All of a sudden, out of the blue, as a seriously messed up thing I woke up with no desire to write or create. Really, I woke up yesterday morning and it was like a horrible grey cloud had descended upon me taking all of my artistic vibes and creative juices with it. I have to admit that more than being frustrated, I was afraid. For a moment I was scared to death that who I am at the core was fading away. I thought to myself, this can’t be happening to me, I’m an artist. I was absolutely distraught and beside myself the entire day well into the night.
At around 10:15PM I was still thinking about my plight and it hit me; WRITE. Yes, I didn’t feel like writing and it finally hit me that this was the exact opportunity to write. As I sat watching ‘Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip’ trying to figure out what I had a taste for as a late-night snack, I found my inspiration. As I wrote I tried to figure out the reason for not wanting to write or do anything creative. The first thought I had was that my bipolar disorder was getting ready to take me down into a bit of a depression. I did a quick self-evaluation and realized that my bipolar disorder had nothing to do with it. As much as I wanted to be able to blame my slump on something, I couldn’t blame it on my mental illness.
Well, crap, I thought, what the hell is the problem? I still couldn’t figure it out. I’d write then pause, write then pause, write then pause; I did this for nearly an hour. Then it hit me. My drive hadn’t gone anywhere, I’d just overwhelmed myself. I realized that I had been overthinking the Blogging 101 assignment for day four as to a target audience for my blog. I’d never thought about a specific target audience for my blog. I write because that’s what I do and I enjoy sharing my life and my art and poetry with other people. Now I may target a specific audience based on a certain blog post but I just consider my target audience anyone who likes poetry, short stories, relating to my struggles with bipolar disorder and the like.
Something else that I realized in the brief time I thought I couldn’t write was that I have an issue with people judging me. I was worried about what other people might think about me when I talked about my target audience or what they might think of what I do as a whole. I had to get past this and not worry about what anyone may say about me or think about my blog. I had to stand up for myself and realize that my blog is my blog and what I do should not be dictated based on what I think someone else might or might not think about it. I had to realize that I can’t please everyone and if my blog or blog posts are liked by a certain audience; fine, if not that is also okay. All I’m required to do is write and share.
Once I got around all of this self-doubt and apprehension I was able to go ahead and finish the assignment without a problem. I’m proud of what came out of this hiccup and if my story helps someone else I’m happy. If no one reads it that, too, is fine. Whatever audience I touch through my art is a plus regardless of what audience it may be. This is who I am and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
