The first semester I panicked at the thought of a thesis. I knew I wanted to write one. I’m a writer; I couldn’t live with myself if I took the comps instead. However, I freaked out about finding a subject that I’d want to study and thrive in during school. My mom always said a Master’s program made a student an expert in something. I didn’t know what I wanted to be an expert in, but in time I found a niche I enjoyed studying.

Blood diamonds sparked my interest and not so much because of the gems, but the atrocities and corruption that happened around these conflict zones. The brutal rape of children, a generation of sex slaves and child soldiers, and millions of people displaced from their homes. I don’t hate diamonds or think they are evil. I detest the evil that can be linked to diamonds.

I’ve wrote many research papers on blood diamonds from different angles exploring various theories. I’ve presented my findings in state and internationally. I want to keep researching and writing on the subject even after my thesis is bound in the library. I haven’t finished many projects I’ve been excited about, but I really want to keep writing on this phenomenon from all angles. I hope to publish academic papers, op-ed articles, and of course, my thesis. I want to publish a few books on the subject and not just through Political Science frameworks. I have so much information I want to discuss and explore.

I hope I don’t keep these projects caged in my mind. I want to go through with them. I want others to have the knowledge and I hope to be the one to tell the story. But before I can get creative with the expanding ideas, I have to finish the actual thesis.

My committee asked me to step out of the room while they talked about my presentation and final paper. I wasn’t too nervous. I was sweating in the hallways. Teeth chattered. Stomach turned and my throat itched, but I knew I passed. They called me back in, shook my hand, and told me congratulations.

My thesis director always said he didn’t make it easy on grad students because having your Master’s degree was an elite group to join. I had called him Dr. Evil the first year. People thought I was crazy to ask him to supervise my thesis, but I knew he’d be the toughest on me.

In order to finish my thesis, all I have to do is edit my citations. It’s a bunch of dull work I don’t want to do, but I have to. This work will be the longest finished manuscript of mine thus far. I can’t wait to check mark this off and start figuring out how I want to go about writing for publication on this topic. And hopefully this will mean more time to work on my creative writing. I miss that.

You can follow my blog on blood diamonds: the history, policies, and current events.

My current manuscript I have worked on since 2008 is titled, “About Him” (for the time being). It’s 25 chapters; I have seven more to complete. I have a beginning, middle, and end. I just have to reach that end. And there lies the problem.
I don’t know if this is a psychological self-sabotage of completing my first book. Am I afraid of failure or success? Is it that I’ve worked so hard to complete a manuscript, that I’m afraid of the outcome with doing so?

I’m more anxious at the computer. I find it hard to concentrate. I know what I need to write. I have the outlines of the chapters prepared. Is the lack of surprise motivating?

All I want is a completed manuscript that tells a story worth others reading. It’s always been about the storytelling, nothing else. That’s been my motivation, to tell the stories I want told. But getting so close to the end, prompts other factors to stream through my head – query letters, representation, publishing, blogging, promoting, ect…

The anxiety of it all has kept me from blogging and writing anything else. How do other authors cope with it all?
How does one get over the last stretch and just sit down and right the last chapters?

I want to cut my hair. It’s heavy. My head hurts. But for some reason, I hesitate… and not just hesitate, but hyperventilate and freak out about it. It’s stupid. I do it though, every day I think about a cut. It doesn’t make sense because part of me gets excited about a change, a new style, and simply, not having as much hair on my head. It gets tangled and in my way.

Why am I so attached to my hair? I mean, like, it’s fabulous hair. I love my hair. It’s like, my favorite trait, but it’s just hair. It grows back. (Side note – I hate it when people tell me not to freak out about getting my hair cut because “hair grows back.” That argument is stupid. Of course, it grows back. I know that. That is a dumb thing to say. You’re still stuck with short hair for a time.)

I could get deep and say something like, I hide behind my hair or I fear change and the unknown. But I think it’s more superficial than that. (I hope it is.) Maybe I just don’t think I’ll look right with short hair. I don’t want to look stupid. I’m indecisive and vain, maybe that’s it. There are so much more important things going on in the world that deserve this attention or cyber space.

I should be working on a manuscript, proof reading my thesis, or brainstorming for some other writing project. Instead, I’m wasting time over a decision that probably won’t make too much of an impact on the world.

Even writing it out and going through my list of pros and cons, I still don’t know if I’ll get my hair cut. My appointment is for tomorrow morning at 10am. I’ve got to go, right? I made the appointment. Even making that phone call took a few weeks of tossing and turning in bed before I was ready. Is this normal?

I love music that makes me remember.

I read books about people I once connected with.

I watch films that I can relate to on some higher level than the average flick.

Am I writing stories about my life because I want to tell a story or because I want to leave a record? Do I write to remember? Do I write to feel that moment again? To feel that way…?

I miss the past.

I keep reading blogs about how to strategize a successful blog. All the experts say not to write about yourself and give readers useful information about things (other than yourself). So I’m already failing on that because I don’t have any ‘useful’ information I want to blog about… nothing of interest.

I don’t necessarily like blogging about myself. I don’t really care that all of cyberspace knows things about me or how I feel about certain things.

I guess I write about myself because it’s the only way I can explain different thoughts… often insignificant. But I think maybe one other person thinks about something the way I think about it.

It intrigues me to know how they came about that thought.

So I copy down lyrics and quotes from books and films. And then I write about how I felt when I first heard that song or felt a character’s emotion.

Today is Day 1 of the countdown to the apocalypse at the end of the year. Which apocalypse? You might ask because many prophecies of the end have come and gone. But people have interpreted the Mayan calendar and other less known prophecies as predicting the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012 (or the more optimistic interpreters find this to be the date as which something changes, but doesn’t necessarily mean the end of mankind).

When apocalypse talk started getting serious about four years ago, I couldn’t handle watching the documentaries and reading the research on what could be. It scared me. Like any human being, I don’t like thinking of any sort of end. But thanks to both science and God, the chance of the END being in 354 days is unlikely. If you are one who believes in Science, scientists at NASA have debunked all myths that any devastating or drastic changes will occur on Dec. 21, 2012. If you are one who believes in God, The Bible states that no one can predict the end.

1 Thessalonians 5:2: For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.

Matthew 24:36 No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Revelation 3:3: Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

I am a believer in both and remembering what Science has found and what God has said gives me more peace when it comes to thinking about the dreaded doomsday of 2012.

Tell was in the band for three years and then left to pursue a solo career. The song “Just for You” appears on his debut solo album, You Can Hold Me Down (#9 – figures, it’s so a No.9 song), released in 2007. Apparently, one of the songs deals with him leaving the band and former band members helped him record a few songs. I have no idea though because I haven’t listened to any of his other songs, but I think I will just to see how different they are from SoCo. I’ve listened to them since I was 19 and I think that’s the first time I’ve ever referred to them as “SoCo”

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the far lands
To spread love like violence

Let me feel you, carry you higher
Watch your words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

I’m in the middle of revising a manuscript on war and the world today on young people, a creative non-fiction book “About Him” (a working title), and this song “Secret Crowds” motivates me to finish it. As I listen, I hope that more and more voices will raise against the bullshit (and bullshitters) of the world.

I feel like the world is so fucked up right now with all the injustice, human rights violations, riots, natural disasters, and utter sadness. It’s been hard to work on this book because of truth and baggage. But if I had my own world, I wouldn’t have to write this story. It wouldn’t need to be told. But here, it does.

If I had my own world
I’d fill it with wealth and desire
A glorious past to admire
And voices of kids out walking dogs
Birds, planes, trees, cleanest cars

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the far lands
To spread love like violence

I started writing because I loved telling a story. I loved telling stories of my life and making up back stories of things I’ve observed. Sometimes I sit and stare at a blank document on the computer. Things come to mind, but I do nothing with it. I don’t know why.

How do I start writing for myself again? It’s like now that I’m older I don’t have time to journal which is bullshit because I have nothing but time. I think about how little I’ve done with my writing more so than actually doing anything with any of it. If I was a therapist I think I’d tell myself to start a daily journal again. “It’ll start those creative juices to flow,” I’d say. As the client, I would tell myself to fuck off because journaling is depressing when nothing is going on in my life. All I constantly do is go over the past, pinpoint where things went wrong, and wonder how I got on a static track to nowhere.

I’m on the verge
As I’m finding the words/You’re getting away
Well I’m ready, I’m ready to fall
Thinking of the thoughts wasted on you
I’m ready so don’t call
Don’t want to recognize
I’m ready to drop
I put on the same clothes I wore yesterday…If it’s not dirty I’m going to wear it
I need caffeine in the blood stream/I take caffeine in the blood stream

Jack’s mannequin “Dark Blue”

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?
Have you ever been alone in a crowded room?/Well I’m here with you.
This night’s a perfect shade of dark blue.
If you’ve ever been alone, you know…you know
WE were boxing/ we were boxing the stars/we were boxing/you were swinging for Mars