Babbles of a Fangirl - How Do I Start Again? (Or New Beginnings)

I'm really good at making promises and letting life get in the way.  Correction!  I have a habit of making promises then getting really, really lazy.  I promised 31 blog posts.  That was a horrible promise from someone who has not wrote a consistent blog in over a year.  I thought I could fix it.   Quick! I'll just change my original entry to the "13 Days of Halloween" and to hell with sounding like I'm copying a beloved ABC Family tradition!  

Then I started thinking about this blog and why I started it.  I briefly touched in my last entry how hard it is when you know that no one is actually reading your stuff.  What's the point of writing something that no viewer (sans the few people you force to sit in front of your computer screen) are actually going to read?  I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some part of me that wanted this blog to take off and make me successful.  In my dream world viewers would come flocking to read the thoughts of a nerdy girl and be wowed by my fresh new take on writing.  Slowly I'd build a following and than start a youtube channel and go viral.  Soon monitoring my videos would lead to me writing and making videos for a living!  I'd finally be doing something I love for a living.  No longer would I be forced to make a 110 dreary calls everyday only to be told by people as old as time itself that I don't explain things correctly or that my voice is too soft.  I would finally be happy with my career.  I would finally feel like the gifts I was told I have weren't being wasted in a tiny cube where the phone never stops ringing.  

Alas, I have a really unfortunate habit of not doing anything if I am not either hit by strong inspiration or able to achieve perfection with my art. This habit started to buck its head badly about 5 years ago.  I have a few theories why but we'll save those for the day I cave and finally see a therapist.  For now I'm focusing on being happy with the simple act of making art and not souring it with the need to be perfect.  I'm terribly afraid of criticism and failure.  On the internet there is no limit to the amount of "input" you can receive on the stuff you create.  I have received so many nice comments on this blog from some wonderful people!  Many of you are also very talented writers and video makers and I consider it an honor to get your feedback.  That being said, I have another habit of letting one negative opinion make me crumble.  Almost a year ago I had someone commented on one of my youtube videos saying that I referenced that I had viewers, but I shouldn't say that because no one was watching.  I quickly deleted that comment and blocked that viewer.  Still, those words hit me pretty hard.  My views were starting to slump rather badly at that point.  Maybe I really was failing at this whole internet nerd stuff and I just needed to go away.  

Cut to another few months ago.  I decided to take a gamble and apply to write for a real website.  Maybe I could finally find my voice in a more professional setting.  I spoke with the person in charge and they seemed interested.  I emailed some of my ideas to them and then silence.  I never heard back to them.  Looking back I'm sure they just got busy with a lot of candidates and I just lost out.  At the time my thoughts were vastly different.  My mind has a habit of being rather loud for being in such a petite woman. Maybe it is true, the genius ideas I've been sitting on aren't all that genius and it is really time to go away.  Hence a hiatus of little writing and next to no videos.  

You know what?  I missed writing about whatever my heart desired.  I missed learning how to edit on my crappy Imovie editing software and shooting with my horrible web camera.  I missed creating something, throwing it out into the internet black hole and seeing if anything survived the cosmos.  I missed chatting it up with other creators on twitter who had great thoughts and ideas. 

But how to restart?  I felt like a failure slinking back into a room full of people that watched you leave.  That bring us back to the start of my little story.  I thought I could come back with a bang!  A crazy marathon of writing like a maniac for a month was sure to make up for my absence!   Now I see how that was not only unfair to any readers happy to have me back but unfair to myself. A mental change in how I view my writing was needed just as badly as a fresh start.  I can't be my worst critic anymore.  I can't be afraid of critics either.  I will never make it under the weight of either. 

I'm not perfect.  I don't know if I will ever have a consistent writing schedule or completely get over my fears of rejection, but I hope a few of you will have me back.  I think it is time to relaunch The Patchwork Nerd and take away the need for perfection.  Instead let's start out with just me, a humble nerd, hoping you enjoy what babbles I have to babble.  I'm going to hit the drawing board and I don't know what will stay the same and what will change.  If you have any input, please share!  Your thoughts will always be important to me, even if I try to take it all with a grain of salt.  Above all I promise you this, I will only keep going as long as I'm having fun.  If you see me stressed out or not having fun, throw me in the corner for a breather or push me into a pile of Fluttershy (Someday my spell check will know "Fluttershy" isn't a typo) plushies.  So here goes a new adventure and I hope to have at least a few of you with me!  

Thanks guys and gals!  Let's do this!

Tootles!

Xoxo

^_^