Inaction and desire....

I have it; my tutor's assessment. As with all courses, this is the worst bit. An unknown personality waiting in the dark ready to pick apart your work and suggest without limit; to stretch you, challenge and increase your knowledge and methods. It's also exciting. My toes curl when a tutor suggests cutting this or that and my reaction is always emotional, petulant and necessary. What parent would give up their dreams for a child without a fight/tantrum or at least raised voice. After five years my partner is beginning to see the pattern and understand it.....sort of.

The chant is usually "this is a good assessment."

I started work, correcting areas highlighted as drifting and cutting where, once Nina, my tutor, had pointed it out, were obvious. I read it through and agreed with her page notes. The analysis, her written assessment, is more challenging and having read it through twice I can see how a Level Three course differs from a Level Two. It feels as different as jogging does to marathon running....

I feel like I am warming up for a big race with the opponent as myself; my nature and resistance. I want this and fear it. The coach is Nina, with her advice, suggestion and knowledge. I shall return to the Assignment and work through it again (probably several times) before moving on to the next set of exercises and Second Assignment. So WHY am I doing this rather than working on it now? Not sure, not ready to...this is my inactive phase...when I leave my brain to absorb the Assessment and ready itself for what has to be done. Inactivity is as productive as action.

My desire for writing is growing, boosted by my employment. I promised myself that I would not be one of those people who placed his grievances with his employer here for all to see. Mainly because I have the long game to think about, mortgage, money and boredom (i.e. boredom for those reading this, after all there is only so much complaining anyone can take) but each time I get frustrated at being ignored, looked down on (I am a technician and not a Manager, a totally different breed in the modern Civil Service) or told yet again something so obvious that the object is a device to denigrate the one being told, I look to my writing.

It brings me Joy. It is here where I can do what I please. I can write anything I see, tell stories that might excite, shock, amuse or terrify. To move people the way I am moved by words.

If you took away my mortgage, living costs etc. - and told me that I could do only one thing for the rest of my life but I would never gain anything from it - I would write. Of course I include reading too......can't live without books.

Desire, real desire, that burning compulsion, can be dangerous and wonderful. So this is what this "bit" of writing is, my desire, despite the inaction, to bring words to form on a page and tell a story; might not be great or inspiring, but it's a story - sort of.