2021: Reinvent Yourself If You Dare!
Be productive and creative and stop bothering trying to find yourself.
Today, I located my abandoned charmdbaker Medium profile, in an effort to look it over and determine what to do with it. When I abruptly stopped writing, I inadvertently left 68 loyal followers behind. Today is my attempt to get them back, now that I’ve been able to login to my inactive account.
My mission is to reinvent or recreate myself, so to speak, but it’s not about trying to find myself. Been there, done that. I’d much rather be productive and creative and stop bothering with trying to find myself, based on who I was. It’s all about who I am now.
“Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw
My Writing Life
Last year in 2020, my writing life was drastically interrupted. I had a perfect sense of self-awareness and self-confidence about my future writing goals. I had solid plans to introduce myself to the online community as Beka R. March, a new author in the fantasy genre.
The idea was connected to my desire to write an entire novel series about mermaids. The complete story line was all done and fleshed out, including plot, characters, scenes, timelines, the whole enchilada. I also have a gazillion additional notes of related ideas, and they’re all typed, organized and ready to be used.
So I took the novella that I self-published in December 2019, and used it to introduce the world (or the few people who read about it) to Beka R. March, author of “Tell Us the Mermaid Story”. This mini novel was meant to act as a standalone book that would help introduce readers to the coming series about the “Merquaticans” (my civilization of mermaids).
Well, “the best made plans of mice and men” tend to always get shot to hell! As luck would have it, the Corona virus came along, and eventually we received the first official COVID 19 notification in the U.S. That screwed everything up for every damn body!
In January, I had been so excited about working and promoting my novella through article writing and posts on social media. Since I already knew what it meant to be an unknown author with two self-published novels (under my original pen name), I knew full well what to expect when trying to promote Beka and my new mermaid book.
I was totally fine with the difficult journey I knew lay ahead for Beka; that is, up until the pandemic struck and everyone and everything went on lock down.
In case you’re thinking that I should have been glad to have all the time in the world to promote my book, and even write and publish the rest of the entire series. Not!
Sure, I honestly did have the time, even more so then before. But for several months, I was in no frame of mind to write anything, let alone about some damn mermaids in a fantasy world; not when real people were dying all around me in this world.
So just like so many of us did in 2020, during that crazy year of hell, I put my life, my ambitions, and my desires on hold.
Fast Forward to 2021
Well, it’s a new day, a new way, and I’m feeling good! With 2021, came a lot of hope for the future and everyone’s talking about a new normal, and trying to figure out what that should look like.
At first I thought I’d go in a different direction, and get back into solely writing non-fiction stuff, so I created another now debunked publication on Medium. The “Our New Normal” publication was set up for the purpose of focusing on new writers, and helping them find ways to get paid online.
Okay, call me fickle, impatient, or just crazy, I’m not sure which, but that idea didn’t stick too long. I guess I lost my enthusiasm, when the young lady I paid to assist me in getting my vision off the ground, turned out not to be a good fit. She was nice person, but she didn’t share my vision, nor did she care about writing; she simply needed the cash.
As usual, when my excitement waned, my motivation level went down, and by this past March, I was pretty much back to not doing anything creatively, or least nothing to speak of (I actually got quite a bit of coloring done).
Another Re-invention
They say it’s hard to keep a good woman down, and especially if she’s a writer (I added the last part :-) I can say for myself, this has always been the case, that’s why I knew I just couldn’t stop writing, no matter how discouraged I had become.
And sure enough, the closer we started getting to summer, the more I started to get that familiar twitch inside my body, the annoying one that compels me to get a pen, get a pencil, hell, get another crayon, and do some damn writing!
So that’s exactly what I did. I started writing about an experience that happened several decades ago, with me and my now deceased husband. I knew I wanted to only write a SHORT story, having decided that I wasn’t up to putting my whole heart into another big project just yet.
After passing the 2,000-word mark, I began to get frustrated with myself. I was okay with how the story was progressing; it was just getting to be too darn long. I was annoyed and began to wonder how short story writers are able to write such complete and concise stories, without taking so many thousands of words to do it.
That nagging question prompted me to check out a couple of pretty good Youtube videos about creating short stories, just like the one above, which is really quite detailed. But later, I decided the best thing I could do to learn as much as possible about short story writing was to take a structured course, from beginning to end.
I paid $60 for a 12 lesson short story writing course, complete with lessons and exams. I have six months to complete the prerecorded instructions, so I’m doing it at my own pace and am currently completing Lesson 4. I even published what I learned in the first three lessons.
And that pretty much brings us up to speed on where I am now. Even though I’m still learning about the art of short story writing and I have a lot to discover, I won’t dare stop writing along the way.
The lessons I learned about short story writing, I didn’t publish under Charm Baker. Instead, on May 1st, I decided to reinvent myself again, I guess you could even call it a rebirth, since coincidentally, that was my 63rd birthday.
I adapted my semi-new Justiss Goode pen name (I had actually made it up several years ago, but didn’t really utilize it).
My new persona has been introduced and given a home on Medium @justissgoode and on Twitter @GoodeWriter and I also plan to eventually expand my online following to include Youtube and Instagram.
Attached to my Justiss Goode profile is my Short Story TIPSTER publication on Medium, which enables me to publish all kinds of writing related tips, besides everything I’m learning from the writing course I’m taking.
I have also used my new platform to publish some of my short fiction stories, in addition to many personal essays about my rough childhood and growing up as a survivor of abuse. I’ve even shared some of my broken relationship stories and various hard knocks life experiences.
I’m Not Lost
In spite of what anyone might think; I’m not lost. I’m just taking Mr. Shaw’s words about “creating” myself to heart.
Some readers may have actually made it this far in my story and may be thinking I sound like I’m all over the place with my thoughts and actions. In truth, I was lost and confused, and all over the place, but now I know exactly where I want to go with my writing (until I don’t).
By pulling everything together in my mind and in this story where everything is laid out, I feel like I really have it together now. I’m not lost, I’m recreated.
Bringing the many facets of myself together in a logical, cohesive way is helpful to me. I don’t know or care about the exact protocol, when it comes to juggling multiple pen names and personas online.
I’ve decided to do things my way, and what I feel is best for me. I have nothing to hide. Through my stories, my life is gradually becoming an open book, but I’m not bothered by that kind of exposure. In fact, I’m counting on it!
Thanks for choosing to read one of my Medium stories. Since the writing of this particular story, a lot has happened and I invite you to visit my Justiss Goode Medium profile and read some of my recent personal essays and miscellaneous life lessons that I know you will enjoy and benefit from.
