, and it’s found me ever since.

               It strikes me anywhere, at any time it pleases.

It sends me searching for napkins in restaurants, begging for pens….

               It has me tearing out of bed, nearly falling on my face before I find myself running to my computer….

               It wakes me in the night from my deepest of dreams, brings me back from the innermost reaches of my mind.

               It terrifies me… invigorates me… it excites me.

               It makes my blood hum in my veins and makes my nerves tingle.

               It makes every inch of me come alive as I feel the inspiration burning in my skin.
               It makes me feel more alive than I've ever felt.

               It’s a scary feeling sometimes—wild, uncontrollable—but it’s exciting just the same.

               And I’d never have it any other way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWoMd371PfE

avsongbird vlog#18- the big project

"To Be Understood"- a drabble/free-write from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

Why would anyone read this No really lol

now that I think about it… where IS my pen- drabble from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

I love passionate people- a drabble from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

Hello world- a drabble by avsongbird

"Down the Corridor" - an original short story by avsongbird read audiobook style on my youtube channel

Some don't get it, and some never will.

            It's hard when the people in your life don't get it. When they see you throwing yourself headlong into something you're passionate about, and they flat out don't get it. They see the hours you put in (some of them), they see your work (some of it), your passion, and they turn and go about their day like they didn't see it. Like it didn't matter.
            And it's not that they're selfish, it's not that they don't care about you. You may be a vital part of their life.
            They just don't get it.
            They don't look at whatever it is your working on and see it the way you see it-- not just for what it is or what it will or won't be, but for what it could be, for the sheer possibility of what your work and your time and dedication and effort and passion could bring into your life.
            Maybe you'll make it, maybe you won't, but as long as you find yourself pursuing your passion-- following that star that only you can see-- there will always be people in your life that flat out won't get what you're doing, and every time you try to explain it to them they'll sit there and their eyes may glaze over or they may look at you like you have a third eye.
            Or like there's something they'd rather be doing than listening to you talk at any sort of length about whatever it is you're passionate about.
            And that's okay. Because there are people out there who will get it, and if you push long enough, hard enough, far enough, you may find those people, and suddenly you'll be glad for all those times you kept pushing even when you were the only person in your life who did "get it".
            And for all those times you ignored the voices of the people who never will.

Let me hunger

Let me hunger,
Let me rage,
Let my passion stain
the page.


Let the fury crash
Like lightning,
Let it surge across the sky.
Let me paint everything
Of nothing.
Let me flourish,
Let me fly.

Down the Corridor

http://avsongbirdshortstories.blogspot.com/2015/06/down-corridor.html

Love Poem from one of my short stories

I could lie awake all night,
Counting the little freckles that grace your flesh,
Whispering tender kisses along your spine
And feeling my heart skip a beat each time I feel you shiver
Beneath my touch.
I would walk beyond the ends of all the ages and expanses
of this good earth
To feel the gentle press of your full lips against my own.
To look into your cornflower eyes and see them
Sparkling and laughing and dancing and full of life and love and laughter.
I would suffer a thousand torments without thought or regret
for the pleasure of being cradled against you,
with your arms around me, my head rested against your chest,
The sound of your heartbeat loud, and strong, and steady in my ears.

To Be Understood

               Sometimes, you just want to be understood. You don't want to explain... you don't want to pretend... or lie... You don't want to have to make excuses.

               You just want to be. And you want that to be enough.

               That's all I've ever wanted in my life. It's a human thought, isn't it? To want to know that just being you, with your faults, your shortcomings, with your joys, your passions...

               To want to know, for one brief moment in time that you... are enough.

                I've always taken people as they were. I love watching the masks fall away, watching the lies fall by the wayside, and watching people become who they are.

               I love them for their scars, and the tales they can tell. For the battles they've won, the hardships they've faced, and survived. The people and the past-times they've fallen in love with.

               I love them as they come. And I've always hoped they realized that I always did what I could to love them as they were-- that I truly wanted to understand them as they were.

               I always wished I knew what it felt like to be understood. To be loved and understood and accepted for who and what I was.

               But then how can I hope to find such things, when at times I find I don't even know myself?

               But how many of us can claim to truly know who we are, or why we do the things we do?

               I've always thought it was my job to dig deeper into human nature. To understand what drives us to do the things we do. Why we love the things we love, why we hate the things we hate, why we fear the things we fear. What kind of a writer could I be without knowing the nature of those I create my stories for? How can I hope to reach up through those pages and touch the hearts and souls of others if I cannot begin to know what they care about?

               I want to pen the words that reach into your heart. I want to find the words to tear you open and make you look deep inside yourself. I want to open your eyes and your heart to the things that drive you, to the passion that burns deep within you.

               I want to force you to face your deepest fears.

               I want to move you, to awaken you unto this world, and unto yourself. Then I want you to do the same to others, who in turn, can do the same.

               I want to brighten your day. I want to make you smile. I want to bring tears to your eyes and make your heart ache in your chest.

               I want to remind you what it is to truly feel, as you were always meant to feel. Love, hate, horror, passion, strife, heartache.

               I want to make you realize what it is to be understood as you are, what drives you, what scares you, what touches you, what stirs your passions.

               I want to awaken you unto yourself. To show you what it is, to truly understand this world, this life such as it is.

               I hope to awaken you to yourself, if I can. And as I find bits and pieces of my soul buried within those pages, in my quest to share the worlds inside my head with all of you, as I read back over them and find myself hidden within them, perhaps one day I will find myself made whole by my efforts, and at last, I will find the understanding I've always hoped for.

I will not beg

I will not beg for your attention,

I will not beg you for your time.

I will not twist and contort my spirit,

Just to give you piece of mind.

You need to take me as you find me,

Or don't even waste my time.

I don't give a damn what you think is "wrong with me",

Because this isn't your life-- it's mine.

If you're good to me, I'll be likewise,

If you respect me you'll get in kind.

If you love me, you'll be loved deeper than you've ever known,

by this wild and passionate heart of mine.

My heart is fiercely loyal,

It's honest, selfless, and kind.

I'd give beyond everything I've ever had,

and all I ask you for is your love, your time.

But don't ask me to wear a fake smile.

Don't expect me to live a lie.

Because the "me" I am is the "me" that I always was,

The "me" I was born, the same "me" I'll be till I die.

Why would anyone read this? No really. lol.

I sat down to write my blog for today and (not for the first time since I considered starting a blog) I found myself asking myself why. Why would I do this? Why did I feel the need to publish my thoughts online for strangers to read? And more than that, why would they read them?

You want to know the truth? It's because it scares me to death. 

All my life I've loved words and what they could do, and I've loved seeing what I could do with them. I've loved sharing them with people and seeing how people reacted to what came out of my head. It was so surreal, to see people laughing or crying or otherwise reacting to what I wrote, on a person to person basis. 

I've written stories for people, I've written poetry and songs for people, and it felt natural at the time, it felt right. I've written stories and poetry and songs WITH other people, and I've laughed more than I thought possible collaborating with others who know what it is to feel driven to write (You know who you are, and you're amazing!). It's amazing, the energy, the vibe you get when you're working with people who share your passion like that. It's incredible. I hope to do much more of it in the future. 

But the thought of sharing such a personal part of me, something that's just me, no censors, no filters, no editors beyond myself, no collaborators, no smoke, no mirrors-- just me and my words left to stand on their own-- with people on a large scale across the digital world is a very scary thought. So the idea of having people beyond my small circle of family and friends read my words scares me half to death. 

But I feel like I have to do this. Because over the years, as I've met more writers, more artists, more people in general throughout the course of my life, I've come to realize something--

I'm not the only one who's afraid of putting myself out there. 

I've met artists with incredible talent and potential-- writers, singers, painters, carpenters among them-- who never felt they were "good enough" or "talented enough" to put themselves out there. That were scared to death of the failure they convinced themselves was inevitable. 

And the thought that maybe if I take that risk, maybe someone, somewhere out there might stumble across my words and think "hey, if she's scared to death, and she's doing it anyway, maybe I can, too."  

Because you can only learn so much from books, from school, from training, and teachers. Eventually, you have to let go of those guard-rails, and you have to step out on your own, with your head held high, and you have to think, "You know what? I've got this." And maybe your risk will pay off, and maybe it won't. But even if you fail, at the end of the day, you can look back and remember the fact that you had the guts to step out in the first place, and realize that even that is more than the people who never took that risk. 

That in taking that risk-- even if you don't get the trophy, even if you fall on your face, or you're laughed and mocked-- was a success that no one can take away from you. 

I know I'm not the best writer on the planet, not by a long shot, and I'd never claim to be. All I can do is put out the best work I can, and hope it finds the people it was meant to find, and that it entertains them as it's always entertained me. 

That's why the blog. That's why I'm facing my fear. Because my desire to share my passion with others and to entertain them and maybe help them to face their fears or even to just enjoy my work and forget their problems for awhile far outweighs my fear of failure, of mockery. 

Because even making one person smile or laugh or to not feel down or alone with my work, is enough to make it worth it for me to do this. 

now that I think about it... where IS my pen?

I've loved and cherished and hated and been enthralled and disgusted by people who never even existed.


Such is the life of a writer. To come stumbling across people that no one else can see or hear but you, and to do everything your imagination and your brain and your heart can do to introduce them and their worlds and their happiness, trials, and tribulations with the world.


To use whatever skills and talents you may possess, to show people out there in the big green and blue marble that they are not alone. That there's more to this life than they could ever even begin to imagine if only you believe there is.


It's having your heart swell in your chest with love for the lives you're telling tales of, then having your heart ache and feeling it shatter into a million pieces and scatter into the winds when your characters' hearts are broken.


It's the tears that fall as you find yourself overcome with the grief that your character is suffering with each and every loss that they face, as though the grief were your own.


It's feeling your blood boil in your veins with rage at the antagonist and having your brain churn with ideas for all the ways you could get back at them for whatever dastardly thing they'd done to your poor protagonist this time around.


It's not being good, it's not being evil. It's being everything all at once all the time. It's living a thousand lives in one body; it's a thousand brains inside your own brain; it's a thousand hearts and a thousand lifetimes and all of it forcibly crammed into the space of one lifetime lived on this planet.


It's exhausting and exhilarating and exciting and incredible. It's a rush unlike any other that will drive you from your bed at 3 in the morning (if you haven't spent the entire night at the keyboard to begin with) and drive you from the shower with a towel hastily thrown around your body and soap in your hair, muttering desperately under your breath as you search your house like a madman "Where's a pen? Where's a pen? Where's the penpenpenpenpen..." And all the while your dog is staring at you with his head cocked like he thinks you're crazy.


And maybe you are.


It's not a hobby. It's an obsession. It's a lifestyle. And there are no vacations. You could be lying out on the beach, drink in hand, sunglasses on, hearing the sound of the waves lapping lazily at the shore, and suddenly, out of nowhere, it'll hit you. And suddenly you find yourself scrambling through your beach bag, praying you remembered to pack along your notebook for the ride, or typing away madly on your cell phone because you knew they'd only laugh at you if they caught you trying to bring your laptop along to the beach.


"Take a day off," they'd laugh, and shake their heads.


If only they knew.

I love passionate people

Passionate people are the most addictive people on the planet, aren't they? The ones who love the smell of fresh cut grass or the way the sun feels on their upturned face. Or the way it feels when water laps around their bare ankles, and curling their naked toes into the sand.


They're the ones who stay up for days on end just to see their work finished, whatever it is. The ones who have inspiration hit at 2 in the morning and welcome it regardless.


I've always been addicted to passionate people. To the way their faces light up like a five year old at Christmas when inspiration strikes them, and they take off running headlong into pursuing whatever it was that inspiration was.


They're like a breath of fresh air, aren't they? Just being around them feels like electricity. It's exciting. That kind of passion, that kind of energy, that kind of drive and will and focus-- it's intoxicating.


They're like muses with pulses. Just being around them makes you feel more awake and more alive than you ever feel otherwise. They make you feel like anything is possible. And maybe it is.
It's incredible.


I thrive on being around people like that, feeling their energy, their genius. It inspires me to feed my passions, to wonder "what if" and "why not". "Why nots" and "what ifs" can change the world.
Passion like that fuels things, it drives things, creates and awakens things that never would have existed without it.


It throbs the heart and quickens the blood. It shivers down nerve endings you never even knew you had.


Passion like that can change your life. Passion like that can change the world.

I've been writing for a long time. I read somewhere that being a writer is like giving yourself homework every day for the rest of your life. And it is. Not that I'm complaining. There's days that my fingers practically itch to sit down to that keyboard and let them fly over those familiar keys.
I read somewhere that a writer is always either writing or thinking about writing-- that we don't get vacations-- and it's true. Even before I first put pencil to paper all those years ago, I was aware of everything. I found inspiration everywhere. I found it in the pictures that music always put into my head, I found it in the way the rain ran down windowpanes. I found it in the laughter and tears and the anger and joy of everyone I've ever met in my life.


All these years later, I still remember the way it felt the first time I put pencil to paper. The first time I penned out a title, and directly beneath it, I wrote the words "Written by" and my name. All these years later, I remember how good it felt to sit back and to just stare at those words.
The first time I wrote the words "the end" and sat back to stare at them, I remember the feeling of accomplishment way back when. And no, that story was never in any book, no it was never an article or seen by anyone aside from my friends and family, but it was the first thing I'd ever written on my own. It was something that wouldn't have existed if I hadn't taken the time and had the thought to put pencil to paper.


Looking back now, the grammar was probably horrendous. Back then I knew nothing of when to separate paragraphs, or the "rules" of writing. Then again, to this day, I still don't know the rules of writing. Rules... it seems strange to me, always did. Hemingway once said that writing was easy, that all you had to do was sit down at a typewriter and bleed. How can you do that-- how can you be that honest, that open-- and still always follow the rules?


My grammar isn't always perfect. Sometimes my spelling can be suspect. But I write now as I've always written-- from my heart, my gut, my soul. I write as I feel it, as I see it. When I'm angry I write it as I feel it. When I'm elated or heartbroken I write it as it feels. If you're looking for perfect grammar, if you're looking for someone who's taken the classes or who watches for that evil little green line (yeah, that little line and I have an understanding. He tells me what to do, and I ignore the hell out of him.)


I'm a young woman who fell in love with the written word when I was four, when my mother first sat down and taught me how to read, how to write my own name. From then on, I was hooked on words, and the incredible worlds that books could show you in your head. The incredible things they could show you. It was like magic to me, even then. There's no other way to put it. I became addicted to words. I read any and everything I could get my hands on. I lost count of how many times my mom would take me to the library and I'd check out stack upon stacks of books, swearing up and down that "these books will last the week, mom, I promise", only to have them read within a couple days.


She used to laugh and swear up and down that I didn't read books, that I devoured them. And I loved every minute of it. To this day, I'm known to pick up a book and to read it through without stopping.
But I'm off topic. I do that. Apologies. Merely trying to give you an idea of what to expect if you choose to read my blog. You're falling headfirst into the mind of someone who's been in love with words her whole life, who loves books and the writers of them, who loves movies and all the people behind them. As someone who's been told I have "the imagination from hell" I love nothing more than to be around people of a similar nature. They fascinate me. They inspire me.


I love to sit down with people and talk about books, about movies and music. I love to sit down and brainstorm with friends about writing they're working on, to share mine with them and to hear theirs, and to help them with theirs, if I can. I love to see inspiration light them up and see them take off running with it. It's magic. There's no other way I can think of putting it. Pure magic.


If you're still here, and I haven't scared you off just yet, I thank you so much for your time, knowing just how precious and fleeting a thing it can be. If indeed you choose to read my blog, please know that I only wish to share my thoughts and my passions, my dreams and hopes with you, in the hope that perhaps one day something you come across will inspire someone somewhere somehow in their lives. That perhaps it will spark something that sends them running full speed from their computer, driven to work on something that stirs their passions, and sets their soul on fire.


If I can do that, then I consider it time well spent.