The Grass is Always Greener (or is it?)
The Grass Always Seems Greener on the other side…but is it really?
Author: Artsy Chow Roamer
The Grass is Always Greener
OR IS IT?
I was thinking about what I was going to blog about today throwing away idea after idea. It was easier before I started doing this for a living. Meaning, when I wasn’t trying to come up with ideas for blogging I was over run with them. Like most, I looked at writing and blogging and was pretty sure that the grass was greener than the grass I had. This post we will talk about that concept and where it came from.
I talk to myself a lot (which disturbs my husband to no end) and I work through many things by doing this. Usually I come to some brilliant conclusion and than say….I should write about that. Than during a brain hiccup I decided to start a blog and things changed.
Writers block….the fear of the empty page
WRITER’S BLOCK
Ideas are more of a struggle. Seeing the story through to the end is more difficult. Blank pages stare at me….and laugh; calling out….not so easy now huh? What was I thinking? It seemed so much easier when I wasn’t doing it for a living. So much more fun. Just what I should have always been doing.
And now this…I asked myself why do people do this? Why do we always compare ourselves to others and come up lacking? Less happy or fulfilled. Not doing what we were really meant to do like they are…you know…them.
Them…the ones happily going about their writing and never having a block. Telling their stories and people loving them. Never struggling with the characters or the story lines. Like Stephen King, who I heard famously locked away manuscripts for when the dry days would come, but they obviously never did.
Stephen King supposedly still works in longhand and an old fashioned typewriter…
ON WRITING
The guy who still writes in longhand and works on an old fashioned typewriter is still pumping out the novels, stories and screenplays that his readers adore. Maybe he never stares at an empty page? The guy with a wife and a son that are also writers. It must run in the family; a preponderance of good ideas to write about….SIGH.
My sister is a writer. She can write everything from a eulogy to a funny birthday tribute. She wrote a historical chronicle and life story about our father and his family. She has begun on our mother’s as well. I’m not sure she struggles in the same way I do about what to write.
When she picks up the pen outside of business writing it is usually with a purpose. A recalling of childhood; the love and trust of our parents and the special memories of happiness. A safeness in waking up at night and seeing the back of our father’s head as he drove us to the beach for two weeks of splendor and fun every year in Florida.
She has written humorously about Daddy’s “talk” with the principal after a music teacher made her practice Bach for torturous months only to pick someone else to play it for the actual performance. (Daddy won that one hands down)! 🤣 Or the time he picked up a bloody T-shirt of our brothers and went for a “talk” with the neighbor about his unfenced attack dog (that fence got built)! 🙌
We both have written about the pet chickens I got as a gift from a friend before our move to one of the first posh subdivisions in our city. The dog (yes, a different one) who chased one down, caught it and forced my Dad to pry it out of his mouth. My Mom applied popsicle sticks as splints for the broken leg to appease her traumatized children.
Writing requires you to believe in yourself and what you are putting on the paper…
These are the kind of stories that should make writing a breeze-written from the heart about actual events that can cause the reader to remember their own childhood with love, humor and wonder.
EVERY WRITER NEEDS AN EDITOR
I asked my sister to edit something I wrote once. She panicked. “Ah…no…just no. We don’t have that kind of relationship”. Say whhhattt? Apparently you need a relationship that allows you to be OK with ruthless cutting of wordiness, rewrites and suggestions on how to fix where you got off the story path without getting mad.
When I write I already over edit myself. Meaning that I don’t even get to the end of what I am writing without going back zealously over and over to reread, change and correct. Is that a bad thing? Yes!
Get it all down first in whatever voice you are using and then go back and look it over. And don’t be so hard on yourself. Just ask yourself; what am I trying to say? If you don’t know than you never should have picked up the pin or started typing to begin with.
I like to work out my story ideas in longhand first….old school….I know
WRITING IS JUST ANOTHER PROCESS
Even if I find a subject that I am excited to write about, it doesn't always mean a smooth process to the end. Writing well means from the heart. It speaks to truth that people can immediately recognize. Characters that readers know, understand and empathize with.
You must be able to bring your readers along with you on the journey. They have to see it, smell it, hear it and taste it. This is what makes writing better and more irresistible. But the story has to have a purpose-an end that has meaning to your beginning. Easier said than done.
WHERE DID THE SAYING COME FROM?
It appears that the saying actually started as a Latin proverb cited by Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1545 that stated “ The corne in another mans ground semeth ever more fertyll and plentifull than doth oure own” (The corn in another man’s ground seems ever more fertile and plentiful than our own).
It was a noted habit that cows would constantly eat through a fence or jump to the other side to get to the newer grass. In the early 1900’s a song came out about the “the grass is always greener in the other fellow’s yard”.
We obviously have been looking in envy at the other fellow’s life for quite awhile now. I grew up reading the columns and books of the humorist Erma Bombeck who wrote in newspapers and bestsellers about life in the suburbs, neighbors and traveling with family (The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank).
Erma could write with great wit about the funny in almost any situation-a capability I both envy and try to emulate. I’m told I am very funny. Writing funny is way harder however. My British gal pal who guest blogs for me is often funny in that dry way all British people seem to be. She too can capture it in writing in a way that feels real and you are laughing right along with her.
A good laugh a day keeps the blues away…
WHEN HAS THE GRASS EVER BEEN GREENER?
Let’s examine this in earnest. I started out in pre-law in college. Lawyers do good stuff and make the big bucks right? Wrong! A momentary lapse. Then the realization that it really had to be something creative for me.
The girl who took dance lessons including ballet and tap. The cheerleader. The baton twirler. The piano player. The flag girl. The reader of books. The mover of furniture and the painter of rooms. Oh my yes-it just had to be something creative.
Interior design. That’s what I decided. That only led to opening an art gallery because I really liked getting to the end of designing and hanging the artwork. That grass really was greener until the economy imploded and no one was building anything - much less buying art.
He’s not quite sure if the grass is greener or not….
A reach out on Facebook would bring a disastrous year of trying to build a local playhouse in my hometown community with a group of people who……just didn’t get it. But I was still bent on an outlet for my feverishly creative brain. Somewhere….my brand of genius was just waiting to be born!
A few more false stops and starts later-a blog was born. Why? I realized that I am REALLY good working alone. Writing is a lonely endeavor. You are your own boss with the exception of an editor or two but you can always say no!
You comb your memories and life experiences for the stories. You see the writing in others too. You notice things around you in a way you didn’t before. You want to remember it-take note of the details. You read what others are writing and you ask yourself if you can do the same. A good writer is an avid reader. Don’t kid yourself.
Writing requires reading and lots of it…
I MIGHT HAVE FOUND MY PERFECT GRASS
I knew nothing about blogging. But that didn’t stop me one bit. I researched. I read. I learned. I did. I found creating a brand with a website to be exhilarating and fun. I was proud of what I was doing and thought if only I had had this epiphany years ago and hadn’t wasted the time on other things-I would be so much farther down the road.
The slow reach outs to influencers in the areas of art, food and travel have brought me some special responds with new friends and contacts. I have slowly built a following on social media and the website showing me that readers are taking me seriously.
I actually enjoy the tortured process of coming up with new story ideas every week as well as a new column that I am writing for a regional newspaper. In short, I looked over the fence at the greener grass of being a freelance writer and blogger-working for myself-and saw it for the grass it was.
I think I have found my greener grass and boy am I glad…
CONCLUSION
Yes….sometimes the grass is greener over the fence, over the septic tank, in the other fella’s yard-whatever you wanna think. But it isn’t just wishful thinking-it actually can be. Even if you keep trying and it doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t mean it never will.
Sometimes we don’t really discover our purpose until later in life after we have tried any number of other things. For me, the trying was hard and fun. The trying gave me a lot of stories. And finally, the trying gave me my FRP (Final Resting Place).
This is it. I looked over the fence at writing, blogging and creating and saw the rest of my life. A life filled with the duty of coming up with ideas, things to write about and stuff you want to read.
Writing is a process of constant work for your readers…
Justin tells it…
I hope you enjoyed reading this slightly humorous opinion piece about greener pastures. If you did, you might like to read more under Just Because on my blog. You never know what i might choose to tell ya under this category. Hey, don’t be a stranger! Got something you want to get off your chest? Maybe greener pastures that did or didn’t work out for you? Let me hear about it. Until next time…
Cheers,
ArtsyChowRoamer
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