“Good enough!”

That’s what my grandpa used to say after he fixed something with duct tape, or wood glue, or a bent, rusted nail from the jar he kept under the sink. As a child, I was ashamed of the second-hand clothes, and used cars, and battered furniture that defined us as poor, but as an adult I’m grateful for all the lessons I learned on how to “get by” and “make do.” Some folks think I’m a perfectionist but as someone who lives with anxiety, perfectionism is a luxury I can’t afford. So nothing I do is perfect—I reach a point where I’m satisfied and then I let go. It’s not always easy, but I can’t move on to the next project if I’m obsessing over x & y. I accept that my novels are flawed, and I don’t spend hours poring over each line of a 300-word picture book. I work hard, I try to be honest in my expression, and then I put it out into the world. Those t-shirts that say “flawless?” I’d rather wear one that reads: “deeply flawed.” Because I am. That said, what I have to say still matters. Right now I’ve got a hot water bottle on my lower back and I can feel my sciatica acting up again. By the time I turned off the computer last night, my eyes were streaming and I had a headache from trying (and largely failing) to make clean cuts as I edited the remaining 12 minutes of footage I filmed last week. I now know that I need to STOP recording once I hit the 3-minute mark. It’s really hard to create a coherent message when you’re cutting and pasting film clips. It’s not at ALL like cutting and pasting text, which I do all the time when I’m writing. This little filmmaking experiment has been humbling and I hope I can apply the lessons I’ve learned to the next film session—which should be sometime in September when my two new books come out. For now, the 4 short films can be found on my YouTube channel and my Videos page.

Now, back to the novel…