As A Writer.....

As a writer, Do I constantly criticise myself  on a daily basis?  And by the word "daily" I mean every minute of every hour. I've always been insecure since my teen years ,I know, but now it's something that I find myself trying to live up to, this ideal writer that I keep trying to be.

I still don't feel like a novelist or even a poet at times. I know I have self-doubt in my work before but this feels incredibly different because of my own knowledge of everyday people I see and man, it's something to behold if I don't make notice of everything I see.

What Is it to be a writer, not a successful one ,because I'm still in college for it still , but I still want to know. I know I'm not doing anything to pretend, not like I did when I was younger and unsure what I really wanted to do with my life(Oh please, Like I Know Now) and going to Barnes and nobles unable to even finish a chapter of a book because it was always so cold. Like they didn't want  people just reading their book and just buy them instead.  I've come a long way since then, though.
Blogging helps me release a lot a tension and voices overlapping in my fat head.  Reading to me is as entertaining as watch television, something that according to my parents, I've been watching before I could even speak. When I write and story and tell people about it, I'm proud. I guess that's what makes a writer themselves, knowing their work is theirs and theirs alone the moment they close their laptop, put down their pen and breath fro the first time in ages.

To Succeed

W-UP1
When one is faced with the question of failing, One is prepared for the worst. The unbelievable truth that we aren't good enough to make things happen the way we do. We want to succeed so bad sometimes we make the worst mistakes that we could make in the name of our goals.
In that sort of understanding, all actions of an individual seem justified. Every war seems not on required to maintain balance with peace but it changes to something else. Something that each person knows in their own selfish way that we are right in wanting some of the things we want. We have a reason to be angry when it doesn't go our way. That our time of being on top isn't waited on, but taken with strength and forged in will and tears and sweat and blood.

What is it to want everything in the world?
When I was a child in church years ago, My pastor would put on a stage play titled "A Fool's Philosophy of Life" which, in it's on respective way, followed a character who commits to his sin and flesh  to the very end and the people who he encountered on the way to his death. The final act, of course, focused on a person who was tempted to live a life a sin but because of the first character, she remains faithful to God. The theme of the play was scripture the says roughly "What good is it for a man to gain the world and lose his soul." Hardly enough to build an entire play around in my opinion but still, to a kid who never been on stage, it was great.  I loved my church and still do. Even though my spotty attendance(I don't go.) may suggest otherwise, when I do go, I feel better being around these people who's known me three days a week from age nine to age sixteen.
I've grown apart from them when grade school ended for me and adulthood. I don't want everything in the world, only to enjoy myself on the ride called life to the fullest. I want to succeed, I am afraid of failing and I do make mistakes. A fool if I ever saw one every morning in my bathroom mirror. But I like this fool through and through, no regret. (well, I've had a few, too few to mention)
Well I guess that concludes my warm-up :-)

The Coffee House method

Back in the cafe, I'm finding new places to sit every new visit.
Mainly because I'm looking for a spot I feel more comfortable writing with the lease tension when I arrive.  So far, no such luck in that department. It's difficult keeping up three blogs after all and I'm trying to keep one up for every aspect of my writing. Personal, Professional, and Creative outlet.
This is all that I can say about the writing in general, it's not to be taken lightly if you really want to be heard, notice, if you want to embark on a new way of life and find those who you thought wanted the same thing rather just feel sorry for themselves. It's something you have to want for yourself. I mean really need.

This morning, I woke up, brushed my teeth, rinsed my face off, grabbed my laptop, my notebook, a pen and enough money for a coffee and walked out the front door. Did I feel like a writer because the first thing on my mind and wasn't drinking,or smoking, or fucking(Well, maybe a little of that last one, it's morning wood, sue me.) but I just felt like getting up and making the walk here because I really wanted to keep writing. Funny thing is I haven't felt like this before when I started but now, It feels good to have a place to go, away from distractions, away from my best friend, brother, house, car, phone calls. And I felt better. Is that what it is to want to write or just be a writer who wants to get away and if either....why the hell is it so hard to find a suitable place to sit in the coffee house?

The Dreamers Call ( a poem)

A poem I wrote today. I hope you like it.
Fun Fact: If you listen to jazz while reading, It feels personal, at least to me.

The Dreamers Call

Tell me how do you see yourself on the mountaintop.

Mr. Dreamer, Boy Willie, drifting on the August wind,

Sailing ships on clouds, tasting each raisin in the sun. Dried up on the grapevine and I heard it,

Calling out for you. Rap God Supreme, shattering sound waves with do-wop, jazz, rough and black, the cakewalk. With my ragtime piano tunes, rocking and rolling pass the blues.

Mr. Walter Lee Younger, I’m calling you, back in 1961, back on every momma on the couch play, dancing in the street to African drums. Graceful voices of Holidays, Dukes and

I’m shouting to you men at Morehouse, Howard, and HBCU.

Negro, colored, niggas of the good times, counting your numbers and throwing your craps, 7, 7, snake eyes

And I’m putting all on this dream. Dollar bills with dead white men and white papers inked with dotted lines and waiting for you. Dreamer. Nick and dime keeper, Blues, Blues, Years, and Time.

Tell me how you see yourself, man in the mirror, smoother and clearer, what became

Of the dream, movement of the people, love

Movement of the people liberation

Rights, Change, Aren’t I a strong black man.

Aren’t I a black man

Black. Man. Dreamer, dreams. Dropping instrumentals with auto tunes walls  of Billboards and Grammys.  Uncle Sammies and chicken George's

Augusta paintings smear red roses across the canvass, elegant strokes of Georgia Boys in the fields with water girls in orange horizons.

Dreamers can you hear me now, I’m calling you before my time.

Before the creation of the creators of me came, Where you here then,during the rise of the formerly known prince who soaked in the purple rain,staring up at spotlights on rooftops for it to happen for you/I say, dreamers, best friends of mine,

Look at how old you stories are,sitting with smokes and drinks, scars of mending in doses and blending emotions.

God, give me strength, God ,Aren’t I a black man.

Regardless of my pasts sin. Who am I too? Who am I?

And he says “Tell me how you see yourself from within?”

I answer a dreamer loudly. Not carrying about why.

No reason

Fucking Right

No cause or illusion of success

Just a need to do it.

Just a want, That’s all I have

Just this moment. Dream, Dreamer. I am a Black Dreamer. Dreamers come and be heard.

Today, I was going thru today.

Going to church, seeing a christening of a family member, and cooking chicken alfredo along served with a salad while piano jazz lounge music fills these rooms. Oregano  

Writing with myself

I can never guess when I want to write some days. Today the sun is out and I'm at home alone with no money, no plans for today if i did have money, and no one to soften the punch of being alone. Don't get me wrong,I've created a solid home for my brother and myself but when I am here alone, I start dissecting myself. My past choices, my life so far, the connections I broke, all of it. It's like I'm standing in front of a full-length mirror of self-loathing. Like I was back in high school trying to sort myself out before I got off the school bus. This is what I hate about myself sometimes. I can never be alright with being alone even though I assure others that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.  Is that crazy, Tell me I want to know?

Truth is my whole dream of being the best storyteller of my time is meaningless if I don't have anyone to tell them to. Even when I do tell stories now, I relentlessly doubt if they are interested in what they have to say before I finish. Something always worries me, a distrust in them that kicks in. I bet myself to the disbelief of my story before they even notice I'm telling it.
Distrust
a word that I felt for everyone in my life at one point or another.
Childhood truma aside,  My days are even now filled with doubts of the average friend.
I find myself thinking up alterior motives and lies upon lies.
Sometimes I would like to be wrong, often times I'm not only am but I stick my foot in my mouth before I can prevent a mistake from being made. What Is friendship without trust?
A broken one as it turns out.
I knew a man I grew up with in my teenage years, This man has a family, a belif, a mission, and a heart. I knew a man once that called me his brother and godfather to his kids but because of distrust, I no longer know him.
It was hard to write that last bit. I burned that bridge and left it with a text unanswered.  Is that what I'm doing now, getting rid of people in my life to work toward some solitude that will end up killing me in the end. It's hard to tell what decisions are mine and what aren't that of a distrusting coward afaid to admit when he's wrong.
I regret what I did. It's true.
It was not without reason mind you but my reaction was rotten all the same. Missing the good times don't do any good along with changing how everything went down in my memory. It was so fast. I wasn't even in my right mind but I know how it looked. I was a snake, I am a snake, a serpent of distrust slidering my way in and out of peoples lives, unsure of my purpose, unsure of my status, unsure of my value in the eyes of thoses who say they love me.
I have been betrayed and taken advantage of but it was me. Me.
It wasn't thoses who lied, stole from me, abused me, it was the weak person they left behind afterwards. The "toatured soul" as my drama mentor put it.  Writing about it doesn't make it better,it doesn't stop the dreams of me telling him I'm sorry and I'm stupid and I don't know what I am anymore. A friend? A jealous prick? a fool? all three?
When do we as people learn to become better than our previous pain and the result? when do we open our eyes to see the reflection in the mirror as a companion that desrves companions who trust us and who we trust in return? I don't have much to say now sitting out side on my pourch with my laptop in front of me. And maybe it's enough that I wrote it. Anyway, thanks for reading.

Thinking about it.....

April 12,2016
I find myself in a coffee shop in Hapeville called DRIP. It's my first day in here after discovering in existence on my walk this morning. And since I have found a new haven for my caffeine driven rants, I decided to start another blog.  My name is Antonio Douglas. I am a student at Fullsail University Online School Program  and I work under a delivery contract with my father and grandfather. I live with my brother and best friend in a two bedroom duplex about a block away from a corner store, Hapeville's Fire department, and a series of restaurants both fast food and traditional. I love where I am at life right now. A certain voice in my head reminds me from time to time to be grateful so I am.  I have my life, People who love me, and I love them.  In the end, I feel everyone who has that are lucky regardless of where they are in life. Old, young, pretty, ugly, rich, or poor, we are humans who need things. Need connection with one another. I have always believed that. Love is a connection just as much as hate is one. The difference is the action taken on behalf of that connection and the results.
People who know me considers my approach to situations a bit too lightly. I don't boil over easily as others and I try to remain as neutral as possible when It comes to picking sides opposing each other.
I don't vote(By choice) simply to avoid decisions based off of a person's words if I've never met them.

I find myself wondering if my approach to life was too lightly taken, Which isn't a surprise to me considering I've been almost killed three times, robbed at gunpoint three times, Hit by a car at the tender age of 13(Fracturing my right leg.) and encountered abuse as a child. Yet, I still don't let any of those things in my past bother me.(At least a lot.) No one can get over child abuse, but we can try to get along knowing that life will be better. Right?

I wish that I could see myself in the future if only to cheat and ask what I should do to succeed and how many people will I loose along the way. I don't know why I would want to know about the loss of people I care about. I guess it would be a way a preparing myself.   Until next time, I'll think about it.