Writing – Page 3

A Little Clarity

Thursday July 16, 2015Change, Live and Learn, WritingView all 2 comments

Since the beginning of the year, I have been trying to write a motivational book based off of the lives of the women that I study for my Heroines of History biographies. As you can probably guess by the way that I phrased that, I have not made much headway. I have an outline. Most of an outline. It’s been on my To-Do list, don’t get me wrong. It just happens to have been playing hopscotch down my list for months. Instead of actually working on it, I simply move it to another day. I figured I’d get to it later. Then later, turned into later, which turned into later, which turned into, “I am never going to work on this am I?”

That’s when it occurred to me. Maybe the reason that I kept putting off working on it, is because I didn’t actually want to work on it. Maybe part two of my Heroines of History plan (books geared toward juveniles) should have actually been part one. Ah-ha! I don’t want to scrap the motivational book completely, but I don’t want to do it first.

It was also around this time that I was bemoaning the fact that I can’t draw. Well, let’s say that my skill is not good enough to illustrate a children’s book. I have the text for my next book done, but as my illustrator is currently engaged, I can’t move that project forward. Which was making me REALLY frustrated. Not at my illustrator, but at myself. That I was unable to do it on my own and was reliant upon somebody else. I know, *gasp* having to rely on somebody else is the worst thing ever! I bet you can guess which answer I choose on personality tests when they ask if I prefer to work by myself or in a team.

I was seriously working myself up over this. Then, once more, a realization hit. I don’t need to publish two children’s books in the same year. This one can wait until next year. The world will not end and all of my plans will not go up in smoke. 2016 is a lovely publication year for Monsters in the Night. So, that project can be shelved for a bit and I can focus on other things . . . like finishing my novel and working on step two (which is now step one) of my Heroines of History plan.

Amazingly enough, since switching up these priorities I have been a lot more excited about working on my projects. I have gotten more done in the past two weeks with my juvenile Heroines of History books, then I got done with my motivational book all year. I can’t stop thinking about it. I had to take a break from doing the dishes last night so that I could write out some notes. I wish that I had more time to work, and I can so clearly see the path that this project needs to take. I had none of that with the motivational book. In fact, I was trying to figure out how to motivate myself to write the motivational book.

As for my novel, I have rewrites and things to do piled up to my eyeballs, but instead of getting stressed out about it, I’m excited for where it is going, and how close I am to being done. Seriously, so close! I can almost taste it! Once again, I’m excited about my work. Go figure, I started focusing on what I wanted to do and on what I can do instead of what I thought I should do, and what I couldn’t do and things got so much better. I am of course saying all of this, so that in a month and a half when I start freaking out about things that are completely out of my control and I don’t want to see another word about the Civil War, you all can remind me of the way that I feel right now. And then tell me to get back to work.

Disillusioned with Mediocrity

Thursday July 02, 2015Life, Theater, WritingLeave a comment

I got into a conversation recently with a colleague about how we had both noticed a trend of mediocre work being in theatre/writing/art. Worse yet, the people doing that work didn’t realize it was mediocre. It is almost as if the bar has been set at knee level, and people are operating under the assumption that the bar is set high. So when they easily clear it, they celebrate their great work, never realizing that they are fulfilling only a modicum of their potential. I don’t understand where this comes from, or how people can be happy with work like that. My colleague posited that it is stemming for the “everybody gets a trophy” generation. If you get an award for showing up, then why bother putting forth extra effort.

To a certain degree, I have to agree with him. I never understood that mentality. When I was kid the top three people got an award, and the rest didn’t. You had to work for the prize and you had to learn to deal with the disappointment if at the end of the day you weren’t good enough. I am extremely competitive, and as a kid I hated it when I didn’t win at something (truth be told I still do, but I’m much better at coping now). But what I hated even more than that was somebody getting the same award as me, for work that wasn’t as good. Which I think to a large extent is why this new trend is driving me absolutely nuts! I want to gather up all of these artists then show them the difference between what they’re doing and what they could be doing. Explain that they are not mediocre artists, but that they are producing mediocre work. Show them side by side, their mediocrity next to brilliance, in the hopes of lighting a fire under some of them to strive for better. To raise the bar.

Sadly, I feel like the only thing that would come of this is that they would band together with their other comrades who are content with sub-par, and make fun of those putting forth the extra effort. I’m not just being cynical here, I’ve seen it happen. When confronted with truly great work, those not living up to their potential tend to get defensive and lash out. They are happy and comfortable with the bar at a height they can easily jump. No fear of failure. But no chance of failure also equals no chance at brilliance, and as artists isn’t that what we should all be striving for? Not perfection, that’s impossible, but brilliance. Even if it’s only a spark, or a moment, shouldn’t we be striving for a moment of brilliance that takes your audience’s breathe away?

In that pursuit there will be struggles and failures. There will be stumbling blocks and set-backs. The crazy thing is that those are good! You have to fail before you can be brilliant, because you have to learn how NOT to do something. You have to try out all of the different ways to reach a final product and some of them will not work. We can learn a hundred times more from our failures than we can from our successes. So why are people so terrified of failing? Yes, it sucks. I’ve been there myself. A lot. But it is a necessary part of life. Failure is the only way to learn and get better, but it seems like the artistic world is being inundated with those who are content to play it safe. As they have found an audience willing to applaud those meager efforts I’m afraid they’re not going anywhere any time soon. I find myself disillusioned by the whole thing.

To Blog, or Not to Blog . . .

Thursday June 25, 2015Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

For years I was given the advice that if I wanted to be a writer, I needed to have a blog. For years I had the same reaction – No! I don’t want a blog, I have no idea what I’d write about, I think blogs are dumb, no thank you, not for me. Eventually I was given this advice from enough people, some of which were in my chosen field, that I broke down and started a blog. I think that was threeish years ago, and after all this time, I can confidently respond that my feelings toward blogging are largely the same. HOWEVER, I have also come to realize that blogging is an absolutely invaluable tool, and anybody looking to be a serious writer should really have a blog. Sickening, I know, but here’s why.

#1 – it forces you to sit down and write at least once or twice a week. It doesn’t matter if you are fresh out of ideas or not in the mood, it is Tuesday and Thursday (or whatever days you choose to publish, but they should be the same days every week) and you have to get a blog out. So good, bad or ugly, you get a blog out.

#2 – it forces you to throw your work out into the world for public consumption. I think the number one thing that I hear from writers is that they are afraid to show their work to people. To them I say, how are you ever going to get better, if you never have an outside opinion? The quick answer, is that you can’t, and trust me it is much more painful to get those first glimpses of criticism on a piece that you care deeply about. So get yourself used to the idea of outside opinion on blog posts. They’re quick, they’re relatively painless, and if somebody doesn’t like it, who cares? It was just a blog post. What I think you will actually find though, is that you will find people who like what you’re saying, and you’ll get positive feedback. It’s amazing what a lift I can get to my day when I’m not in the mood, I cobble something together and throw it out there in the world, and then somebody comes back and says they really like the post. Huh. I guess I don’t have to be in the mood to write quality content . . . which leads me to the most important reason . . .

#3 – practice makes perfect. The reason that I can now pump out a blog post that people like, even when I’m not in the mood, is because I’ve practiced. Every post I write, I hone my craft. Every positive comment, or constructive criticism I receive, I hone my craft. I’m honestly kind of afraid to go back and read some of my first blog posts, because I know that the quality will not be the same as what I produce today. Which of course, will make me want to start rewriting and getting them up to snuff, but I won’t. They are the solid proof of how far I have come. My blog is my practice. No through line necessary, no character arcs, just practice.

So if you are a writer, or for that matter, any type of artist, create yourself a practice field that is open to public consumption. If you’re a singer, sing in public at least once or twice a week – record a YouTube video, go to Karaoke or open mic – find an outlet. If you’re an artist, start an art blog. A couple of times a week draw, paint, sculpt, photograph (whatever your medium is) and share it with the public. Don’t make it a piece that is important to you, or one that you spend a lot of time on. It is a piece that you did for practice. Maybe you’re playing with lighting, or a new brush, or a new technique that you saw on the internet. Practice and put it up for people to ooh and aw over. Or people will say nothing at all. You’ll get a lot of that, and it’s something that you need to learn to cope with as an artist. So that’s practice too.

That is my advice, I don’t know why, but I’ve been asked for advice quite a bit lately, so I guess I’m still in the habit. And since I’m on a roll here, I’ve got one more for ya. Deadlines are your friend when it comes to your real work (the work that is important to you, the work that you agonize over). I can’t express enough how much having deadlines has not only improved, but moved my work forward. And really, that’s the biggest thing! It keeps my work moving forward. I can’t put off, or tweak a chapter forever, because there are people to coming over to my house for book club to hear that chapter and they don’t wanna hear that I got caught up marathoning Criminal Minds on Netflix. They don’t wanna hear that I wanted to hang out with my friends. They don’t wanna hear that I couldn’t find my muse and didn’t know what to write. They wanna hear a chapter, and so I produce a chapter. I sacrifice in other parts of my life, and I get chapters written in time for their deadlines.

Okay, maybe don’t do this to yourself.

Are they always great chapters -no. Do some of them get finished right under the wire – absolutely. But they get written. I have really come to discover that hiding behind every excuse I’ve ever given for not getting work done, is fear. Fear that it won’t be any good, fear that people won’t like it, fear that I am not good enough. Sometimes that fear even comes out as hatred or loathing for a project, and you rejoice when the stupid thing is over and you never have to look at it again. Guess what? That’s fear. That deadline pushed you so far out of your comfort zone, you can’t even realize that you’ve accomplished something great, because you’re too busy running back to where it’s safe. To that I say, get over it! Deadlines will help you do so. Your greatest work exists outside of your comfort zone, so let deadlines push you out there. What do you do if at the deadline, what you have is not your best work? Easy, you learn from it so that your next piece will be better. There is no perfect, so we must simply strive to be better than we were yesterday.

So there you have it – put your practice in the public eye, and have hard and fast deadlines. Now go out there and make art.

All of This is True . . .

Thursday May 28, 2015Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

I really do love the internet. It lets me stay in touch with people I would have otherwise lost contact with, and more importantly it gives me access to research on any topic under the sun, no matter what time of day. Which comes in incredibly handy when you write historical fiction. I can’t imagine writing this same book twenty years ago. Every time I would come across an unknown – like when was the shell game invented, or what kind of undergarments did men wear during the Civil War – I would have to go to a book to look it up. If I were lucky, I would have the book I needed on hand, but if not I would have to wait until I could get in to a library and hope that they would have a book with the required info. If not, I would have to wait until a book from another library could be requested. Something that takes me thirty seconds to look up today, could have feasibly taken weeks to look up twenty years ago. That boggles the imagination. Yes, there is the total junk that you have to weed through, but the amount of knowledge at your fingertips is fantastic!

However, sometimes I think that too much knowledge can actually be a bad thing. I tend to frequent sites like the Mayo Clinic’s on a fairly regular basis. My friend’s husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer, so I did research on prostate cancer so that she wouldn’t have to explain everything to me every time we spoke. I did the same when my aunt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, or a friend with diabetes. All of this is good, but whenever I find myself on a site like that looking up stuff about symptoms for myself I find that the answer is one of two things.

I am clearly deficient in something, take a multi-vitamin.
I HAVE A HORRIBLE, NASTY DISEASE AND I AM GOING TO DIE!

There’s really no in between and when your brain is presented with those two options it is obviously going to focus on option #2. Which leads to a good amount of freaking out, until common sense finally kicks in, I take a multi-vitamin and go on with my day. It really makes me wonder though, how many people experience this same phenomena – it can’t just be me – but don’t have common sense to kick in, so they go rushing to the doctor thinking that they’re dying. I can only imagine that doctors and nurses HATE all of those medical sites. Especially the ones that have the symptom checkers. You know, you enter what symptoms you have and it lists all of the horrible diseases that cause those symptoms. Actual trained medical professionals must cringe every time they hear somebody say that they did some research online, and then suggest what they think they have.

“No ma’am, you do not have Parkinson’s Disease. Your fatigue is caused by only getting three hours of sleep a night, the tremors are caused by the twelve cups of coffee you drink during the day to stay awake, and your malnutrition is due to the fact that your diet consists mainly of Cheetos. Get some sleep, lay off the caffeine, eat some real food every now and then, and you’ll be fine. Oh, and please do not procreate.”

I know that this is what happens every time I go onto one of those sites for myself. I have never once been correct about a diagnosis or explanation for symptoms. Yet I keep going back. Which if you think about it, is pretty crazy. They say that knowledge is power. What they don’t say is that sometimes it’s the power to be a well-educated idiot.

Character vs Damsel in Distress

Thursday April 30, 2015Change, Characters, WritingView all 2 comments

I had a great conversation with a fellow writer last night and one of the things that we discussed was the difference between a character in distress and a damsel in distress, and how, as a feminist and I am sick and tired of women always being damsels in distress. I have no qualms with a female character being in distress, or any character for that matter, distress is the cornerstone of drama. My issue comes when the female characters turn into damsels.

The specific scene that we were discussing was of five characters, four men and one woman, who were surrounded with the enemy closing in. Characters in distress, awesome! One of the men gets singled out and beaten. He ineffectually tries to defend himself, and one of the other male characters tries to help him, but they both wind up injured. To subdue a third man, who is rather large, the enemy tazes him, and again one of the men ineffectually tries to go to his aid. A lot of distress, a lot of drama, perfect! But you notice, so far the woman has done nothing, until it is decided that the men will be killed on the spot and the main bad guy is going to take the woman home with him, you all know why. Finally, our woman does something . . . she screams out for the men to help her. She knows, can see, that all four of them are thoroughly subdued and injured and have no way of helping her, yet she cries out to them. Instant damsel.

Throughout all of the previous action, which includes all four of the men being struck and injured, not a single one of them calls out for help. They try to fight to back, and I’m sure would have gladly accepted help, but none of them expect someone to help them, much less call out for help. Whereas the second the woman is grabbed – not struck, not injured, grabbed – her first instinct is to call out to four wounded men to come save her. WHAT?!?!?!? No! She just went from the fifth member of an outlaw gang, where she is purportedly a contributing member, to a damsel in distress.

Yes, characters need to be in distress, but I am fed up with male characters in distress “taking it like a man” while the female characters transform into damsels. It is only after the woman has been successfully dragged away – it does say that she is “fighting back” – that we discover she had a switchblade on her the whole time! WHAT?!?!?!?! Long story short she isn’t able to do anything profound with the blade and winds up being saved by a man. Classic damsel in distress. I’m tired of seeing it, and I told my friend just that as it was her book that we were discussing.

Now I’m not expecting every woman to be Xena the Warrior Princess and take out every threat that comes around like a badass. Although that is fun to see. All I want to see is women who try to help themselves instead of immediately turning to men to save them. The four men mentioned above, had to be saved by somebody else. It happens, there’s nothing wrong with that. But fight back and fight dirty if necessary, and from my experience* ladies, it is always necessary to fight dirty when up against a man. Even if he is your size or smaller, the odds that his upper body is physically stronger than yours is practically guaranteed. It’s just the way we are built. But if some guy is intending to make me his sex slave I can guarantee you the only way that he’s going to be able to drag/carry me away is if I’m unconscious or completely bound. If he’s got a gun on me, I’m going to fight back even more viciously. It’s really hard to hit a moving target, especially one that just kicked your knee out and is attempting to gouge out your eye.

As authors and storytellers we need to show that women can do more than cry out for help. Women can help, or at least try, to help themselves. Will they get hurt? Most definitely. Will they still need to be saved sometimes anyway? Yes. Will some of them still wind up captured or dead? Yes. But it is about time that this notion of the damsel in distress went away. Literature and entertainment is completely saturated with this character. Let’s create a new one, shall we?

*My experience consists of several self-defense classes and hundreds of hours of stunt training in a variety of weapons. I have never encountered a man who couldn’t at least match my upper body strength. To come out on top, you have to fight dirty, but if you’re in a situation requiring you to fight, he deserves it!

Self-Sabotaging-Stress-Monkey

Thursday April 23, 2015Life, Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

I have been a super stress monkey lately with the release of my second book, and have been giving myself a hard time about it. After all, it’s my second book, this isn’t my first rodeo and all of those other clichés. I finally realized this morning, that while it may be my second book, this is the first book that I’m publishing through the new company that I launched this year. It’s my first time working directly with a printer, and dealing with fulfillment and distribution. So while it is my second book, there are a whole lot of firsts going on. Essentially, this isn’t simply the release of my second book, it’s the launch of my business. Holy shit. I feel like the stress may be justified.

Though at the same time, are the moments of near panic really doing anything productive? Is fixating on the paltry online sales and staring at the boxes of books in my living room that are not dwindling fast enough to ensure that I’ll be able to pay the printer for them when the bill comes in, doing any good? No, they’re not. All it is doing is keeping me up at night and causing me to use my asthma inhaler more often. Which, FYI in case you were curious, a couple of puffs of albuterol will help shortness of breath caused by a panic attack. You learn something new every day! Look at that silver lining. I can find them anywhere.

Aside from that little tidbit of knowledge there, no good has come from the freaking out. In fact, I’ve noticed that instead of motivating me to problem-solve, it has actually motivated me into a cycle of self-sabotage. Good times! Over the past two weeks I have been so overwhelmed with stress that I have lost track of how many times I have sat on my couch and actually thought to myself, “Kat, you have plenty of time to get X done. If you don’t get it done tonight you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot for tomorrow.” Logic says that with that realization I would get up and go do whatever task X was. However, stress-monkey-self-sabotage Kat said, “Okay.” Then cocked the gun and shot myself in the foot. At this point, both of my feet look like Swiss cheese – figuratively of course because no one in their right mind would give this klutz an actual firearm!

Because of that, on top of having a whole slew of books in my living room that I need to sell I also have:

A box with an unassembled organizational unit (to more neatly store the aforementioned books)
Four loads of laundry
Two sinks full of dishes
A half-finished birthday present
A half-finished baby-shower present
A half-finished article
Two unread manuscripts with author’s waiting for responses
7 chapters behind on rewrites
And a partridge in a frickin pear tree

Okay, I don’t have a partridge, but you get the point. Now all of that isn’t that bad, except for the fact that I’m scheduled to get an injection in my ankle today which will require me to stay off of my feet for two weeks. Hence, the shooting myself in the foot analogy above. Some of that stuff I can get done sitting on my butt, but some of it I definitely can’t which means that it will drive me batty for two weeks, which I know will increase the stress-monkey-self-sabotage tendency that I have fallen into. So I am putting my foot down, the good one, and ending the cycle. I’m not exactly sure what that’s going to look like, but I know that it’s going to start with me finishing my article tonight. From there I’m gonna have to make it up as I go. Any advice, or suggestions on strategies that have worked for you are gladly appreciated. And should you want one of the books that are piled up in my living room, the links are below.

To Purchase Domestically Click Here – You can also browse custom, hand made jewelry here!

To Purchase Internationally Click Here

Verdigris – It Doesn’t Just Happen to Brass

Tuesday March 24, 2015Theater, WritingView all 6 comments

For almost four years, I was a theater critic here in Los Angeles. During that time, I saw A LOT of theater. Sometimes 2-3 shows a week. Last year I decided that it was time to hang up my critic hat, for two main reasons.

It was extremely time consuming. The average play, with intermission, is 2-3 hours. Plus the travel time to get there, which in LA can easily be an hour each way. Then the time to actually write the review, 3-4 hours. Then multiply that by the number of shows that week. I was spending way too much time and energy on something that wasn’t a part of my long term goals.
I was tired of the negativity. Over those years I saw some really incredible theater. The sheer amount of talent in this city astounds me, and I’m not just talking about the big houses that have money for elaborate sets and famous actors. There are some smaller companies, with no budget to speak of, that do absolutely marvelous work. However, I also saw a lot of really bad theater, and for some reason that bad theater always seemed to come in waves so I’d get smacked with 10-15 bad ones in a row. As I didn’t feel comfortable writing reviews that glossed over just how bad the play was, i.e. lying through my teeth, I wound up writing quite a few uncomplimentary reviews. This weighed on me. I didn’t want to be negative anymore.

So I stopped reviewing. I have not, however, stopped seeing theater. My frequency is significantly less, but I still go, and every now and then I see a play that either the script, or the performances speak to me and I wish that I was still reviewing so that I could tell everybody just how amazing the production was. Then it occurred to me, I still can. I can use my blog instead of a newspaper. I saw one such production this weekend, “Verdigris” by Jim Beaver at Theatre West. This play first appeared 30 years ago on the same Theatre West stage with the same director, Mark W. Travis, at the helm. In the playwright’s note, Beaver describes that first production as the catalyst for what was to become his successful career, as it landed him several writing jobs in Hollywood. After seeing this production I can see why.

Taking place in a small backwater town in Oklahoma, it would be very easy for a writer to slip into two-dimensional, stereotypical characters that get laughs, but have no substance. Instead, Beaver takes these outlandish personalities and infuses them with such depth that anyone who has spent time in a small town has to smile, because they have met at least one of those people. Whether it’s the invalid Margaret running multiple businesses out of her dilapidated home, her obstinate son, Carl, and his dotty wife, Bonnie Fern, who wants to send her to a nursing home, her inebriate brother, or the rag-tag group of employees – that Margaret both loves and verbally abuses at the same time – that are constantly coming and going. Travis’ direction accommodates the ingress and egress of all of these characters, creating a busy chaos, without ever losing sight of the focus of the scene. It’s an impressive feat.

Even more impressive is the assembled cast. Sheila Shaw, as Margaret Fielding, is a powerhouse, acting as the eye of the storm that all of the activity revolves around. (She is also the only member of the cast, who appeared in the original production, but as May Bee in the first run.) Adam Conger as Richard Muldoon, Jim Beaver as Jockey Farrell, and Dylan Vigus as Ben Bo Burley, all turn in memorable and nuanced performances. However, it is Corinne Shor, as May Bee Burley, who brought me to tears. May Bee, sister to Ben Bo, is one of Margaret’s employees. She is ridiculed for her weight throughout the play, and is generally seen as stupid and ugly. She is so painfully shy and beat down by life that she largely keeps her mouth shut, taking whatever abuse is flung at her, and when she does talk, she struggles to string words into sentences when around Richard, because she likes him. For much of the play she is a door mat.

Sheila Shaw and Corinne Shor Photo by Charlie Mount

It is in the second act that she finally works up the courage to truly speak with Richard – a conversation that is heartbreaking to watch, both because of the bravery it takes to stammer through and the obvious cost of that bravery, which is written across her face when the inevitable end comes to pass. It is then, on the tail of this wave of emotion, that May Bee finally stands up for herself to Margaret, and everyone else, declaring that she is a person too. A good person who doesn’t deserve to be made fun of. *It is a beautiful moment of triumph that has clearly come from a lifetime of degradation. Shor plays it perfectly, and just when you think you can’t feel for a character any more, she comes back for her final scene. Her goodbye to Margaret is so strikingly painful, that you just want to fold her in your arms and tell her that everything is going to be alright. But you don’t, because you can see in her eyes that she already knows that . . . and because it’s a play and that would be awkward.

That right there is the true beauty of this production. It doesn’t feel like a play. It feels like an interaction with people that you might know in real life. So I tip my hat to you. You moved me enough to draw me out of retirement.

*In the talk-back after the show, Jim Beaver revealed that this moment was written as an apology to his sister. She struggled with weight problems, and growing up he relentlessly teased her, making her life “a living hell.”

Verdigris runs through April 26th – www.theatrewest.org

My Work Has Yet to Live Up to My Standards

Thursday March 19, 2015Inspiration, Live and Learn, WritingView all 2 comments

I ran across this phrase – My work has yet to live up to my standards – and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. On the one hand, I think it is very good to have standards, especially high standards, for your work. It helps to push you to always be better, and to strive for more. If I had been content with mediocre, had set my standards lower than I have, I never would have accomplished what I have so far. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be as happy as I am with the work that I have done and am doing. That being said, in the last couple of years, I have definitely lowered my standards.

I feel that amongst artistic people* there is an excruciatingly high prevalence of perfectionism. I think to a certain degree, it is that very perfectionism that makes a master stand out from an amateur. It is that perfectionism that drives them to keep working on their craft until it is just right. I would wager that even DaVinci winced at an imperfection or two on the Mona Lisa that he couldn’t get quite right. However, I also think one of the main differences between a master and an amateur, is that the master has learned to let go of a piece before its perfect, because they have learned that perfection is impossible.

I am surrounded by incredibly talented people. Being artistic/creative I tend to be drawn to that type. But it breaks my heart at how many of them don’t share their work, or don’t value their work. And inevitably, the reason that they don’t share it, or value it, is because it’s not good enough, or they didn’t get it quite right. Trust me, I can sympathize with that feeling. I definitely know the horror of letting something out into the world when it isn’t perfect yet. This is why it took me until I was 25 to start sharing my writing with people. So I know how that feels! What I never realized though, is how much I would grown as a writer and how much my writing would improve, by the simple act of lowering my standards and letting it go before it was perfect.

Is it still hard? Absolutely. Do I still cringe when I read something and realize that it could have been phrased better or more eloquently? All the damn time. But the flip side is that I am much happier with my work, and quite frankly, happier in general as well. I have also learned to be much more gracious with myself when I do make a glaring error. I was supposed to release my second children’s book last week, but within an hour of turning on my online store and announcing that copies were available for sale, a co-worker pointed out to me that there was a misspelled word. And not just any word, one of the vocab words, which means that it appears twice . . . misspelled. FUCK!!!

I immediately turned off sales, announced an apology that it wasn’t available and began beating myself up. How in the world did I miss that? I was the one who did the final proof, and I thought that I had gone over the entire thing with a fine-tooth comb so that it was perfect before sending it off to the printer. I had even spent 10 minutes on one of the pages with the misspelling, deciding if I had the rhythm of the phrasing correct. How in the world could I have possibly missed that?!?!? Easy. I’m not perfect, and neither is my work. It never will be, and quite frankly I’ve lost track of how many professionally published books, by famous authors I have read that have misspellings in them. So as far as errors go, I’m in good company. But here’s the real kicker. The issue was discovered before I had sent a single book out. That’s when I stopped beating myself up.

That error had become a non-issue. Yes, I now have books that I won’t sell on the open-market and have had to get creative in an attempt to recoup some of the cost – Speaking of which, if anybody is interested in a limited run “White-Out” edition of 10 Cheeky Monkeys, at a highly discounted price, let me know. Seriously, I’ll even sign it. – but, I was easily able to make the needed correction, as well as a few other tweaks, and get a new run of books started. In the grand scheme of things, that mistake is pretty damn minor. But 5-6 years ago, it would have crippled me. I don’t know that I would have been able to bounce back from something like that anytime soon. It is amazing what a remarkable difference has been made in my work/life/psyche since I decided to lower my standards. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still really damn high, just not as unrealistically high as they once were.

So I guess what I want to say to all of my artistic/creative people out there, and anyone else who needs to hear it, if your work, after years of working and practicing, has never lived up to your standards, maybe the problem is with your standards, not your work. Let the world see your gifts my friends. Life can be an ugly place without art.

*I’m sure this is true in any field, but as I have the most experience with those of the artistic persuasion, that’s what I’m focusing on.

Take Courage

Thursday February 19, 2015WritingView all 2 comments

I have an ongoing love affair with the English language, which makes a certain amount of sense, me being a writer and all. However, I don’t really know if my fascination came from being a writer, or if being a writer came from my fascination of words. It’s a bit of a chicken/egg conundrum. Not that it matters, but it’s fun to puzzle over from time to time. At any rate, on more occasions than I can count, I have been asked about why I used a specific word over another, or why I think it’s important to know ten different words that all have approximately the same definition. My answer to either of these questions is to quote Mark Twain – “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lighting bug.” And that right there is why I LOVE words.

Take the words ‘brave’ and ‘courage.’ Some people would say that they can be used interchangeably. After all, they are used to define each other.

Courage (noun) – the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.

Brave (adjective) – possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance

However, I would argue that they are not interchangeable, because of where the words come from. Courage is derived from the Middle English word ‘corage,’ which is the old French equivalent to ‘cuer,’ which comes from the Latin ‘cor,’ all of which mean ‘heart.’ At its very beginnings courage comes from the heart, and even today it still holds that connotation. For hundreds of years it has been believed that the heart contains ones innermost and strongest feelings. Therefore, someone who has courage, or is courageous, developed that from deep within themselves. From feelings and emotions that run to their very core. This is why those that are courageous are nearly impossible to break or hold down. The strength comes from too deep to be easily shaken.

Brave, on the other hand, has several different definitions and can be used as a few different parts of speech including a noun – a warrior, especially among North American Indian tribes – or a verb – to defy; challenge; dare. Its etymology speaks volumes to these definitions. It can be traced to the Middle French ‘brave’ meaning ‘splendid, valiant,’ to the Italian ‘bravo’ meaning ‘brave, bold, wild, savage,’ and possibly to the Latin ‘bravus’ or ‘pravus’ meaning ‘cutthroat, villain,’ and ‘crooked, depraved.’ To steal from its origins, it has a bit of a wild abandon, a violent or defiant after taste. The word ‘brave’ comes from a baser place than does the word ‘courage.’ A villain can be brave, but it would be a rare circumstance to see a villain be courageous.

So no, I don’t believe that those words are interchangeable. They are too loaded with past meanings and connotations. They can however, be combined. I believe that some of our best heroes are bravely courageous. That rare quality of standing and fighting for something that you believe in to the depth of your being, and doing so with a defiant abandon that can’t help but turn heads and draw others to the charge. Now that’s a beautiful thing. This is why I love words.

Shit or Get Off the Pot

Friday February 13, 2015Fathers, Live and Learn, WritingView all 3 comments

Growing up my dad had two go-to pieces of advice that he used for just about any situation. ‘Shit or get off the pot’ – I think it’s perfectly clear where I got my poetic turn of phrase – and ‘Pick your battles, not everything is worth getting upset about.’ While I definitely think the former was his favorite, the latter always seemed to come up when I would do something that I assumed he would get upset about – mostly because my friend’s parents had – only to find out that he wasn’t upset at all. He would simply remind me that I was a good kid, straight-a student, etc., that kids made mistakes, and that he had better things to get upset about. Now mind you, I did see him get upset on occasion, but those occasions were few and far between. Over time, I realized that those ‘better things’ were only things that truly mattered. Things that would make a difference 5 or 10 years down the road. Something that would be forgotten in a week or two, would illicit a raised eyebrow at the most.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of that. I blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it is a goal of mine this year to keep to that schedule and not skip days like I did quite often last year. So this year I’ve been sticking to it, and I’ve been doing a good job of it too. Until yesterday. I didn’t get a blog written and that broke the longest streak I have ever had. This made me upset. Not crying, throw a temper tantrum upset, but enough that I was down on myself. I had broken my streak, and I didn’t like that. Then last night as I was cleaning out all of my kitchen cabinets with my roommate – long story – my dad’s words came back to me, ‘You’ve got better things to be upset about. Pick your battles.’

That’s when I realized that I had picked my battle yesterday, and I had picked it correctly. For some time now I have lost my confidence in my Heroines of History articles. I have no idea why, or what triggered this, but I find myself paralyzed when it comes down to writing them. I do the research, and I can talk about the woman all day, but for whatever reason, when it comes time to put words on the page I freeze up. I come up with something else that has to be done first, something that is more important. I push it aside and keep moving the task down my to-do list. Well yesterday, I guess I decided to follow my dad’s first piece of advice – shit or get off the pot. It was time to write that piece and get it checked off my to-do list. So I started, and I hated everything that came out. I think I rewrote the first paragraph seven times before it was even tolerable enough to move on. It was painful and laborious, but eventually I worked through the crap – fear, loathing, self-doubt – and by the time I was nearing the end of the article, I found, much to my amazement, that I was actually enjoying myself. Writing her story was making my blood flow with a purpose again.

I had chosen my battle for the day, and I had won. So what was the point of getting upset about missing a blog post? So this week I’ll blog on Tuesday and Friday. That’s perfectly acceptable. I have better things to get upset about.