Save the quitting for tomorrow

Remember my three-week blogging hiatus?  There was a reason.

The short story is that I was insecure and didn't really think it mattered if I wrote or not.

The longer version involves not only my character flaws, but also my husband.  My spouse began blogging about the same time I did.  We have very different blogs, and are attracting different followers.  He's getting google hits like crazy, for random things like "opossum smile" and "spain chocolate."  He already has more followers, more hits, more comments, more likes, more everything.  I am truly, truly happy for him.

And it's driving me crazy.

I know that building a blog following takes time.  It's hard, and I'm so independent that even reaching out online is a challenge for me.  I know that we are blogging for different reasons, and for different audiences.  But every night, he comes home, logs on his dashboard, and begins reciting the wild google search terms that have led strangers to his blog.  He counts the number of hits on his blog, even sometimes the number of spam comments he has collected.  I feel the frustration and jealousy building up so much that it makes me want to hide in a corner.

Yes, I have tried to explain that I would prefer he keep his accolades to himself, until I can get my green-eyed monster under control.  His response was something along the lines of, "Well, what I do shouldn't affect you.  You should be happy for me."

I agree with him.  Intellectually.  But emotionally, my competitive nature that I pretend doesn't exist is seething.  I don't really belong to the "Aim to Win" school of competition.  I tend to pursue the the "Aim to Dominate."  And if I know I can't succeed at total domination, my instinct is to not play.  But if I quit writing, I am really the only one that loses.  (I have a hard time admitting I'm that petty.  I hope that acceptance is the first step towards change...)

I think this is the part where I'm supposed to give a pep talk about writing anyway, no matter how frustrated you are and how much it seems like everyone else in the world will get there before you.  But I don't really feel it at the moment.  Instead, I'd like to offer up a different philosophy:  I can always quit tomorrow.

This philosophy saw me through two years at a high-poverty school.  There were some days that were so hard that I didn't believe I could make it through another day, let alone another year in that situation.  Rather than look ahead, I would make a pact:  I wouldn't quit in the next hour.  Sometimes I felt confident enough to promise myself not to quit that day.  I couldn't promise myself that tomorrow wouldn't be bad enough that I would have to walk away for good.  But in that moment, that day, I could stay.  So I guess I have to recognize that I might need to walk away from writing someday.  Maybe I'll be so frustrated I won't want to keep going.  Maybe I'll be too busy or recognize that I just don't have the talent.  But today is not that day.  Today, I choose to write.  I'll save the quitting for tomorrow.

When I made a collage, I had some left-overs...

I decided to take the scraps from the giant wall-collage I made to create my original vision:  a collage that I could keep at the front of my life-planner.  So I took the pieces that I loved but were just too small or didn't fit on the first collage and made a miniature version.  I came up with not only a collage, but a cover for my planner.  Score!

Creative Habit Planner Cover.

I love the Joseph Campbell quote, "We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."  Sometimes I forget that even though I have lots of plans and goals, there might be something even better around the corner if I am open to it.  Adding the caption "Don't stretch--reach!" might not make lots of sense, but it's a mantra that I've used before in dance class that sometimes helps me reach a little farther and move a little faster.

2012 Best Year Yet Life Planner Collage

This seemed to capture specific interests in a different way than the other collage--here I was able to put words like "Theater" and "Healing" and "Telling Stories"--powerful reminders of the things that bring me flow and joy.  The girl writing on a poster could be me.  The woman hanging upside down on the swing is clearly having fun--something I want more of in life.  There was a smaller version of the massage picture, so I threw it in there, too.  Even in the mini-collage, I fit in plenty of fruits and vegetables to remind me to eat a healthy diet.  The sunflowers and beach symbolize nature, and the yoga positions are there to remind me to tap into my spirituality.  

I love the collages I created this year, because when I look at this I feel a little more at home in my skin, a little more sure of who I am and how I fit into the world.  

I made a collage...

2012 Best Life Collage

Sometimes I need a creative kick-in-the-pants.  When this happens, I usually try either a change of surroundings or a change in activity.  This time, I decided to make a collage.

The first collage I ever created was a fifth-grade science project that involved lions.  It rocked.  Since then, I have secretly loved making collages, even after I discovered that the activity's promoted as a self-help tool.  You can make collages of what you want in the future, things that appeal to you now, or any variation that feels right.  It ties into the laws of attraction and manifestation and those sorts of new age-y concepts.

But more importantly, it's fun.  I love collages because they don't require actual skill above and beyond cutting, pasting, and arranging.  I started this project by raiding the local library's magazine pile and purchasing the whole thing.  For ten cents a magazine, I bought three Fitness magazines and seven Sojourners magazine, (which I discovered was Christian-themed).  I added three Experience Life magazines, since I have a subscription.  I stacked them all in a pile, then tore through them, ripping out anything that appealed to me.  I had been a little nervous that I didn't have much selection, but I ended up with an amazing stack of images and phrases--way too many for the modest letter-size collage I'd planned.  So I spent an afternoon arranging the images, and when everything finally felt right, I painstakingly pasted the whole thing into place.  It was worth it.

I plan to frame the whole thing, but I have to get the largest poster-frame available, because it's an awkward size:  27x30 1/4.  I'll post a final image once it's framed and I'm satisfied.  What really surprised me at the end of the project was how the collage seemed to sum up my crazy mix of interests, ideas, and passions--dance, writing, environmental justice, music, social justice, reading, performing, animal husbandry, parenting, exploring the world, and experiencing joy.  Sometimes it feels like all of the parts don't fit together, but it's the crazy mix of things that make me, well, me.

Delicious Kale and Water Buffalo

This captures how much I love swimming, my desire to eat healthy and explore the world, and the summer I spent driving oxen.  I love the yoga stretch in front of the sunrise, because it reminds me of the flow I get when I dance.

Cool Reading Mural and Empty Stage

The child holding a book looks like he is surrounded by the characters from that world.  It reminds me of how I feel when I read.  One of my goals this year is to learn how to play the guitar.  It's a little hard to see, but underneath the guitar is an empty stage.  I have been performing onstage since I was little, and I would love to start acting and dancing again.

Meditation and Pregnancy

The meditating hands captured the stillness and peace I'd like to experience more often.  The pregnant woman is a reminder that hopefully my husband and I will have children and raise them with love and play.  The picture with the caption, "Be someone who does something about poverty" struck me as a powerful message.

Healing Massage and Environmental Justice

I love massages--both giving and receiving.  This picture is a reminder to touch my husband more, and to ask for loving touch in return.  The picture of a dancer stretching is another symbol of my passion for dance and movement.  I chose the image of a man standing at the base of a hill leading into the wilderness because it was an interesting contrast with the city in the background.  Isn't that a choice that each of us must make?  It went well with the message of saving the earth.

Sunflower Field and Mountain View

The woman basking in the sun, surrounded by sunflowers made me happy--and the caption Spread the Joy will prod me to share that happiness with others.  I tried to work in images of nature throughout, and the mountains in this picture remind me of our trip to Oregon this year.

Dancing and Wilderness

The man in the top corner is twisting mid-air.  The look of intensity on his face captured how I feel about dance.  It's an interesting contrast with the woman in pink twirling in a ballroom--to me, they are both dancers, and they are both beautiful.  There are three images of people interacting with nature--the woman with the horse, the person walking towards a field, and a model smiling in the forest.  I feel more alive when I am in nature, so I want to remember that this year.  They tie in with the picture that says, "What sort of world will you give them?" because I want my babies to live in a clean, beautiful world.  The choices I make today will impact the world they inherit.

Woman and Cat Sun Salutation

I chose to put the woman and cat doing a sun salutation in the center because it was both serene and silly.  It was originally a cat food advertisement, and I covered over the promotion for healthy cat food with the words "Choose your radiance."  For me, that's what it's all about.  In any given day, I can choose what I devote my time, energy, and thought to, and I want to devote myself to things that make me feel alive.  

Take that, Writer's Block!

When in doubt, write on a big piece of paper.  

Apparently, the cure for my case of just-can't-do-it was to crouch down on the ground and write.  There are a few reasons why this was the best idea ever:

1.  The big piece of blank paper doesn't have the internet.  The internet is the biggest procrastination tool in my box.  Take it away (Really far.  Like a whole different room.) and I can get a whole lot done.

2.  The big white piece of paper feels like a brainstorming tool.  It totally tricked my brain into thinking I was just brainstorming, not actually writing, like I do when I write in notebooks.

3.  The big white piece of paper doesn't have lines.  I could have written in a circle had I wanted to.  The possibilities are endless.

4.  It was really uncomfortable writing while crouching.  I was cold.  The floor was uncomfortable.  Both of these things motivated me to write faster.  This time, rather than bumping up against the writer's block in my head moving slowly and sedately, I charged at it going 60mph.  I blew the whole thing down. Best. Feeling. Ever.

Dear Writer's Block, It's Me, Dee

Because as it turns out, we're out of macaroni...

I have a confession:  I'm stuck on my story.  I've made it 3/4 of the way through a crappy first draft, and it's time to write an ending to the damn thing.  Really, really time.  I'm itching to go back to the beginning with some idea of where I'm headed and begin re-writing.  Maybe then my story won't read like a bungled version of Days of our Lives meet the Addams Family.  (Oh wait--that gives me an idea...)

Anyway--back to the present.  I'm good and stuck.  I don't really know why, though I know that this is the point where many authors have doubts and fears and want to turn around.  Most of their advice reads something like this:  keep going.  I'm not an idiot--I know I have to keep going.  That much is glaringly obvious.

But how?  What if I stare at the story, and the feeling of being stuck has overwhelmed the point of me having a clue of what I'm doing?  I need a plan.

I welcome suggestions, but until then, here are a few things I haven't tried yet:

1.  Writing a hundred words a day.  This, my common sense tells me, is a reasonable option.  Either I'll get into it and keep going, or I'll eventually, after a few months, have something done.

2.  Attempt to channel a spirit who will tell me what to write.  This has the added bonus of me not having to take responsibility for any of the words I write down.  Also, it could open up the new-age market.

3.  Writing out an ending on a piece of toilet paper.  I have a theory that I do some of my best writing on toilet paper and restaurant napkins.

4.  Glueing macaroni to cardboard in order to spell out words.  At least that would make me seriously consider what words I used before I wrote--the time, glue, and thought of starving children in Africa would raise the stakes.

5.  Dictating words into a tape recorder as I try to tell the story to my roommate's cat.  Maybe if I had someone to listen to my story, it would help.  Also, that cat is a tough critic.

Whew.  That got a few ideas out of my head.  Off to find a tape recorder...

Alternate happily ever-afters

I've been thinking about weddings lately.  It might be that my brother is planning his wedding.  It might be that my husband and I still talk about our wedding and how much fun we had throwing it together.  But I really think it's that I just read maybe the longest blog post of my life at Amanda Palmer's blog, where she discusses her marriage to author Neil Gaiman.  It's beautiful, and if you have 30 minutes to kill, and/or are obsessed with either Neil Gaiman or spontaneous weddings, I highly suggest you check it out.

What really surprised me the most was how much she thought about whether or not she wanted to marry Neil, and if so, how to do it.  She didn't assume that the happily-ever-after had to look like a wedding, or that it had to involve a marriage license.  I like to think that I'm independent and strong and a feminist, but I look back at all of the Disney fairy tales I watched and know that I'm still discovering ways in which they shaped me.  Don't those stories always end with a wedding?  Usually a princess wedding in a castle with carriages and things.  

My husband and I skipped the gigantic blow-out bash for our wedding--we announced it and planned it in three weeks after two years of engagement--but we never really stopped to consider the institution of marriage itself, or what other possible forms our happily ever-after could take.  Could we have been happy without the marriage?  Yes.  Most of the perks of marriage are the same as the perks of having a great long-term relationship.  I think the differences from before and after the wedding have been subtle for us.  There's the feeling of permanence, of knowing that we made a life-long commitment to each other.  There's the swell of pride I get when I introduce him as my husband.  There's the mind-boggling warmth of having someone who knows me inside and out and still wanted to spend his whole life with me.  

Wow, this post is getting more gushy than I thought it would.  Anyway, the point is, in spite of my current marital bliss, I wish there were more alternate happily-ever-after stories out there.  Most of the ones that I know of exist in small indie films--not the movies that shape our children's perception of an ideal world.  What if we taught children that it's OK for them to wait to get married, or to choose never to get married at all?  What if we taught young girls that the epitome of happily-ever-after is not a fairy-tale wedding, but a strong sense of self and a stable relationship?  What if we taught children that stable relationships take work, and actually taught them the skills to be kind partners?   I wish there were fewer stories out there about guy-gets-girl and more stories that show what happens next--the part with jobs and dirty dishes and in-laws.  Maybe that's why I love movies like Date Night and Undercover Blues--there's something about seeing marriage as a living thing rather than a destination.

Judging books by their covers

(Note, this work does not belong to me.  However, I would definitely recommend this author and this book--one of my favorites of 2011.)

When someone asks me what kind of books I read, I used to have a stock answer:  everything.  That wasn't necessarily true, however.  When I walked through bookstores, I used to deliberately avoid the romance section.  One look at the covers of women swooning into the arms of scantily clad men made my cheeks flush in embarrassment.  I wouldn't have been caught dead reading one of those, especially with titles like "Chasing Amelia" and "Love in the Saddle."  I used to think that romance novels were as dumb as their covers and titles seemed to advertise.  The words "trashy" and "romance" seemed intertwined.  If someone had asked me if I would ever have written a "trashy romance novel," I would have laughed at them, or considered it something along the lines of a really easy way to make a buck.

Anyone reading this who is currently slapping your forehead and shaking your head:  I know.  Wow, was I clueless.  And I would probably still be clueless today, if it hadn't been for the Romance Writer's of America (RWA).  I joined RWA because I felt like I needed to join a writing group, and they were the only organization I could find in my area.  I joined not really believing that I had much interest in writing romance, but I figured I could fake it, and at least I would be around other people trying to publish.  Right?

Well, on a vacation, I decided that I really needed to at least pick up a romance novel, since I was going to be joining this writer's group.  I found a copy of one of the Nora Robert's Stanislaski books.  That was the end of my vacation.  I tore through it.  And then I read the next one.  And the next.  Rather than insipid and weak, the heroines were strong.  Some were fierce mothers, others independent career women, business owners, accountants.  The dialogue was funny, the images vivid.  I realized that my prejudice had blinded me to a branch of literature that not only was well-written, but also deeply satisfying. I didn't have to worry about my favorite characters dying, and frankly, the women in the romances were a hell of a lot tougher and smarter and more capable than some of the characters in the male-dominant fantasy I'd trudged through.

It was like coming home.  While I can't say that all romance novels are perfect, or that I necessarily enjoy being seen in public with a book that has a close-up of a man's chest, I wish I hadn't been so stubbornly ignorant.  Now, when I hear people scoff at the romance genre, I smile and try not to laugh--odds are, they haven't actually read a romance.  If they had, they'd know that they are a hell of a good time.  And I wonder where I would be and what I'd be writing if I hadn't had the crazy notion to join the RWA.  Not only have I gained humility, I gained a writing community and a trove of good books I finally feel comfortable exploring.