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Author, Historian, Storyteller

Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

I was asked by a fledgling writer if I was willing to share some tips on how to be a good writer. She enjoyed the answers, so I figured I would share them with you too.

  1. Make sure you are clear on what you are trying to say. One of the top reasons that a section or chapter will be confusing is because you, the author, still aren’t sure of the point you’re trying to make. Until you figure that out, no amount of rewriting will make the copy clear.
  1. When someone gives you feedback on a piece, don’t try to defend your words or your intentions. Stay open and ask questions to understand why they feel the way they do. Their interpretation of your work may open your eyes to something that you were unaware of, and in the end make your piece better. However, if you become immediately defensive you won’t be receptive to what they have to say, and chances are they’ll be less willing to read and comment on your pieces in the future.

Feedback

  1. Short of an editor or a publisher saying that you have to make a change before they will publish, remember that making changes based off of feedback is optional. Not everyone is going to like your work. Spend the majority of your time on the consensus feedback, but always look at the lone wolf feedback. Sometimes the lone wolves have the best insight, but not always. Trust your gut.
  1. KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid! Big words are not always better. I am a huge fan of the thesaurus, but if you have never heard of the word it’s giving you, and after reading the definition you can’t use that word in several sentences, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS USING THAT WORD! The odds of you using it incorrectly are astronomical and then instead of looking clever, you’ll look like an amateur.Thank of a thesaurus as a giver of suggestions, not answers. In the right hands a thesaurus is a powerful tool. In the wrong hands, it is a harbinger of doom. DOOM! Okay, not really, that’s being overly dramatic. Let’s just say that it won’t work out well for you.
  1. If you consider yourself a writer or if you want to be a writer, then learning new words on a regular, if not daily, basis should be at the top of every to-do list you make. Words are the building blocks of your craft. The more you know, and the more intimately you know them, the better off you will be. Are they Latin or Germanic based? Is the archaic meaning different from their modern meaning? How many meanings does it have? With some words the answer may surprise you. It is an odd day for me if I haven’t consulted a dictionary, thesaurus, or both at least once. Do I use all of the oddball words that I know? Nope. Although I have a goal to work ‘defenestrate’ into a piece.
  1. Another item for your to-do list: read! Writer’s read other writer’s work. At the very least you should be reading examples of your genre. Ideally, you should also be reading works that are far away from your genre. How do the different writers approach story telling? What are tenets that span genres, versus genre specific tenets? Which storytelling methods do you like, which do you hate? Why? What tricks can you use in your own writing? What pitfalls do you want to avoid at all costs.

Experience

  1. Pick your battles – If you try to do 7-10 rewrites on everything you put out into this world, you will lose your mind. Or at the very least have low productivity. Know which pieces are your bread and butter and which are your throw-a-ways. Work the hell out of the bread and butter, give the throw-a-ways a once over and move on.
  1. The only way to be a good writer is to write as much as humanly possible. Daily if you can swing it, and some of that writing needs to be put out for public consumption. Listen to your feedback, then write some more. Write. Write. Write.
Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

In general, I tend to be an articulate person, both while speaking and in writing. The word eloquent will sometimes get bandied about. In times when most people get tongue-tied – pissed off, sad, really any high-emotion situation – I find that my words flow more smoothly. That’s why I never lost a debate in high school, and quite frankly why I don’t normally lose arguments either. If all else fails, I’ll simply out talk the competition. That being said, I find myself at a loss, and have been for the past week and a half.

One of my best friends turned 40 on the 8th, and another friend decided that it would be a great idea to do a surprise time capsule for her. Basically, a present for every year that she’s been alive, provided by a different person that has been a part of her life. Cool idea, not exactly easy to execute. Long story short, I wound up taking over making this happen even though it wasn’t my idea. More emails then I can count and 20+ packages arriving at my door later, it was her birthday and we had every year represented by a different person. Phew!

pile of presents

I expected a “Thank you!” and some variation of, “How cool!” from the birthday girl. That’s what I had been hearing from all of the people that I corresponded with in the weeks leading up to the party, so I honestly wasn’t expecting anything else. Therefore the effusion of gratitude, love and amazement that I received took me completely off guard. I had sent some emails and wrapped some presents. At no point in the process did I feel put-upon or under-appreciated, so I honestly didn’t feel like I deserved the praise that I got . . . which I mentioned to a couple of people who then proceeded to laugh at me and shake their heads. I’m not entirely sure of the meaning of that, but I’m guessing it’s along the lines of, “You poor clueless person.”

Which doesn’t necessarily help, me being clueless and all. At any rate, I have come a long way from the emotionally stunted youth, to the fairly open and emotive person that I am now. However, I clearly have not spent enough time learning how to take praise. So apparently, if you want me to shut-up, all you have to do is tell me that I’m awesome. So to the people that have encountered me over the past week and a half, please excuse the slightly dazed look I’ve had. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed.

Columbo

Live and LearnLeave a comment

Every so often I catch myself being a hypocrite, and I find that I have to step back for a second and reevaluate. For years, in fact for most of my life, if someone asked me to do something, or asked for a favor, the only reason that I would say no was because I either physically could not do what they asked, or I had already promised that time to someone else. This resulted in me doing things quite often that I had no desire to do. Sometimes big things, something small things, but the common denominator was that I did not want to do it, yet out of guilt or obligation there I was. However, quite often, I resented it, the person or both. I didn’t want to be there and sometimes I was unable to hide the fact that I didn’t want to be there. Therefore, I was miserable and if the task lasted more than an hour or two, I’m sure the people around me were miserable as well.

Guilt Trip

Then one day, I learned how to say a magic little word – no. It’s amazing how much power that word carries. At first it was like an experiment. Somebody would ask me something – “I need new shoes, do you want to come with me?” Then in my head the following would occur – “Oh God no! You can’t afford new shoes, so going shoe shopping will be like torture. No, no, no!” Despite this tirade in my head, my knee jerk reaction was to say yes, after all they had asked. But instead I would say – “No thanks.” I wouldn’t lie and say that I had other plans, or go into a long drawn out explanation of why I couldn’t. I would simply say no, and low and behold, the world did not end. The Earth kept spinning, my friend went shoe shopping on her own, and all was well. Amazing!

I started to apply this throughout my life. If an invite or a favor or request came along and I truly did not want to do it, I said no thanks. Obviously my ability to do this at work was highly limited, but in my personal life I had free reign. Pretty soon I was saying no right and left and as a result I had more of my time for me. That’s when I learned to value my time and that only giving it away where I wanted to made me happier. True, I was no longer the go-to person for anything and everything, but when I did show up, I was in a good mood, fully present and ready to go. Which really goes back to the old adage of quality is more important than quantity.

quality-quantity

At this point in my life, I’ve gotten to the point that I can say no and feel no guilt. I don’t volunteer for things out of peer pressure and I don’t agree to do things that don’t sound fun. Which brings me to the hypocritical part. I find that now, when I hear people complaining that they “have” to do something, or that they got “roped in” to something and that it’s been horrible and awful and such a waste of their time, I have no tolerance for their complaining. None! I don’t want to hear it, because all they had to do was say no. They are in the situation because they put themselves in the situation. Therefore, don’t bitch about it!

Then I step back and remember that I was in their shoes, bitching about things that I “had” to do, not so long ago. And I remember that I had to learn to say no, it wasn’t something that came naturally to me. Perhaps this person has not yet learned the magic of the word no. Therefore, I am going to take the recent rant that I heard with a grain of salt . . . and be thankful that I am no longer wearing those shoes!

HumorLeave a comment

I spent this past weekend in Colorado. I was able to visit with some friends, I saw some Shakespeare at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and I went to my dad’s house to sort through and decide what should be done with all of my childhood memorabilia. This last bit was the main reason for the trip, and it was one hell of a journey down memory lane. There were things like my baby blanket and my childhood Christmas stocking. There were also things like every greeting card I ever received and the keys to my diary. The diary itself was nowhere to be found, but by gum, I have the keys safe and sound!

I quickly realized that it was going to be easy figuring out what should be kept – baby blanket – given away – collection of trolls, numbering over 200 – and what could be recycled – greeting cards and shoe box full of folded up notes that were passed between my friends and me in school. By the way, Cassie, you and I talked A LOT about RyFi and KiFi, and I can’t decide if it was adorable or kind of stalker-ish. As we had figured out their class schedules, I’m leaning toward the latter.

Greeting Cards

The coolest finds were all of my grade school writing projects and my middle and high school art projects. I’m debating whether or not some of the writing should be shared. The Great Computer Hunt is so ridiculous, my friend Ruth and I were almost crying we were laughing so hard. 2nd grade Kat had quite the vivid imagination. For that matter, high school Kat wasn’t exactly lacking in imagination either. One of my art projects was a ceramic sculpture of a turkey sandwich and French fries on a plate. I’m fairly certain that the genesis behind this project was because I could.

At any rate, this and everything else I decided to keep, got packed up in my suitcases for the trip home to LA. I decided that the sandwich and two other sculptures would go in my carry-on. Clay isn’t exactly the lightest substance in the world, but I didn’t trust baggage handlers to handle my bag carefully enough to protect them. So the sandwich got lovingly wrapped in a huge wad of bubble wrap and placed in my suitcase. What had not occurred to me, is that when sent through a baggage x-ray machine, an oddly shaped ceramic piece that is thoroughly wrapped up, has the same profile as say . . . a bomb. A rather large bomb.

So when my suitcase went through at 5:00 in the morning the TSA agent reading the screen, all of a sudden became very awake. Then everything screeched to a halt, as she called over someone else to look. The two of them conferred, then called over another agent. Between the three of them they called over a supervisor, who then called over another supervisor. No one was saying anything to any of the passengers, but it was more than obvious that there was something going on. At this point, we didn’t even know whose bag was causing the hold-up, and everyone started to get frustrated, as more agents were called over and the conveyor had been parked for over five minutes.

Finally, everyone got quiet and they reversed the conveyor so that they could remove the offending bag. They carefully walked it over to the three of us waiting for our bags to come out and asked whose it was. It was mine, I said so. It was then whisked away by a supervisor and I was curtly told to gather my other belongings and report immediately to the inspection area. It was while I was putting on my shoes, that I remembered the sandwich. And I giggled.

Turkey sandwich

Shoes now back on, I grabbed my purse and walked over to the inspection area where I was curtly asked if there was anything sharp in my bag. I told her that I didn’t think there was, and she started to swab down the outside of my suitcase to test for explosive residue. It was at this point that I informed her that I had a ceramic sculpture in the bag, and I could see the tension release from her body as her shoulders dropped about an inch. Then she opened the bag, and pulled out the wrapped bundle. Everything got wiped and tested for explosive residue, then she meticulously started to unwrap the sculpture. I don’t know if she believed me and was being so gentle to protect my piece, or if there was a part of her that was still expecting to see a bomb, but she was much more careful then I would have been with it! Finally, she got it unwrapped to the last fold, took a breath and flipped it over. The anticipation was delicious as it registered just what she was looking at, and then started laughing.

She stood there and laughed for a few minutes, then folded it back up in its wrappings, handed it to me and said, “I’m going to let you pack it, I don’t want to break one of your fries. Take your time honey.” Then, laughing again, she walked over to the other agents who were looking at us bewildered. Somehow I think that the TSA agents at DIA are going to be talking about the turkey sandwich bomb scare, for quite some time, because I walked away towards my gate to the sounds of quite a few chuckles behind me.

WritingLeave a comment

Now that we’re getting to the end of my novel in book club, I have noticed a distinct shift in the attitudes and comments – see my blog from earlier this week for those. However, what I’ve noticed even more so, is that my attitude toward working on the book has changed. Lately I have found myself darn close to terrified when I sit down to work. There is something about working on the end that feels much heavier then working on the beginning or the middle. It’s almost like the first couple of pages are important, the end is critical and everything in between can be kind of mushy. I don’t truly believe that, but I’m starting to think that subconsciously I do!

It’s as if my brain decided I have leeway on the middle bits. If there’s a chapter that isn’t great, meh! Whatever, the next one will be better, and it’s all just driving to the end anyway. Therefore, the end has to be spectacular. Every word carefully chosen, every sentence constructed with precision, every paragraph modeled with meticulous care. It must be EPIC! Now I get that endings are important, but if the middle of the book sucks, no one is going to get to the epic ending.

LOTR

Not to mention, I find it highly ironic – real ironic, not Alanis ironic – that my book takes place during the Civil War and I’ve built the end up to be huge. When in real life, the Civil War just kind of petered out as Grant wrapped his troops around Lee’s siege of Petersberg and squeezed them like a python. Lee and Grant had no breathtaking victories or sweeping campaigns in 1865. They were all camped out in Virginia. Grant recognized that his greatest resource was men, and he kept throwing more and more men at Lee, until Lee had too few to continue. The end of this war lacked the dramatics that say WWII had.

Yet subconsciously I think that I have built the end of my book up as if it were a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki. Not a siege that slowly collapsed like a flan. Not that I want the end of my book to slowly collapse, but I’m trying to get my head space somewhere in the middle. A nice healthy space that is not sad deflation, but also not atomic bomb. So far, I am not succeeding at all and find that I am highly intimidated by my rewrites. Therefore, I have come up with a new mantra – “Trust the outline, and focus on the chapter, not the end.” We’ll see how it works.

Do other people blow the importance of the end of something out of proportion too, or is that just me?

Characters, WritingOne comment so far

I have blogged about my book club before, but for those not familiar, every two weeks I invite a select group of people over to my house. I cook them dinner and we read two chapters from my novel out loud. After each chapter, they discuss, ask questions and I take notes. The feedback is absolutely invaluable, and has made my novel so much richer then it would have been had I written it in a vacuum. However, I have noticed a shift in the atmosphere at book club lately.

Last night we read chapters 38-39 of 48. In other words, we are coming up on the end. As this novel takes place during the American Civil War, I think it’s safe to say without spoiling anything that not all of the characters survive to the end of the book. It would be a rather odd story if no one died over the course of a war. That being said, ten chapters ago I was getting comments like, “I really like this character.” Or, “Oh! I love when this character is in a chapter.” Now that we’re nine chapters from the end of the book, I’m getting comments like, “You realize that you have to bring this character back, right?” Or, “You better not kill this character. If you do, I’m done.”

Secondary Character

Now I would expect these kind of reactions about my main characters. However, what is taking me aback, is that I’m getting these threats about my secondary characters. It cracks my shit up! And also makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside that people actually care about the secondary characters, but mostly it cracks me up. It is so cool to see which characters are making an impression, and which ones have become an integral part of the story being told. Not to mention, it provides one hell of a blaring neon sign that says, “Hey! Don’t forget to wrap up this storyline!”

Which is helpful, because in the first incarnation of this novel, my character Mary kind of faded into the background never to be seen again. I caught that misstep on my own, but I’ve been paranoid ever since that I’m going to forget about a character. Then after all of this work, all anybody will talk about is wondering what happened to so-and-so. After last night, that paranoia is gone. There is no way that Book Club is going to let me get away with that. Thank you friends, keep the threats coming.

Change, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

For the majority of my life, I operated under the assumption that I would always feel, to some extent, that I didn’t belong. That there would always be something that was off, that was not quite right. I grew up in a tiny mountain town in Colorado, yet I’m not really the biggest fan of being outdoors. Not to mention that I most definitely do not have a small town mindset. There are some people who do, and they love living in small, rural towns. To a small degree I envy them. There is a certain relaxation and simplicity that comes from a small community. Alas, it’s not for me. I go stir crazy.

I moved to Boulder, CO for college and when I graduated I moved to Denver, because even Boulder wasn’t big enough for me. Despite the drastic change in culture that I was yearning for, I didn’t feel like I belonged in either of these places either. I had friends, made some amazing memories, and generally enjoyed myself. Yet something was always off. I didn’t fit into the party culture at CU – I was a VERY serious 18 year old. I hated winters. The cold, the snow, the ice, the layers of clothing that were necessary. I was always turning down invitations because I didn’t want to go camping, mountain biking, hiking, skiing, etc. Essentially all of the amazing and wonderful things that people move to Colorado for, I had no interest in doing. I didn’t fit in.

seagulls-at-sunset

Then I moved to LA, and after a couple of rough years of getting on my feet, I find that I LOVE it! The things that people always bitch about LA for – the insane traffic, the higher cost of living, the rude people, the earthquakes, etc. – don’t bother me. I don’t care. Do I still get annoyed from time to time with the traffic, yes? I think you would have to be dead to avoid getting annoyed with the traffic. But oddly enough, it isn’t a huge detractor for me. None of the negatives are, because there are so many positives. I love the anonymity that I have in this city. I can go out and run errands for half the day and never once run into somebody that I know. Or I can meet up with friends and the possibilities of what we can do are endless. I wanna go see a play, there are dozens to choose from every weekend. We want to go out to dinner, pick your poison. You feel like Chinese food and donuts? I know a joint. It’s amazing, and to be honest I still don’t think that my awe at what this city has to offer has waned.

Donuts and Chinese

And did I mention no winters? Oh yeah, no snow. At all. Ever. I finally found my city! Yet, I will be talking with friends out here, and some of them have attitudes that are so completely different. They yearn for aspects from wherever they came from, and have trouble calling LA home. It is simply where they live right now. I get the same feeling from them that I had when I lived in Colorado. So I’ve come up with a theory. I believe that there is a place for everyone. Some place on this globe where you feel at home. Where you feel that people get you and your environment nourishes your soul. Some people are lucky enough to be born in that place, while others have to travel around the world to find it. I truly believe this, and when I was chatting with a friend a couple of days ago, I got my first confirmation of this belief. She moved to New Zealand almost a year ago, and when I asked her if she was going to try to renew her Visa, or come back to the States, her answer was immediate and resounding: Stay in New Zealand. She has found her place, and the thought of going anywhere else seems absurd.

I don’t really know how to conduct research on this, science never being a strong subject for me, but I definitely have a hypothesis – there is a place for everyone. Have you found your place? Let me know!

Humor, LifeLeave a comment

Anybody that has spent any time with me knows that I am not a fan of nature. Not the views and such, I can sit and take in the beauty of nature all day long . . . from a patio. When you stick me in nature, sans patio, I become the whiny camper. Okay, in Colorado I was known as the whiny camper, here in LA I’ve been called outdoorsy. That’s because I am fine with the outdoors as long as all conditions are perfect, and my exposure is limited. As long as I’m not too cold or too hot, as long as I don’t see a snake or get something gross on me, as long as my food doesn’t wind up with a bunch of dirt/sand in it, and I don’t get blisters on my feet . . . you get the idea. I’m the whiny camper.

Nature

Therefore, I tend to stay out of the wild and all involved are happy. This attitude toward nature strikes many as strange, since I grew up in the wilderness. In school we learned how to make snow caves and what to do should you run into a bear or a mountain lion. I wore bright orange while playing outside during hunting season. Tick checks were an almost daily occurrence during the summer. I was inundated with nature. So you would think I would be a bit more comfortable in it. The thing is, I know quite a bit about nature, therefore, I also know what lives in nature.

As a human being, I enjoy my placement at the top of the food chain. It’s comfy up there, I like the view. The cows and chickens and carrots are all below me and I can find them nicely packaged for me at the grocery store. Life is good. It makes sense. But the second that I go out into nature, I am no longer at the top. Bears, lions, alligators, sharks, etc are all most definitely above me in the food chain should they wish it to be so. I am not really cool with that. I have nothing against them, per se, and believe that they should be allowed to live and let live. However, as animals don’t always agree with me on the “let live” part of the equation, I choose to stay out of their habitat. After events earlier this week, I feel even more justified in my decision.

51070240

Like most of the world, I have become obsessed with watching the footage of that Australian surfer, Mick Fanning, being attacked by the great white shark. It is beyond amazing that he was able to escape completely unscathed, and it is beyond brave that fellow surfer Julian Wilson swam toward the attack to help, instead of heading to shore like Fanning was screaming for him to do. If I had been Wilson I probably would have turned into a cartoon character and run so fast that I ran across the top of the water with my legs rotating like pinwheels. (I tend to instantly levitate onto whatever is nearest me when I see a snake, so I feel that this is totally possible.) Despite the bravery, heroics and fast action by the water rescue folks, I am left with one lingering feeling every time I watch that footage: THAT IS WHY YOU STAY OUT OF THE WATER!!!

Seriously! Stay out of the water, there are things in there that will eat you! I know the odds are incredibly low. I’ve seen all of the statistics and I even follow Mary Lee the Great White on Twitter. I know that sharks rarely hunt humans on purpose, but I’m sorry, have you seen this graphic?

shark-attack-1

Forget the shark, if I take my glasses off, I can’t tell the difference between those three! Therefore, if you need me, I will be sitting on a patio, sipping a fruity cocktail and feeling completely justified in being the whiny camper.

Change, 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.

No I in 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.

im-not-sure-but-something-is-wrong-here

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.

Inspiration, Live and LearnLeave a comment

Lately I have found myself getting really frustrated by setbacks, or my lack of ability to do certain things. I understand the principles of marketing, but I can’t come up with or implement a successful marketing plan to save my life. I might as well throw my money at a fan and watch it fly away to never be seen again. I can write a thousand words that paint a beautiful picture, but I can’t draw a picture that speaks a thousand words. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, except for the fact that I write children’s books and I can write them one hell of a lot faster than anyone would be able to illustrate them.  Which in the grand scheme of things, these are easy to overcome. Hire a marketing team. Hire a couple of illustrators. Easy.

baby-throwing-money-away

Except for the fact that I can’t afford a marketing team, or a couple of illustrators. So I get frustrated and determined that I’m going to do it myself and wind up wasting a whole lot of time and money . . . because as previously stated, these things are outside of the realm of my abilities. That’s when the trouble comes in. I can’t do it, I can’t pay someone else to do it, so clearly there must be something lacking with me. I am deficient. Which logically makes absolutely no sense. We can’t all be good at everything, so why should it mean that something is wrong with us when we can’t do something? It shouldn’t and it doesn’t mean that. Yet, that is where my brain inevitably goes. Sometimes it goes so far, that my so-called short-comings over shadow the things that I do well . . . which leaves me in a depressed lump sitting on my couch surrounded my projects that need to get finished and no motivation to do anything other than marathon “Murder She Wrote” and play Yahtzee on my iPad. Theoretically speaking, I definitely haven’t actually done that . . . this past weekend . . . I might have played bowling on my iPad too . . .

Eventually I come to my senses – or the internet stops working and I can’t watch “Murder She Wrote” any more – get off my butt and start doing things. It is in the doing that I remember that setbacks are not deficiencies in myself. They are hurdles to be jumped over and left behind. Yes, I’m going to trip on some of them, but I’ll figure out why I tripped so that I won’t trip the next time that hurdle comes up. I used to tell employees that I trained, that I didn’t mind or get upset over questions or over someone not knowing how to do something. I got upset over people asking the same questions or making the same mistakes without ever learning from them. Setbacks are not deficiencies, they are opportunities for learning. Wow, how cornball is that? I feel like I need to make a motivational poster now.

You didn't expect me to make a real motivational poster did you?

You didn’t expect me to make a real motivational poster did you?

At any rate, that is where my headspace has been lately. Then I had lunch with a friend and lo and behold, she is having the same issue with feeling inadequate over the things that she finds herself unable to do. Crazy! It’s not just me. Once more life provides me with a flashing-neon-lights example of how my problems are not special. They are not unique. People not only know my pain, they feel my pain because they have the same damn pain. I’m starting to feel like emotions are like stories. They’ve all been told a million times, we’re simply slapping new titles on them. That is a good thing though, because it means that whatever issue, whatever problem you are having, somebody, probably thousands of somebodies, have had the same thing and gotten through it. If they can get through it, so can you. There’s comfort in not being alone. So to me, and to everybody else dealing with the same issue – An inability to do one thing, does not make you deficient as a person, or detract from the things that you do well.

Now to say that a million times until I actually believe what I’m saying.

Okay fine, here's something that's actually motivational.

Okay fine, here’s something that’s actually motivational.