The Ugly Duckling

It's a story we all know. Looking back at this little children's story now I find I can still relate, still apply it to my life and my ways of thinking. Now I realise that it is not just the literal ugliness of the duckling that begged for a transformation. It was his entire essence, for lack of a better phrase.

He was different, unknowingly special, drifting silently at the back, moving just a little slower than those around him. He knew he was different and did not know what to do with that knowledge. He longed to belong where he just didn't fit. Of course this did not help his case at all. He continually tried to measure up, fighting to be the same as, on the same level with, equal to, those perhaps lower than he was and destined to be.

Sometimes I find myself acting like the ugly duckling. I know better. I know I am different. I don't fit, I don't think in the same way, my course is guided differently, in a different direction and to a different height to those around me. Yet I constantly ask myself..."how do I measure up?".


It's always the question at the back of my mind every time I see the blank page or the blank computer screen in front of me. I think about the writers I like to read. The books I have read that make me want, I mean really WANT, to turn the page. I think of the greats to the not so greats, to the "ooops we forgot you there"s and ask myself silently, almost in a whisper, Krys, hunny, how do you measure up to these people? Where am I within that range and further what am I going to do about it? I waddle awkwardly along, tripping over my feet and imagining the world as a wide space in which there is no room for me.

Lately I have been thinking, how does one measure anyway? What criterion are we expected to meet to satisfy the need to feel "part of"?

Do you measure against others?

I know every start is different. In life, not just writing now, I realise that where I am now, so eager to leave, to make the next step, is the pinnacle of someone elses life. They have spent their whole life working to get where I am only passing through. My top is not your top. My steps may mirror yours may even cover yours but in some way we will never really understand what the other is facing. That is the truth of it so no I cannot measure against others. Your interests are not mine. In my writing I want to write fiction. That means looking around me I can congratulate your news article and wish you well in your field. Read and enjoy your blog. Watch your face on TV and instead of thinking "I'm wasting time, that could have been me!" wish you well and do more writing...probably a story about the evil news writer..lol. I find I feel jealous sometimes. Slow and clumsy looking up and other gracefully gliding past me. That won't work. Measuring up to others just won't work.

...against earnings?
Well since I have not really gained much from my publishing I guess that approach would just be silly.

...against your own goals?

This is tricky cause then...do I look to where I want to be? or where I have been? I have set my goals. If my degree was any indication of my personal strength then I am super strong. In the end I almost gave up. I was thinking, this is taking too long, I won't be able to use a degree in Literature any way, what the hell was I thinking, maybe I should do another, I'm tired, maybe i don't need one at all. I thought everything except...
I can do this!

From now on I've decided to measure up with myself. Look at where I am, where I want to go and how I'm going to get there and turn a blind eye to external factors around me.

I am a strong spirit guided by even stronger spirits. I have the power to rise from ashes and shine brilliantly. Maybe today I am an ugly duckling but something in me knows that soon I'll blind the world with beauty.

Puzzlement

Most stories come to the writer like a puzzle does. The box is the intention to create, the inspiration that comes like a present, unexpected in different sizes. Inside of that the idea, the character, the setting, a sentence or two jingle around in wait of a master puzzler to place them just....so, in the perfect position, till they reflect something complete and completely beautiful in it's solidity.

The difference is that, unlike the puzzles that come in boxes, the writer's puzzle has no clear number of pieces and no definite picture to create. Imagine the puzzle in which there is one piece left after you've completed the picture. A center piece, with a splotch of grey in no definitive shape, is looming in the shadows just out of reach of the lamp light.

Trying to write my latest "piece" feels just like this. The working and reworking of the pieces, nice pieces with clear lines to fit, seemed easy enough. They were already steadily becoming more visible for the last 4 years. I came close to finishing many times only to realize another piece, grey, shapeless, left out.

To some writers this puzzle is a challenge. No two writers would create the same story, novel, "picture" when presented with the same pieces. Teachers of creative writing classes offer this as exercise in their classes. A list of random words, images, sounds are presented for the class to "create something". The possibilities are endless. This thought is of course deeply inspirational and completely frightening. It is here where the pictures blur, the pieces loose color and for some they may as well have each piece from a different puzzle altogether in front of them.

This story is my baby. It is the one that constantly dangles in my mind, stopping any other creative ideas from coming. It whispers to me when I sleep. It wraps itself in time, both real and fictional. It adds pieces to the picture, or removes them when I'm not paying attention. Id sit to continue writing and realize that this is not the story at all. This is not what my character does nor does it link fluently with that they did before, this is a new piece of this puzzle. It is the shifting puzzle that can't seem to choose a picture once and for all.

This piece is my baby.