Mastery Of Self And Writing

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

Ooh.  How very nice. Always wanted one of these. Public accountability works pretty well for me and I often feel clearer after laying down my thoughts. 

This is the start of my journal on my personal growth in the field of writing and self-actualization. As for now I'll put the goals i'm working toward.

 

Main goals:

30 min of daily meditation.

Writing 1000 words of fiction a day.(no this journal doesn't count)

Mastering the craft of Writing

Building tremendous Macro-momentum in writing and Self-actualization.

 

Minor Goals: 

Starting my days off stronger.

Turning my somewhat flat stomach into a somewhat ab stomach(like a four pack)

Spend a little more time studying for my classes (but not too much more)

 

2/14/16:

Today was pretty solid. Could've done with a better start. Woke up at ten. Bullshitted in bed till eleven. Ate Breakfast. Bullshitted till twelve. Showed my parents around town. Got to the important stuff around three. For the first half of the day, ideally, I would have liked to have done a little more meditation and exercise, as welling as some psychological priming to help me later in the day(eg. affirmations). Wasting less time would also be nice. Side note: does anyone know a good way to not wake up with dry mouth?

Afternoon was where I started to shine. Admittedly, my earlier bullshitting momentum was causing me to bullshit more. After wasting a solid half hour, I started up my meditation. Great session. I visualized myself steadily walking down a smooth golden path in the darkness and with each step I felt myself achieving the things I wanted in my writing and fitness and travel destination etc. Would've liked it to last longer than fifteen minutes but I came out refreshed and ready to work. When I started writing I managed to incorporate my voice much better into my work thanks to remembering a certain quote from an author on voice(it went something like "One day you'll realize that the way you write isn't how you write and you'll start putting your own words on the page. This is how to find your voice.") I wrote about 500 words in my main work. Then, later I wrote 300 in freewriting for 800 total, pretty good overall, I'll probably go back later tonight to edit and add a little bit more so I'll 1000 words . Great work in writing today. Would like to learn to write an exhilarating, heart-pounding action scene. I want to identify some more important elements to making this possible. Keep up the progress in developing voice. Keeping working on the element of showing in fiction. Make sure to edit today's words properly and reflect. 

 

Looking ahead, I'll need to finish up a few school things and keep reading "Immediate Fiction."

[Zane]

It's excellent that you're committing yourself to writing 1000 words per day! I'm currently working on a creative writing portfolio and the excellent news is that I'm seeing major progress with my creative writing. My goal is to write five pages every day and to be persistent every day with my writing! I took many creative writing classes and I also use books on creativity as a resource for myself. I want to focus heavily on developing characters particularly villains, anti-heroes and anti-villains, experimenting with alternative storytelling, adopting new creative mindsets, using cliches to my advantage, re-telling stories from a new angle and mastering literary theory and applying it to my storytelling. 

Edited February 17, 2016 by Zane

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

Ack! Missed basically the whole week! Well, I suppose a reflection on the week will work fine. 

 

This week was a storm of development, especially regarding enlightenment work. I remember putting off enlightenment work when I first heard of it from Leo, although I did try it out a little, I was largely skeptical. But better late than never, this stuff is seriously potent! I feel like it's providing me with a really strong platform to self-actualize, pursue goals and simple feel incredible. Moojiji said there are two paths in self-dev: "One is the road of hell and the other is the road of heaven." And i can hear Seraphim, faintly in the distance. Regarding enlightenment, I can feel both the practice and the conceptual are quite difficult to get a hold of, especially the conceptual. I've also noticed I've been able to control my mind very well, almost like zen-buddhist kind of level. My mind will just shut up when I start practicing, although that's not necessarily better than having thoughts. At the very least, my presence isn't getting drowned by my mind as much. Been experimenting a lot of different kinds of meditation: Strong-sitting, box-breathing, extremely slow walks, guided meditation with enlightened folk. I don't know what to settle on really, but I'm enjoying the process.

 

Writing, comparatively, is going a little bit slower. Some of the reason is because I was so immersed and excited by enlightenment that writing just fell away(kind of like writing this journal...), but I think I could've still reached my goal of 1000 words a day. I wrote around 400-800 words a day, while missing one day to study for impending tests and projects. It's not my ideal outcome. Certainly, it's better than how much I wrote a year ago, but I still need to produce more. While quantity may not be as high as I want, quality is increasing. I'm getting around to read a lot of the meta-writing on writing craft that I've been putting off for awhile. My writing foundations are solidifying. A vague feel for what works and what doesn't and how to improve my writing is starting to come(at last!). Also, my transitions are getting smoother and smoother, despite not getting easier to write. I feel like it's tied to this one concept I learned which is to "Make everything you write worth showing" Showing, being the 'show don't tell' kind of 'show'. My planning on the Macro-level is quite strong, I believe in my ability to weave a strong, gripping story. However, I have a lot of work left to do at the scene-level. If I can understand what scenes are the best to write and am able to connect them better with less fluff, then my writing will skyrocket. I really want to develop a strong feel for the scene-level of writing.

On 2/17/2016 at 10:00 AM, Zane said:

 My goal is to write five pages every day and to be persistent every day with my writing!

Five pages? Damn. That's around 2500-3000 words. I know a person who writes roughly that much but I never get any less surprised when I hear about how many books she pumps out a year. Keep hustling! 

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

Oh boy, where to begin... how about the heart of the issue. I, to some extent, did it. I stayed connected to my true self/consciousness/presence for quite a long period of time yesterday(at least two hours although I admit my sense of time was distorted). I managed such a long connection. Honestly It's far more than I'd hoped for spending such a short time. But my ego is going through some violent death throes. No, not death throes but it's scared for its life that's for damn sure. My ego is putting a much stronger fight than before revealing all my attachments like valuing experience and plenty of lower-consciousness activities I engage in as well, like masturbation or reading too much(not good quality stuff, although I read quality material as well.) It's like Leo said: "The hardest part about enlightenment is removing your mental blocks." or something like that. While this is very disconcerting and admittedly has shaken me(ego) quite a lot, it's also comforting to know I've finally reached this stage where "True North is the direction of greatest resistance."

Honestly, the road ahead is quite murky but I do know my first step. Matt Kahn talked about it his video called 'energy upgrade' when he discussed about practicing high-consciousness behaviors for a long time and integrating them into the self to let lower consciousness behaviors and wants fall away. For my next step, I believe what I've outlined earlier in this journal will be sufficient, to charge forward relentlessly in my meditation and writing practice to remove mental blocks but not to stop my enlightenment work either.

Tl; dr 

Leo said it required an iron will to pursue a path of enlightenment and I'm starting to feel the burn. Therefore, It's time to jump in the fire.