Finding and Making Time

There's a common phrase that is said that, "If you love or want something, enough, you make time for it".  And that is something I wholeheartedly agree with.  I mean, who wouldn't want more things they love in their life?  For me, it would be difficult in choosing the things I love, per se; the word love has dumbfounded people since the beginning of time.  But one thing I do love and have a passion for is writing.  Since I was a kid, I always did, which shocks people because who likes doing extra work as a kid?  But I did; I remember vividly being excited for writing assignments, sharing, and trying something new.  And once I got older, actually creating something, whether an essay or a novel (like I am trying right now).  The process is so frustrating, but when it works, few things are more satisfying.

The funny thing is that now that I am done with school, you'd think that I would have more time to write, but it's quite the opposite.  I work full time, now, which takes up a quarter of the day, then have to do other things, like eat, sleep, chores, exercise, and all the other daily things life likes to throw at me.  It's an exhausting daily process, and by the time I'm done or have a second of spare time, the last thing I want to do is write.  But I guess that is something I need to work on.  Because writing is a passion of mine, and one of my dreams is to have a published novel and tell my story, but it's so difficult to do on a daily basis.  I thought school was a hard enough obstacle, but once you clear one, new ones appear.  And that is the case this time.  I want this bad enough, so I guess I have to make the time.  But it just makes me marvel at people more who have to do so much, yet have so little time.  How do they do it? 

All I can say is, I wish we had more hours in the day.  Or that life was a little easier so we could all take a breather. 

Instagram, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Return to Social Media

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody!  It took much longer than I anticipated, but I'm back blogging like I eventually said I would be.  I should explain what I mean, though...

Months ago, back in September, I wrote my first blog post since the summer, proclaiming like Michael Jordan and LeBron James that I was back and ready to get back to blogging/writing  I was excited because I felt like the time off had helped me recharge my creative juices, and there was so much going on in the world to inspire me.  But then life happened and I got distracted.  I had to apply to jobs (which I'm still doing), save up paying for loans, attend family events, etc.  It was busy and tiresome, so I lacked the energy to write consistently.  And it's like I've said in the past.  If I can't give it my all, I won't do it at all, so I held off on writing, putting my blog in jeopardy.  If I was done blogging, I had nothing to be ashamed of, since I went farther than I ever expected with it, from all the posts I've done, to all the readers I've gotten.  Not to mention, I am trying to write a novel, so it's best to focus on one piece of work.  Yes, after thinking about it, I thought my blog was history.

But then something changed.  The past few months, while looking for jobs, I kept thinking about one thing my teacher told me during my last year of college, which was how important networking was.  She meant it in the professional sense because the more people you know, the better chance you have of landing a job, but I thought it applied well to life also.  In the past, I've thought of social media as negative because of how useless and invasive I thought it was, and how repetitive all the different platforms seemed, among other things.  Now that I've thought about it, though, I can see I was a little mistaken.  It does have aspects of the negativity I felt for it, but it has its positives.  Through Facebook and now Instagram (which I installed yesterday), I've connected with my friends and people I care about in more ways than one.  Yes, I always prefer real life or personal contact, but it's nice to see the different ways they express themselves, like through pictures since it gives me a chance to learn about them and keep in contact, which is obviously harder as we get older in life.  Part of me is still skeptical and even a little worried about social media, but I'm willing to try it out, if not for me, than for people I care about and the potential it can have on me.  It'll still be awhile until I see true results, but I can see some progress already.

There's no guarantee I can write on this blog consistently with life being the way it is, but I'll try. 

P.S, My Instagram name is matttoy6 for those who are interested.

Back Open For Business

Over a month ago, I wrote a blog post in which I said I was going to take a break from blogging because I just didn't have the time for it anymore.  Along with that, I didn't feel that as if I was putting forth my best effort in my work, and I was burnt out from writing.  But now that I've had time to relax and think, I'm back blogging.  I can't guarantee as much of an output with material like before, but with so much happening in the world, it's safe to say, I have a lot to work with. 

I have nothing to really say at the moment, though, besides that I'm back for business.

The Return

After over two weeks off from writing because of school and other personal issues, I'm back doing one of the things I love, which is blogging/writing.  I have to admit, it felt weird being gone for so long since I dedicated myself to my blog at least 15-25 times a month, and every time in the past I thought I'd be gone, I came back in a few days.  But I was so burned out, and not feeling good mentally or physically.  For anyone who reads or checks out my work, I apologize, but I'm back now with lots of ideas.  I hope to continue writing more constantly from here on out, so thank you for your support!

-Matt Toy

Blogging From Here On Out

School's over for the semester until summer classes start next week.  With the free time I've had over the past few days, you'd think I would have found time to blog more, but I haven't since I've just been relaxing and enjoying the free time I have.  Now that the weekend is over though, I'm ready to get back to blogging.  And now that I'm done physically with ever having to be in school, I hope I can blog more about things in the world I find interesting.  It depends on what's going on in the world, as well as in my life, but for someone like myself, who is a curious writer, the sky's the limit.

Critiquing Work

I think I'm spoiled sometimes, because as a writer, I feel as though I can have an opinion on anything and say it, but when someone criticizes me, that's when I shut up and be quiet.  That happens a lot during school, especially in my Creative Writing classes, where we critique and workshop other people's work.  Whenever we've worked on my classmates work, I've told them what worked and what didn't, but I'm still pretty shy about it.  I think I'm like that because everyone else is always quiet, and no one seems agrees with me, so I feel signaled out by the teacher, which is never a good feeling.  Since I'm so close to graduating, I should be used to it and not care, but I can't help being affected by criticism or just making a mistake.  

Today, it was my turn to get work-shopped, and I was as anxious as could be.  I had all weekend to get the jitters out of my system, but everyday, I just kept wanting Monday to be over.  Well, now that my class has come and passed, I can say, getting work-shopped wasn't that bad, and I got worked up over nothing.  There was a lot of stuff I needed to improve on in terms of my writing, but everyone liked how honestly I wrote, and how dedicated I was to crafting my work.  Not to mention, I've improved in every draft, which is good.  My teacher was even impressed, shook my hand, and said I'm close to my potential; a comment that made me so happy.  Anyone can compliment your work, but when you get praise or pointers from someone famous like my teacher is, you take notice.  My writing might not be perfect, but I'm making strides, and authentically writing everyday, which is all I can do.  Hopefully, all the hard work pays off.

Till then, I'll just be writing, writing, writing...

Gratuitousness

There's an old cliché that "you can never have too much of anything", which can be used for economics, food, etc.  In writing, that's called gratuitousness, in which you can have too much or too little of something, such as a detail.  It's usually seen as a negative since you're doing/giving more than what the read wants, but you can't help doing it because you want to be honest and give it your all.  Speaking on broader terms though, I wonder if gratuitousness in real life really is a bad thing like the cliché says.  Usually, I would say no, but when you eat too much, that's bad for you.  Of if you have too much money or power, that can corrupt you.  I suppose it isn't important, but when I look at people who have too much time on their hands, or are too reliant on technology, I can't help wondering if we have too much.  Having a lot of something is nice and makes everyone feel more secure, but there has to be a limit, or else it would get out of hand. 

What do you think though?  Are people too gratuitous with certain things?     

Looking Back At Text Messages

A question I've always had on my mind is if other people are like me when it comes to their phones?  When I ask that, I mean, do they do the same things I do on my phone, which are call people, surf the net, or look back at old text messages?  I know that the first two examples I gave people do frequently, especially the way newer phones are, but I do wonder if they look at old text messages?  I feel like people nowadays are too busy to look back at old text messages, and if they do, it's probably just to check something, not to think or feel happy about something like I do sometimes.  Maybe that's a bad thing since it makes me dwell on the past sometimes, but it helps to remember the conversations you had with someone, which to me is important, since sometimes I think we're too busy to pay attention to people and their actions.  If that's the case, at least we have their words.  People may despise writing or find it tiring at times, but we do it all the time when we text. 

My question out of all of this is, do people put a lot of thought into their texts before they send it to people or do they just not care?  Also, like I asked above, do they ever look back at text messages?  And if so, what reason?