Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 23

How We Write–It’s All Up to Us…

My 2012 teaching tour kicks off tomorrow, with a one-day GRW workshop, speaking about planning through character along side the fabulous Tanya Michaels and and Berta Platas. My editorial work has really taken off in the last few months. Very business-y. I’m all full up with answers, right? Hardly. The only thing I know for certain still, after 7 years in the business as an author and editor/teacher/coach is that, in the end, what our publishing careers become is All Up to Us. We’re in charge. You’re in charge. Of all the random variables, no. But your choices are your own, to own and live up to and deal with the fall out from. Shirking that responsibility off when things don’t go your way, is a learning opportunity lost. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t give up your power.

I’ve made a lot of decisions in the last ten years. The first of which was to leave my senior tech writing job to stay home and be more available to my extremely ADHD son, as he navigated public education (don’t try this at home, folks, these trix ain’t for kids). My fiction publishing career was about to take off. And then it did. Fast-forward five years, and the teenager was doing GREAT, meanwhile health issues derailed my forward momentum in my new business venture (branding me as author readers would auto-buy). Was getting sick and having surgery and getting even sicker, only to begin healing a year later and discover that the publishing world I knew had crumbled out from under what I thought was solid footing, my fault? Hell no. Would whining about my ”rebuilding” help me get through this set back. HELL to the no. 

What good would it do to blame anyone else that I have a teenager going to college in a couple of years and need more steady money coming in the door, after I was basically forced to take some unexpected time off?

It takes time (more time than I wanted it to) to choose your next direction, after the last turn you took didn’t result in the fabulous success you were fighting for. A direction that is uniquely, undeniably your own is a work-in-progress, an obstacle course you never quite stop navigating. But I took that opportunity this year and ran with it (while, yes, I cursed the fate that seemed to be beating up on me). It was time to decide all over again what I really wanted out of my writing and my career. Multiple steams of income, yes. But I needed those next book contracts and business decisions to also be “jobs” that I could thrive doing, and books that I’d be dying to get up every morning to write.

My soul and creativity and career didn’t just need a new jump start–they needed to be moving upward and onward from this place of everything I’d learned about myself and my business so far. This wasn’t starting over. It was time to dream big again, as I had at the very start, about what the next 7 years would be about. Writing the same books I already had? Working with only the one publisher I’d had moderate success publishing with, no matter how long I had to work to get back under contract or how much of my voice and story ideas had to be trimmed away to make myself fit? Only being an author, when I have valuable editing and publishing skills (from both my technical and creative writing experience) to offer and make a consistent living executing?

Much like during the drafting of a new novel, I found myself at a crossroads–do I limit my story out of fear of going too far, or do I let it and my characters sing and become what they’re meant to be?It was up to me, as the visions for our novels are up to all of us, how this turning point in my career would pan out. And there was no one there to tell me what to do. Every option before me had merit. The question was, what was this journey going to be about–settling and playing it safe, or getting down to the business of making something fabulous happen again?

So, are things fabulous yet? Well, I’m an Entangled acquiring editor now (steady future income stream–check), and a launch Dead Sexy Books author (exciting new series to write into, that I absolutely LOVE–check, check), and my agent’s in negotiations with a different publisher to contract a single title contemporary romance series I’ve been dying to write for years (multiple income streams going forward for my fiction writing-check, check, CHECK!).

Basically, I’m doing three jobs at once at the moment and exhausted and trying to stay healthy, now that I’m getting some of that I Feel So Good Again going on a consistent basis. Yes, it’s a little like starting over, but it’s so much more like moving onward and upward and building in ways maybe I wouldn’t have, if things hadn’t stalled to a stand-still not too long ago.

So, fabulous? Yes, but only because I’m choosing to see it that way. I’m seeing the reality of my publishing business as it is now, not the negativity of what’s gone before. I’m choosing to see opportunity, not doors closing behind me. I’m choosing to write forward, not remaining so tied to the beautiful things I’ve created in the past that I’m too afraid to reach for the potential of the stories I’ve yet to paint into the world.

It’s all up to us. The planning, the execution, and the revising of the vision–both for our stories and our lives. That’s been my vision for How We Write from the very start. You have to understand and own your writing process, and re-evaluate it often enough to keep growing and maturing as a creative artist. It’s the same with your career–with your own business story. A harsh but true reality I find myself reliving daily. And never once have I been sorry for taking decisive action, whenever one of these decision moments bears down on me. We act, or we get left behind while progress tramples on by. Just as we must act decisively as we plan, craft and rewrite a novel, or the reader will never get the chance to experience that magical thing you envisioned bringing to her back at the very start.

No one else is at fault–WE’RE not at fault–when things go off track with our plans for our careers or our books. That’s just how it works. We write and live ourselves into corners, then we navigate ourselves right back out of the muck until we decide on the next path. But it is our job to execute our NEXT vision for our destination, with just as much enthusiasm and endurance as before, no matter how many times our plans have derailed into undesirable territory.

So tomorrow, I’ll be teaching craft, yes. But I’ll also be coaching authors about the bigger picture. That regardless of my advice… In the end, how you write, and how you live your writing business, is all about you…

The Soul of the Matter: Get in there!

Yeah, this is a Waterfall Challenge update, too, 'cause the pics are from yesterday's five mile interior hike to an amazing destination. But, really, what I took was an interior journey most of all. Five miles can take a few hours to hike, or if you're willing to get in there and see the soul of the magnificence living around you, it can be an all-day experience. Guess which of these adventures I took yesterday ;o) Come with me to Raven Cliffs, but only if you're willing to get down and dirty…

I'm what you might call an in-your face waterfall girl. Otherwise, I wouldn't end up with pictures and memories like this one.

 

Or this one.

 

Or this one.

Each of these minor cascades were mere warm-ups to the big finish. Lots of folks might have pushed right by the lesser experiences I stopped and lived to the fullest. They'd never have gotten close enough to feel the fine mist of these crashing, rolling moments on their faces and clothes. After all, 2.5 miles, in means 2.5  miles out, and there's an amazing finish ahead–cliffs with water sluicing down through them! The rest is just backdrop and filler. And then there's the rest of your day you need to get back to.  Time to hurry, right?

Wrong. This WAS my day. My entire day. I wasn't leaving a single moment of it behind, until I'd felt it all.

See what I mean?

That definitely deserves a closer look, right?

 

And if you really get in there, and I mean get your face just over the rushing coolness of the mountain water crashing before you, this is what your world becomes…

It took me twice as long to walk in, as it did to walk out. Each new step in, to what I'd heard was a killer destination I couldn't miss, was a priceless moment of discovery, even though a storm was threatening. I refused to leave a single opportunity behind. Oh, and it WAS raining. A lot. Up on ridges, near the top of a mountain range. Which was also an experience I wouldn't have passed on for the world. A-MAZING! Felt like I was hiking through a rain forest, or the closest this GA girl is going to get to a rain forest any time soon.

But it also made things muddy, as I tried to get myself down to the water's level. Let's just say, my hiking boots are my BEST SHOE PURCHASE EVER, no matter what else you see in my Shoes are my Heroin posts ;o) My boots keep me off my ass when I'm scrambling down embankments, off the established trail, after finding clearings and obscure paths that get me closer and then closer and finally so close that my nose was practically in the creek while the water splashed and broke and lived around me. However, they don't keep me clean. Sometimes, if you want to experience the best stuff, you've gotta get dirty.

At least, if you want to see this, you do. Isn't the contrast between the moss and the water and the boulders worth it? Can you imagine not capturing this moment for yourself, when you're this close?

Dirty means seeing the water's soul, something I can't have if I merely watch from a distance. I want to breathe with the water. I want to hear it sing and see it smile. If perspective is everything, then moving water teaches me this truth best. You have to "get in there" to really know what you're seeing. You have to become a part of the landscape, before it truly comes alive for you. This is the soul of the  matter that I come to these forests and mountains and isolated places to rediscover, when I'm too much in my head and too removed from my life and needing to remember to slow down and become the journey itself, rather than forging onward, blindly, to whatever destination awaits me at the end.

And speaking of the end. Try this perspective on for size. These pictures don't do Raven Cliffs justice, because my smart phone wasn't correcting for light and shadow the way I wanted it to.

But here's what the water up close, rushing through virtical cliffs that stretch to the horizon looked like closer.

 

And closer still.

 

It was one of those angels singing moments by the time I was practically taking pictures from the very base of the falls.

And this is what it looked like from a distance.

 

Is it just me, or is the "awe" all in getting in there, until you're practically drowning in the moment you're wanting to capture? If you're not experiencing the very heart, the soul, of what you're seeing, are you really seeing it?

I feel the same way about writing story, which is why I need a mental health break like I've taken this week. And why some folks think I'm nuts for wanting to climb and slide and walk through the mud to get to the heart of what feeds both my serenity and creativity.

But for me, the best moments in life are the ones that make us dream. They make us stop. They make us see. Slow down and get in there, wherever your there is, as often as you can. Get dirty and get off the trail and let the others who don't have the time pass you buy. Breathe in the best of where and who you are when you find these magical places.

Don't just gaze at the god stuff from a distance. Get yourself in there and become part of your memories.

Like me, when I was driving exhausted and happy back from Raven Cliffs to my mountain inn, you'll be so glad you did ;o)

The Soul of the Matter: Love the One You're With…

Writers aren't all that different for saner mortals. Even though most of us wear our freak flags like parade banners. As part of our every-day, we offer ourselves up for rejection–the very reality we tend to fear most. Because we're bent that way. We write about our neuroses and dreams and innermost secrets. Then we go one step further in our quest to understand, by slapping our names onto what we've created before sending it out into the world to be judged. Which is tantamount to dropping your pants, then plastering a pic of the gory details all over social media. And in the end, most of us writer-types, the honest ones anyway, will admit that we're TERR-I-FIED by the entire process, even though we cant' stop ourselves from indulging in it. Why? For the same reason a "normal" person follows his or her passion. LOVE.

You don't get to pick and chose how your mind works or what makes your creativity thrive. Life, in my honest opinion, is about learning to love who and what you are–and the love that you're born to pursue.

Challenge that core reality, and you're denying the inner freakishness that you're here to explore and share. Take a look at my Things My Teenager Says series, if you want an idea of how proud I am of kids (and adults) who figure out exactly who and what they are, then fly that uniqueness proudly. I'm still on a path to owning my own stuff, probably a step or two behind my gifted teen. But I'm a writer. What can I say? I pay more attention most days to internal landscapes, than I do the world around me. I'll catch up eventually. I'll understand, one of these years, everything that love is supposed to mean to me and everything it's not. Until then, I'll be crazy, loud and proud, and fake it 'til I make it.

Being crazy in love with your uniqueness, even when it means standing out in ways that shriek at your insecurities and desperation to belong–that's the life goal I wish for myself. And yourself. Own it. Understand it. Whatever "it" you are, be that, out in the open, without conditions or excuses or any attempt to explain. And love the result, no matter how differently other people's lives and relationships might be.

Take writers again. There are countless numbers of us walking amidst the rest of you, doing our best to look and act normal. But get us together to talk about what makes us weird, at a dinner table or in the corner of a party or in a car on a road trip, and trust me, it's like an episode of Seinfeld on crack. Just try and stop us from relishing each and every weird thing about us. Just ask my teenager how sick and tired he is, of how effortlessly I seem to attrack other writers, even ones I've never met before. And how easy it is for me to lose entire hours with them, while the teen cools his heals nearby, sharing a unique world-view with someone else who sees things just as strangely.

It should be a  relief, a religion, to be crazy in love with how different we are. Who in this world is normal?. Maybe the key to this journey, is finding the small pocket of others like you, who'll celebrate you, so that you can stop apologizing for being what you were put here to be.

Writers string together words and images that only exist in our minds, giving up hours, days, weeks and months of living, because we interact best with non-writers through story.

I've come to accept that's the soul of the matter for my business. Yes, it's a job, but it's a business about connecting to the world and seeing the world and digging deeper into the world every day, until I discover what I need to share next. For me, writing is the same as the athlete or the entertainer, the extrovert, who plays to the crowd and feeds off their energy. Except my work as a writer is to play to a single, solitary mind at a time, sending my energy out, then sitting back and smiling as it returns one satisfied reader at a time, often while I'm agonzing over the next project.

Who the hell would decide to do something that crazy for a living?

Not that it's really a choice for me anymore.

So I might as well love the heart, the soul, I've got. And learn to do what I do with more passion and dedication every day I proudly wave my freak flag.

What's at the soul of what you do?

How can you stop hiding that essential part of you, and love the one you're with?

Things My Teenager Says: "It's all good…"

My teen, like a lot of boys and girls on the extreme end of the ADHD spectrum, has become a master at conflict resolution. How to adjust and strategize solutions on the fly, because the world can at times be an unfriendly place, especially for a brain that works differently than the average traveler's. His go-to phrase when the going gets tough has become, "It's all good…"

"You can learn how to be in the classroom, and we'll help,"  his dad and I would tell him during elementary school, when he spent more time in the hallway or the admin office some days than he did not being able to sit still with his classmates. "This is your challenge. Like other kids have trouble seeing or hearing or talking or walking or doing math or reading. This is what you're in school to learn how to master."

"I can't," my six, seven, eight, nine-year old would say early on. "And no one wants me here, anyway."  Then my brilliant little guy would go about doing just what he thought he couldn't, until he could see that everyone actually did want him there–at least all the everyones we cared about did ;o) And maybe that was the most important early lesson of all for him then: be wise about who you look to for affirmation and support, and make that look count.

Years later, it was "You can learn how to organize your work and get it turned in," we'd tell my middle schooler, when his processing delay made lecture notes and tracking homework assignments and long projects and team work and actually turning in the work he'd done seem like insurmountable obstacles. "It's just like the behavior problems you had in elementary school. You can learn how to work around this, too, even if it's more difficult for you than the other kids."

"I can't," my pre-teen would spew back at me. "This is different. I'm stupid, not hyper. I can't do the work." Then, like the brave young man he was growing into (and with his dad's and my feet firmly kicking him in the rump until he figured out yet one more thing a kid that young shouldn't have to figure out about himself and how he relates to the world), he went about proving himself wrong and figuring out what he needed to, to be successful in that place.

Fast-forward to high school, and he's crushing himself with a charter/magnet school for kids who love what he loves,and we're really getting crunchy, learning those last hard school lessons that I'm so proud of him for facing now, instead of in college. The going's gotten more tough than most kids his age would tolerate. He's given up so much to be here. It feels at times like he's taking huge steps backwards, because he's still dealing with the same ADHD processing issues as always, only now they're playing out on a more adult stage. And the first year or so of this, it's been his dad and I worrying this time. Are we being good parents, letting him sink until he learns how to swim? Should we have said no, and saved him from this latest battle until he was a little older, a little more mature?

"I can do it," my sixteen-year-old tells me on those low days, and on the great ones we've had recently, where all his hard work is starting to pay off, along with us working with the school administration to make sure he has everything we can get him to give him the best chance to succeed. "I get it now, Mom. Don't worry. It's all good…"

This is a kid who's had so much of the bad where school is concerned, hearing, "It's all good," come out of his mouth makes my breath catch every time.

He's struggling and working his butt off and battling things most of the kids at his school couldn't fathom (on top of a crushing work load). He's the same kid who for years had the word can't permanently embedded in his vocabulary, every time a difficult school conversation rolled around. He's been told by countless clueless teachers that he couldn't, then gone on to prove them wrong. He's put up with endless bullying from kids who didn't understand or had parents too ignorant to teach them how to respect others' differences, then gone on to find a place to learn where his peers cheer him on as he thrives doing what he loves. He's already failed more times (and then succeeded through failure), than most of us will in our lifetimes. And his mantra at the end of this part of his journey: "It's all good."

And here I am, on days like today, feeling the crush of my own life weighing me down, wondering what else can go wrong. And on these days, I think of my teen. He's seen enough of the bad things in life. For him, whatever he has to face from now on, he's decided that, "It's all good."

Failing or not, he's going to keep fighting and doing what he has to do. Even on the messed-up days that at times still come to him, he's going to believe another day, the next day, will be better. Even with an impossible challenge before him, one of his own choosing, and the very real daily threat of failing, he's going to keep fighting.

"It's all good…"

My teen's taught me that. Because his dad and I first helped him find his way to believing it. And I want to see the possibility through the impossible, just like him. I want to live for the next success, not in fear of the next failure. I want to accept what I am and what I can do and what I can't, and keep fighting for what I want, regardless. I want to thrive, wherever I am, regardless of  the weight of the challenges pressing down on me.

Conflict is life, my teen has learned. How we resolve that conflict is living. So today, I'm taking a page out of his book of learning, no matter how hard a day I already know it's going to be. Like he says…

It's all good.

How We Write: When we're waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

Writing like we're on fire is every author's dream. Creating free and feeling the juice and dying to find out what happens next. But how is that zone possible, when your control of the "business" world of your publishing slips beyond your grasp? I'm asked this question all the time. Possibly because I'm riding that slippery slope most of the time these days ;o) Not sure that's a compliment to the state of my business. But it's nice, too, living the unpredictability of my world in an outward way that makes others want to know how I'm dealing with all of it.

There are those, in my opinion, who want to tell you how to do what they themselves aren't, because they've been blessed with the answers you can't find anywhere else–self-help folks, especially in writing circles, who haven't actually done what they're promising they can help you be a success at, chap my hide.

If your fiction writing guru has never actually published a work of fiction, you should probably take that as a sign.

Just saying.

There are those who are going through what you're needing help with, and just want to rant. I'm not a big fan of that approach either. Everyone needs to vent when the going gets tough, but making a career out of shocking the world with your bitterness or need to blame everyone but your own choices for your circumstances is a little too weak for my tastes.

Then there are those who live their trials and their successes in the open, with the same kind of honesty, and invite you into their up-and-down journey, as they try to make sense out of the mix. I'd like to think this latter approach is what I've been rambling about doing in How We Write. I appreciate the company as I dig deeper for the "soul of the matter" behind where I find myself and where I'd like to be next. I hope there's some value to be taken away from the experience, that will live beyond me. I'm hopeful some of this helps others see themselves more clearly, to understand more completely, to believe more strongly once they know what they themselves truly want.

And whether you've traditionally published or are indie published or are still struggling to sell that first book, writing into new work while you're waiting to hear the fate of something you've already pushed out into the world, is one of those internal landscapes where it's nice to have travel company along for the walk. So I don't take it personally when other authors ask about the many bumps in my road and how I keep going despite the one step forward/two steps back this publishing life can be for all of us at times…

My secret formula for how to keep going while you wait for possibly another step back to catch up to you?

 Be honest about the bumps. Why do the rejections and "no thank yous" and the "we don't want your kind of book heres" keep happening? Besides the fact that you're misunderstood as an artists and aren't being taken seriously enough, why is what you're writing not working for the people you're trying to write it for?
Adjust whatever you can in your process to either get better at what you need to, or to meet expectations better where you've already submitted your work. This is a job. Analyze your weaknesses as much or more than your strengths. Grow and get better. Don't wallow so long in the pain of rejection, that you don't take what you can learn from it to heart and elevate your creative work to a higher level.
Understand what you can't change, accept what you're writing for what it is, and adjust your expectations of where you can sell it. If you're knocking on doors that aren't a fit for what you're doing, stop it. Unless you can change what you're doing to fit their expectations, move on–WHILE using whatever feedback you get to make your process and your stories even better for whomever is looking for your brand of creativity. Always look deeper–to the soul of the matter. Always take advice at face value. Don't squander any opportunity to see yourself from another perspective, in case there's a nugget of greater understanding there for you to grasp.
See rejections and endless waiting as opportunities, not a final chance, or THE ONE chance that will make or break your career, or the end-all-be-all of your career on the line so everything else needs to come to a halt so you can wring both hands at once while you wait  for the anvil to fall. What the waiting is about is what others think of what you're doing. What you do while you wait is about what YOU think of what you're doing. Guess which is more important to keeping your energy and creativity amped and the words flowing from your imagination/fingertips…
Write while you wait, because you want the next story to be better. Write, even while others are quite possibly rejecting you, because you want to reach readers with your vision and voice, and that won't happen unless you can control your emotions and fear and dread and keep writing even it feels like your business is beyond your control. Write, because this is an internal journey of discovery and sharing what you alone see, not because the end-game is others telling you how good you are. Write, because even if you never make any money at this, you need to be heard and understood and recognized for who and what your thoughts tell you you are and want to be. Write, because that's who you are.

It may sound crazy, because I've written on deadline for 16+ novels now, but in the end, that's what's kept me going for 8 years. The honest truth is, I'm terrified of each deadline and unfinished book. What I'm NOT terrified of, is  my creative voice. I don't let myself believe that it deserves to be silenced, no matter what's happened or who isn't interested in my last project. I keep writing, because I have something to say that I believe others are wanting to hear. Because it keeps me sane. Sort of…

I've had major editorial changes, and lines crumbling, and publishing houses going out of business, and life-threatening medical conditions, and family emergencies, and financial freak-outs, etc. come knocking at my psyche in the midst of some of the toughest stories I've created. And I've considered quitting more than once, sometimes more than once while writing the same book. Most multi-published authors I know have shared similar experiences. Life goes on, and this can be an unforgiving industry to live a life in. But you must continue writing, if a writer is what you want to continue to be.

I'm still here. The writing itself is still the most important thing to me, or I couldn't have weathered the last 8 years of living and still found myself wanting to expose myself to the ups and downs of this business. I can still be honest and adjust and understand and see my way though the obstacle course of things in my creative path, and I still want to write. Every day. Every character. Every story. Every opportunity to see more clearly and more deeply into the worlds my mind wants to build beyond the reality I can't control around me.

Waiting to see what others think of what you're writing is tough. Cheerleading your way through that harsh reality doesn't always work, no matter how skilled a guru you might have in your corner. Thinking that a few pat answers will make a difference when you're at your lowest, is often what sinks you even deeper.

But when this life of waiting is at its toughest, there's always the writing, the creative inspiration that called you to this at your journey's beginning.  That's what will see you through, when the rest seems like a cruel joke.

The writing, the next new beginning, never goes away–unless you banish it beneath worrying and giving up, because someone else doesn't understand. Don't do that. Don't let your voice be silenced that easily.

As long as you keep writing and keep believing your voice has something to say that others want to hear, the rest will sort itself out.

Promise ;o)

Shoes Are My Heroin: This is my green…

This morning I'm digging into the dream shoe closet for something to wear. There's a funky outdoor wedding on Saturday. Everyone's supposed to wear green, for St. Patrick's Day. Naturally, I need my neon pink spring heels. I don't wear green. Ever. Not even on my feet. Don't ask me why. Probably for the same reason I always have to look up heels when I write it, to make sure it shouldn't be heals. I'm difficult. I zone out on important things, then obsess about nonsense as if the day depended on it. Colors make me feel certain ways when I wear them, so I obsess about them. And green makes me feel sick. So, naturally, this will be my green on Saturday…

They're so cool and light and totally comfortable, despite the heel height (don't hate me, high arches are my friend). It's like wearing a party on my feet, each first time I slip them on in the spring. Like ice cream melting in the sun or lemonade going down smooth and bubbly. And, yes, like shamrocks on St. Patrick's day.

If I hadn't gotten rid of them last year in a dream closet feng shui frenzy, these would have been perfect.

They were all about great texture and soft-as-butter leather and a killer shape. I bought them for the shape. And the fact that they looked like a painting to me. And green I can handle on the walls, in limited amounts. On my feet, though… I think I wore them once, and even then they spent more time off my feet than on. Not because they were uncomfortable, but because every time I looked down they made me cringe.

What I was thinking when I bought these next ones, is anyone's guess. My husband shook his head the night they came home with me.

"Aren't they great?" I said, wanting him to assure me I hadn't thrown our money away on the hope that I could celebrate the green-ness of that season's budding grasses and bushes and trees, as the world come back to life around us. And he said, "Yeah. I know someone who will love them, when you hand them to me next month and tell me you can't keep them." And he was right. They didn't even make it to the summer.

And these weren't my finest hour, either, though I wore them more than the rest.Cole Haan's have Nike Air Soles in them. Parting with state-of-the-art, foot-comfort technology is just about the hardest thing to do, for a shoe addict who actually has to wear her shoes when she's at conferences and reader events.

Again with the texture and super soft leather. And feeling like you're walking on clouds isn't to be rejected lightly. But they've rotated to the back of the dream now, on their way out even though I haven't yet talked myself into purging them in my reality.

Why do I keep buying into what doesn't feel good, when it's time to put my feet on the ground and walk my spring walk? How has my shoe addiction come to this? Contrary to what those who've followed this blog series might think, I don't buy many shoes. Yes, I buy quality and always, always, ALWAYS on sale, and even then what I purchase tends to be expensive. But I maybe pick up one for-the-long-haul purchase a year, knowing I'll enjoy each pair for seasons to come. Why would I waste that love-match on a color that, whenever I'm around it, literally makes me feel ill? Addiction therapy may be in order. The addiction to wanting my idea of beauty to match everyone else's

I want to live bold and free of constraints, is the only other excuse I've come up with. Shoes are a creative outlet for me, like cooking and interior waterfall hiking and random photography with my iPhone that's captured some of the best colors of my life. I want to wear them all, with a rainbow of hues to choose from in my dream shoe closet. I don't like to think there's beauty out there that I'm denying myself.

Perhaps, though, my obsession is talking to me about seeing my world my way. My idea of beauty, my shoes, belong to me. My feelings of joy and delight. Perhaps these shoe detours are teaching me to select only what's best for me from the amazing things I can have, and to stop putting myself into situations where I must let go of things (people, opportunities, conficts???) I never should have invited into my dream at all. I must see beauty my way, or will it ever really be beauty for me at all?

So, Saturday I'm wearing my garrish, neon, see-me-from-the-other-side-of-the-garden-wedding pink lovelies to that St. Patrick's Day wedding. They and my ecru dress will compliment whatever green choices my friends wear, even if I do stand out because what's best for me isn't what everyone else is doing. My friends already know I'm different. They have their addictions, too. Their craziness looks more like one another's than mine does, but I've learned to trust that they want me there anyway.

I can see my colors, and wear my pink idea of the perfect green, and be a freak in yet another minor way that, added to all the rest, screams to the world I want to belong to that I don't really belong. And it'll still be a lovely wedding where two wonderful friends begin a new life together.  It will be beautiful. It will be spring.

This season, what will you pull from your dreams?

Publishing Isn't for Sissies: But you absolutely MUST whine…

You hear it all the time, how hard this writing and publishing thing has become. Or whatever else your thing is, you know what's making your journey impossible. "Suck it up," everyone says. "It's just business." And they're right. Life isn't always easy. Sometimes you have to say, "'Tis," and battle on. But other times, you need to whine. If you don't let the frustration and anger and disappointments out, how will you know what's most important to you and what's worth waging your epic battle over?

I mean, you need to have a plan, right? Beginning with a goal, so you know what you're staying in the fight for. When it gets ugly and you want to quit, your battle plan is all you have to keep you going. Make the battle simple and clear, and about what's most important to you. And your army must be filled with those who see your vision most clearly.

How do you give yourself all of that, if you're  not honest about what you're fighting for. If you're not whining with clarity ;o)

My full proof plan for whining with purpose and pride, whatever your battlefield ?

Begin with a tantrum. A completely out of control moment where your barriers are down and there's nothing left but what's driving you round the bend and the people who're willing to stand beside you, calmly watch the meltdown, and be there when the dust settles to help you pick up the pieces.
Dig beneath those real emotions for the core conflict that sparked your freak-out. What's being threatened that's so near and dear to you, you can't let it go, no matter how irrational your instinct to rebel? That's your nugget. That's the invaluable part of you that you feel powerless to get/protect/preserve/make thrive.
Now, leave the irrationality behind, and suit up for battle.

Why the powerlessness? Who says you can't do anything about getting/doing/protecting what you want–besides you? Here's the "suit up" part of my plan. You know what you really want now. Beneath all the sort-of goals and easier expectations you've placed on yourself, THIS is the real deal. How can you make this happen?
Recognize, honor, and 'rally round your team. Those people who are with you no matter what, no matter where, no matter how ugly it gets. Your superheroes. Your crew. Equip yourself for battle by owning what you want and how you're wanting to get it–with yourself first, and then with your team. Selling it to them will help you grab hold of the reality of what you're embarking on. You'll feel stronger, by being honest with others about what might seem an insane goal, and by seeing those you trust shrug their shoulders, look at you like you're nuts, but say, "I'm in," regardless.
Keep being honest while the battle rages. With yourself. No minor pouts or digging your toes in the dirt and crying, "Not fair!" This is war, and war isn't fair. But your intentions are pure. Your goal is sound. Your plan is in place and can weather any setback that comes, 'cause you're focused on the end game. And your team is there, through it all, making sure you don't feel alone. Don't cop out while you're in the kill zone, giving into emotions that don't help after you've worked so hard to prepare for battle. Fight!

See, whining is a valuable part of the process. It's our souls, crying out for what they need, begging us to pay attention to the core of what we can be, instead of the day-to-day details we tend to distract ourselves with.

Whine as much as you need to, to discover what your epic fight should be. Then arm yourself for battle. And if you need a kick-ass teammate, one who'll calmly watch you whine in the midst of your war then tell you to leave the emotion behind and get back to work, I'm available. As you might imagine I've been there myself a time or two.

"And what's my epic battle?"

For me, it's finding the soul of why I am what I am (a writer and a teacher and a creative artist who's limited myself too long to being what others thought my talents and skills said I should be).
For me, it's fighting for the stories I should be writing, rather than what's most easily sellable. It's working in publishing however I'm most needed in the moment, and in whatever capacity I'm most successful, so I can help put my teenager through college in the next few years and still feel my creativity thrive.
For me, it's keeping my eye on the long-game: books being published, books that are uniquely me and the very best emotional, inspiring, entertaining journeys I can give a reader; authors learning and growing and creating because I'm lucky enough to be there to help them; a publishing community where I'm at home being who and what I am professionally, rather than feeling like an outsider because I'm wasting energy appearing to be something else.
For me, it's growing the team of people and personalities and support that will get me to that victory, a team where I'm helping my comrades get where they need to be, too. Because for me, it can't be a zero-sum game where only the ruthless win. Only the golden child gets the best of the best. We're all in the same war, and the spoils should be enjoyed across the board. There's not just one way to win. My way is simply my way, and I'll fight to the death for you to find yours.
For me, it's NOT about being right or being respected as being recognizied for having the only answer. It's about empowering myself to do what's right for me, and helping others discover the path that's right for them. Enough with the threats and isolationism and us-versus-them and protecting ourselves from the change others are inflicting on our worlds. Do your business, fight your war, but stop fighting other people as if they're your problem. Your problem is your own fear and need to scream that it's not fair, yet you're not willing to throw down the way you're going to have to, to level the playing field and battle on your own terms.

And how do I know all this?

Because every time I deviate from my battle plan, any time I let myself feel weak or alone or powerless to change my fate, I'm the one throwing a tantrum. Any time I don't want to take the next step I need to, because I'm tired and I've taken thousands of steps already and it's time for this to be easier, I'm the one whining. Because I have a team around me that allows me to feel frail as often as I need to, to take a closer look at where I need to be strongest.

Whining is my clue to look inward at who/what my real enemy is, settle down, cling to my team, and get back in the fight!

I Hear the Craziest Things: Solar Flares, Kenetic Energy, My Dysfunctional Reaction to Stress

This should be a Psychic Realm post. Sadly (comically?), instead it's my life. On the way to being scanned for possible signs of returning cancer (there were NONE, so YAY!), my reality went haywire, as it often does on already-difficult days. "Solar Flares," some said. "Your kinetic energy misbehaves when you're stressed," my alternative friends remind me. "Karma?" others asked. You be the judge.

When I'm stressed, I do tend to have an electric/magnetic effect on the world around me. And I was stressed last Thursday. This was the final ultrasound/biopsy that would tell me (hopefully) that I could stop seeing this particular specialist except for future once-a-year, no-big-deal, you're-all-clear-but-let's-just-check followups.

This is the specialist, after a long string of doctors, who 2 1/2 years ago blew my world apart and said, "Your chances of this being cancer are too high NOT to have the surgery." End my thriving publishing career. End every part of my life since (until recently) that wasn't about getting healthy again, after surgery destroyed what was until that point my "disgustingly healthy" endocrine system.

So, no, my state of mind each time I visit this particular medical office isn't at it's zen best. Poor doctor man. I must positively be bleeding anxious, neurotic energy by the time his ultrasound tech does my scans and I have to face him and his needles…

Not sure what I mean?

Life beginning last Thursday morning went something like this:

Ominous blip on my social media horizon.Things were getting crunchy when I tried to post or whatever. And I'd heard the sun's latest solar flares might be making things wacky that day. Thank goodness I'd be off-line for most of it… So I shut the systems down, took my iPad with me to read another author's full for my editing job, and off I went to the be poked and prodded.
Gridlock getting to the best medical center in GA for my condition.
Arrive at parking deck late for my appointment. Steam/smoke billowing from beneath the hood of my baby, my 16-year-old Maxima, Bessie, whom I never want to lose her engine still runs so beautifully.
Cell phone drops connection as I 911 husband. Three times.
Insurance snafu at check-in that might cancel my appointment. Of course. Only, half an hour later, not a snafu. Their bad. How could their files have gotten so mixed up all of a sudden?
Nurse's computer loses it's WIFI link FOUR times. She can't  update my patient info.
Return home from the odyssey with a thankfully all-clear result, still-working car, and a migraine.
Turn computer back on. CRASH!
Friday (with a "fixed" computer saintly husband worked on all night). Crash.
Saturday. Computer works, as long as I don't need Internet. Why would I need Internet, when all my work is done from home and must be communicated via the Web???
Sunday. Word Processor still okay, THANK GOD. I need to finish the book that's due Wednesday and write notes for the author who has to begin her edits if her book's going to launch on time. Everything else, still CRASHing, but folks are being patient.
Monday. Internet back up. Flurry of emails and posts to folks who're not so patient anymore. Writing up the notes for the author after, more divine thanks, my book's done and Webbing it's way to my editor. MS Word crashes. I lose the revision letter I'm composing, and what's left of my mind.
Monday night, fuge state.

The funny/sad part? NOT the first time a series of events like this has happened to me, just when I need to be functioning at peak efficiency. People who know me and have seen enough of my life to believe this sort of thing is my "normal" when I'm under stress (like my poor husband), have learned to shake their heads but accept it as real, because after a while it's just too damn spooky not to.

My mom, who's about the least "alternative" person I know, witnessed something similar last month, when I helped her recover from minor surgery. Every appliance in her house, and then the toilette in my bathroom, either broke, overflowed or began to rattle/shake whenever I got too close. I was working like a maniac on several deadlines and worried about her and running on empty, and that's just what happens.

"The only time I've had anything like that happen to me," she said, "is when I was pregnant with you. Weird, huh?"

Why, yes, mom. It's weird.

But do you have to laugh about it?

It's not cute, damn it. I'm losing it, but holding it together so no one knows, meanwhile the world around me is acting out my emotional upheaval like a warped, possessed one-act play I can't escape from until my nervous energy has wound down and I'm practically catatonic.

I mean, it's all good now. Kind of. But it's bound to happen again, right?

Stellar!

Really, there's a reason I research parapsychology and paranormal activity and dream theory for the sci-fi/fantasy side of my work.

How We Write: The Soul of the Matter

My Soul of the Matter posts are usually about my life and the life I see going on around me, and how I try to change daily the things I let prevent me from actually living. Because surviving isn't enough. Thriving should be the goal. How We Write is usually a motivational rant about finding the soul of your writing, and not just worshiping craft rules. Today, I hope to accomplish both.

How we write isn't always about process and technique. Because we're creating story. And story is a powerful mechanism for changing minds, and through them our world. Always has been. We write because something drives us to touch readers' imaginations and hearts and emotions. Their souls. That's a powerful motivation that should never be completely obscured by our how.

My point?

Every story has a beginning. No matter how beautifully you're capable of stringing words together, your story begins and ends with your character and your reader's experience of that character's journey. Your story must resonate with the heart. It helps if you connect with a theme (even in comedy) that reaches deep inside for a universal truth that can't be denied. Then, if your gift is writing and you can master the toolbox of techniques that we must learn to bring that vision to life, your reader's world will most definitely be touched by whatever inspired you to reach them.

How do we write ?

We focus first on the story, for as long as it takes to discover what we most want to say. And only then do we sit down to write.

For me, I'm an angsty writer who wishes my gift was making folks laugh until they cry. My work is cathartic at more of the other end of the spectrum. Darker-themed, challenging emotional journeys come to me. Always have. Like this morning, when it only took the first five minutes of my news program for my entire day (my life) to shift as I listened to this.   

A mother who wrapped her children in blankets and laid on top of them in the basement of her house, while 175 mile-an-hour tornado winds ripped everything else away, and in the process lost parts of both her legs below the knees.

This is a story worth telling. This is a life worth studying. That is a soul who deserves to live on in words that will never do this mother justice, but we should try to come close with every fiber of our creative beings. Because others need to feel what loving someone this much can possibly be like. Because I need to feel it.

I would never never trivialize this mother's sacrifice by making her a fictional character in a book, or writing about that day anywhere but here. But I will write about love like this. Love for family and the future of lives that are too young and precious to be lost so young. I will write about the rescue workers' reactions, when they came upon the scene and heard what had happened. The father, when he held his wife after the disaster, and saw the video she made in the rubble to say goodbye, meanwhile her unscathed son had run for help, to save his mommy. I will write about the amazing, limitless, powerful lives children lead if they're given the gift of knowing they're loved unconditionally by people who value them more than themselves.

After today's news, I will write in my current WIP that you–

Can do anything you have to do.
Should live today like you would your last.

Whatever you write, however you write, won't you join me?

Things My Teenage Says: Awesome!!!

"How was your honor band trip, honey?" I ask the now sixteen-year-old (insert sniffle).

"It was awesome. We stayed up all night having a drum circle, then played great in New Orleans and walked around all day after, before we got on the bus to play cards all the way home."

Interesting. His dad and I resort to threats at home, using a crowbar when necessary (or a cup of cold water doused lovingly over the teen's tender head) to get him out of bed, amidst endless mumblings about how tired he is because he was up all night studying.

Much later, I ask, "How was it qualifying for Worlds with your robotics team?"

"It was AWEsome. We won the overall award for our 'bot, even though we didn't win the competition. The judges picked our presentation and log book and question and answer session and everything we did as a team over all the other 'bots. It's great, because we worked so hard on everything."

Interesting-er. Attention to detail, as you imagine, had been a bit of an issue over the last few years. As his charter school classes have gotten more demanding and our distractible, focus-challenged, always thinking about ten other things when you're talking to him kid has had to learn how to learn, and accept the value of paying attention to every crummy detail, this has not always been the response we've recieved when we've kindly, compassionately, gently shrieked, "Get to work, damn it."

And even later, I find myself asking, "How did it feel to have [Insert name of long-time family friend] send money, so you'd have spending cash while you're in California at your competition? He said he got to spend so much time with you when you were little, it feels like you're one of his grandkids, and he's so proud of you."

"It's AWESOME!" says my manchild who at last count has something close to five honorary sets of grandparents who will step in and spoil him rotten at the drop of a hat. "I wasn't expecting him to do anything, besides the fundraiser. It's so cool to have friends who think like that about you.

Most interesting of all.

This moment we've arrived at is a proud one, and another stepping away I treasure.

I won't lie to you. High school has been a struggle at times for all of us, and we knew it would be. Bright, active boys who're are challenging themselves within a hair's breath of failing will do that to your life. But he wants this, all the struggle and temporary disappointment and hard learning curves. He wants it bad enough to keep fighting, and he's learned not to quit until he gets what he wants.

He's come out of the journey a good kid with good people cheering him on. People focused on the end-game, not just short-term results. People teaching him how to tell what's most important, by letting him succeed and fail his way through learning on his own.

He's starting to get it. He's making it work in his own mind, without needing mine to guide him nearly as much. Yes. More sniffling. He's watching and putting together the pieces and figuring out for himself what it will all mean.

When I think about how I'm failing as a parent, on those low, sorry for myself days, it's memories like these that sparkle with the quiet ways we've succeeded in helping him, despite ourselves.

Because, my friends, my teen is absolutely, freaking awesome!