Forced To Change ~ Sunday, September 16, 2012

I journal. Yup, I’m one of those writers. I started journaling, rather, I kept a diary with a stern warning to my mother to ‘KEEP OUT!’ scrawled on the cover when I was a child. I have almost every composition notebook I’ve written in going back to high school. So, I’m a journal creator most of my life.

Occasionally, I’ll go back and read a piece of me captured by my own words at an earlier time in my life. They're always from my past, however, if I find some writing from my future I'll share right away because that would be so totally awesome. 

Sometimes, I’m struggling or as was the case with this journal entry I’m about to share, something wonderful happened. I believe I’d just finished the first draft of Forced To Change.

“This year, changes FORCED changes. Reaching bottom, falling down. Learning to rise. Seeing the strength inside me others see and when creatively rearranged is a story worth telling.

I’ve learned but I can, will, do learn each and everyday. I know me better than anyone else can. I’ve heard all the thoughts, of course. Experienced every pain, known every success, and plunged into the darkness. When I’ve been through every step and when I felt the most alone and lonely in my life, God has been there travelling through all of it, to it with me.

I should not forget that. I do, but I’m trying. I’m trying to remember Divine path. Divine destiny. Divine life. Living the life I was meant to regardless of how I think, assume my life should have or could have or even would have unfolded.

There is no change in my life without God. Without God I am. With God I am as I am.

That’s the thing, I am not without God. Whether I believe or remember at the time. The moment that is always my past as soon as it passes me by. Hard to live in the present if I am too busy living in my past. But the past is what I know.

The present is happening and I hope, pray, dream of my Divine future as God planned for me.

FORGIVENESS IS GIVING UP THE RIGHT TO BE RIGHT!”

So, yup that was me almost a year ago. I guess I was processing a lot about myself and what role my Higher Power played in my life or something like that. I don’t know, I guess I try to be spiritual rather than religious. I checked out a lot of religions before I found the one that spoke to me.

Literally spoke to me, I mean, the first spiritual leader I came in contact with from my religion gave a sermon that fit exactly what I was going through at that time. As a result, I finally settled on a religion. You may or may not have noticed I don’t share what religion I do practice. I do this because my religion isn’t for everyone. It took me from catholic school through college to find a place that spoke to me and once I did, I picked a religion to practice.

Some people never find a religion that works for them, or they don’t even believe in a Higher Power. I do, but this was a choice I made. I know my choices aren’t for everyone, but they are my choices to make just as your choices are yours to make.

Recently, I found the person physically closest to me, IE, my ex-roommate was very judgmental about my choices. So, although he claims he kicked me out, I feel I left that situation, yet another choice I made. According to my words from a year ago, leaving is just what is meant to be in my life.

Christ, That’s Good Porn!

Okay, so I have to give it to Jennie, she swore to me that there would be blog fodder in my family. Originally I didn’t see it though. I had my mom’s best friend and her clan visiting first. Though they had little news to share, other than the fact that hey, they’re all still alive and kicking it was just stuff that I could divine from their Facebook pages.

Yes, it was nice to physically touch them. Hugs are great. Kisses too. There’s the cousin who got out of jail or just graduated from college. I can’t remember. The someone who had a baby and I remember when I changed their diapers. All and all I had no fodder for the blog from them.

Then my aunt and her minster of a husband, my uncle got into town. Clearly these recently retired individuals would have nothing for me to blog about. So I went with the PSA about the library last week.

My aunt and uncle and I chatted about my home life which at the time was more interesting. They’ve recently become RV people and they like the lifestyle. They’ve tried to get me interested, however, I really couldn’t see myself moving my house around to RV park after RV park. I dated someone who lived in a mobile home many years ago and I remember thinking it’s not for me.

The idea of removing my own waste just doesn’t make me go, wow, yes that’s the life for me. I once dated a guy who lived in a double-wide and although that was far more home-like to me, still I just never pictured myself in the situation.

Anyway, my uncle started babbling away about wanting to find a space to do a sermon. He wanted to put a listing on craigslist trying to find the congregation for a church I used to attend when I first moved to Atlanta. The church is gone, replaced by a bank or fast food or something. It was a small venue and although their counterpart near Kennesaw is a nice place to visit I haven’t run into one member of the tiny church I took my aunt and uncle to many years ago.

He found a space, a country club that he wanted to check out and then he announced that he wanted to tie the lesson into my book release.

I was like, wait a second, I write porn.

He said that’s okay. This’ll work. We’ll have the church service and then do a book signing right after.

I was like, but no, I write porn.

He said we’ll relabel it. It’s romance. He smiled completely clueless to the difference between what I wrote and what he thought I wrote.

Once again, I said um, no, I write porn.

Okay, so my novel isn’t porn. It’s more romance, mystery, all the genres my publishers have labeled it. In fact, the sex is downright tame compared to what I have up on Literotica.

The things I have on Lit are in fact porn. Well erotica, but yeah, porn. It was written for dirty old men who have minds that freely wander into the gutter. My visiting aunt who had read everything I wrote up until I started posting on Lit was my original target audience.

Her as a target reader was an accident of course, as she offered to read whatever I wrote. It was before I had the courage to publish anything. I was receiving such positive feedback from my aunt I didn’t share with anyone except her. This is also why I hate my first novel. Nothing against my aunt, but the novel I meant to write should never have had her in mind as a target audience. I sanitized my writing thinking that she would read it.

I had to make a change and I found Literotica. I decided to stop sending my aunt my writing and wrote with an entirely different audience in mind. Strangers. Men. Women. People looking for a good story that well, um, could be used for masturbation material. That’s what I wanted to write and so I did. A few years later I wrote my second novel.

I actually sent that novel to my aunt to read. She read every single dirty word and had nothing but glowing things to say about my writing in general. She enjoyed it, however, I didn’t write it for her so I was able to write it. I really didn’t expect her to read it when I wrote it. I’m sure it wouldn’t have half the graphic sex scenes it did if I had her in mind while writing it.

That’s the thing about writing. Even though I didn’t mean to do it, I would naturally edit my writing based on who I expected to see it. If I expect only older men who jack off while reading what I write, I’m a lot less careful about the sex scenes or unlocking my dark and twisted Muse and letting her play. I use all kinds of dirty words, naughty conversation, and describe things I believe will leave the reader aroused and stroking. In other words, I write porn.