The Tuesday in July and How I Obtained a Blog at 6 AM

Hello and Welcome to my very first blog and my very first blog post, which I have christened "Soda at Dawn".  Since I am starting fresh and anew, I would like to kindly warn everyone that I have not a clue what I'm going to do with this blog, or exactly what will become of it.  However, I feel an eagerness to fill the page, and perhaps this will become something really nifty in the future.

I am no stranger to writing on the walls of the Internet, and it wasn't until half an hour ago that I decided to bite the bullet and create my own space here.  I feel as if that is a common pattern in my adult life.  I stay up late browsing a few forums or watching a show on TV, and then suddenly I'm struck with a bit of inspiration! What am I to do, but write it down?  So I write and write, and while I'm writing, I might as well put on some music.  While I have music going, might as well sing along.  Oh, the singing has made me thirsty?  I should have a drink.  And since I'm up, I'll clean up some so I don't have to do it later.  Suddenly, I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor, and I've forgotten all about what I was going to write next.  When I finally do remember, I come back to my laptop and find that it's suddenly 6 AM and I haven't finished my soda.

Therefore, Soda at Dawn.

So even though this is my first blog post, and I could technically get away with just a simple introduction, I don't feel like that is my style.  I will give a friendly warning that I tend to free-write most of the time, so please excuse any run-ons or strange syntax.  Let me start with the reason that I write.  To put it in the simplest terms, it would be inspiration.  But what inspires me to write? 

Thoughts, of course.  I believe that everything begins with a single thought, whether it came from outside inspiration, or an inward brainstorm.  Something somewhere at some time influences me to have more than just a fleeting wonder.  The more time I spend on those thoughts, the more they transform into ideas.  I consider the simple things, the things I can observe, the people I interact with, and how I perceive myself and others through the day.  It can provide happiness, maybe from a well-performed joke I saw on an online blog. It can be melancholic, like feelings of nostalgia when I read through an old novel.  Sadness, regret, anger, joy, pensiveness, curiosity, excitement… all these things can emerge from just one thought. 

What do these emotions from thought make me want to do?  The fact that emotions make me want to do anything is fascinating in itself as well, simply because emotions can compel me.  Or they can hold me back.  I've experienced embarrassment, shame, fear, and even terror.  These emotions make me freeze up and my life seems to slow to a halt.  But then I've experienced the opposite, with emotions like elation, inspiration, ferocity, and creativity.  I want to make things happen.  The urge is so terribly present, and it’s not exactly something pushing me forward.  Rather, I chase after it like there’s no tomorrow.  That is the beauty of those emotions. 

Sometimes the actual urge isn’t really that strong.  But it’s presence, however subtle, is a consistent nag.  These seemingly inactive urges can mostly be ignored, and rationalized away.  It’s the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to suddenly go outside.  Not for any sort of life-changing epiphany, but just to be there.  To be outside, feeling the cool, night breeze and looking up at the stars between the tree tops.   The sensation of nothing around you but silence, and stillness.  Why would this urge even appear?  What purpose does it have?  Logically, I don’t think things like that have, again, a life-changing purpose of epiphany. 

However, sometimes these small urges hit and it is for a good reason.  I believe that sometimes our bodies and minds can come to the conclusion that we need a break in life.  Sometimes we just get that little whisper in our ears to tell us to go to that little corner store we've always wanted to see, even if we don’t have anything in mind to buy, but just the act of going somewhere new.  We get that urge to phone up that friend we haven’t talked to in ages, just to catch up.  We get the urge to take the day off and spend time watching that new blockbuster or indie film at the theater.  We want to finally take up that new hobby of cooking or jogging or sketching.  And then there’s someone like me, who just wants to write her thoughts down for the sake of it. 

My inspirations have been far and wide, and yet so narrow at the same time.  I've found much joy throughout the years in my writing, even if it was a simple high school essay or one-shot fan fiction.  Yes, even I have greatly indulged in taking two of my favorite characters from a TV show or book and writing an alternate scenario for them, even if all they ended up doing was confessing their feelings to one another.  Either way, it was a lot of fun first and foremost, and a good personal writing exercise.  I know that if I were to ever teach an English class, I would want my students to pick some well-known characters and write an alternate scenario for them, just to practice.  The fact that I did that kind of writing on my own is kind of fascinating.  I remember countless, endless students, year after year in my classes, who hated reading and writing, and they would never read out loud, and they despised having to write a 3 paragraph personal biography, let alone a 3 page essay or short story! 

Not I.  I reveled in it.  I relished the day when the teacher finally erased the board and said “Okay, go ahead and get started on your paper.”  This was especially apparent if the paper I got to write was fictional or even ‘bendable’ in any way.   I wanted to give life to the pages, to create characters based off of the ones I had written on before in my fan fictions, and all it would take was a little tweaking and a little name-changing, and the teacher was never the wiser.  This continued through high school and when I went back to college the second time.  I would get an idea in class and just jot it down, and sometimes I couldn't help myself and began writing scenarios altogether.  I would wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly have a burst of mental energy, the words and ideas flowing out of me and into my notebook.  It seemed quite unstoppable.  The best part was, I never really suffered from it.  When people found out that I willingly wrote stories on my own, even if it was just anime or Harry Potter fan fiction, they seemed pretty impressed.  Confused, maybe, but still impressed.  It wasn't something that people normally did, not outside of class at the very least.  And it was something I grew from. 

The same story happened with art.  Sure, you could find maybe a few more artists than writers in a typical class, what with people doodling in the margins of their notebooks, so it wasn't very unusual in the least.  However, those who not only took art classes in school, but out of school, and who did sketches and paintings all on their own, were something else entirely.  I was all of those things.  I made a few friends just because of my drawings.  I was also attracted to boys who could draw.  Even if all I did was start out by drawing anime or little fairy girls, or kittens and flowers, just overall cute things, people were still impressed.  I drew more and more, and even got a little confidence out of it.  People started asking for portraits, and I told them that I only do ‘caricature’ style, although really it was anime style, but they didn't seem to mind.  I remember in my Senior year of high school, a popular girl came up to me in Drama class and wanted me to draw her right then and there, and when I did it, she showed all her friends.  To get that kind of recognition was pretty amazing for a social introvert like me. 

The art story unfortunately has been on a great hiatus, though I hope it will return someday.  For now, I continue writing and fleshing out my free-style thoughts.  This is one thing in my life that I have never dropped since I picked it up.  Those who have a natural inclination to write instead of talk will understand where I'm coming from.  

To conclude this (rather lengthy) blog, I'll tentatively say that I would like to explore a bit more on why we write, and what it can accomplish, as well as what to do with what we've written.  Or I'll just free-write some more and my dear readers will have to put up with my antics a little longer.  Anyway, I hope this will be the beginning of a decent writing space, a space where we can find relaxation and form idea-creating thoughts. So until next dawn... have a great day!