Jump to content

Author, Historian, Storyteller

Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

A bit of a rant, but at least I numbered it for you!

1 – Obsessing over zits, blemishes and that tiny little scratch.  We’re all adults. We all know that outside of Photoshop, everyone gets these things.  Unless it is the actual size of Rhode Island or it is a shape/size/color that should be seen by a medical professional, no one cares.  If you are hanging out with people who do, they are not your friends.  They are petty, vindictive assholes.  Find new people to hang out with.

2 – Asking if a piece of clothing makes you look fat. I hate to break it to you, but if you get the impulse to ask, the answer is yes. Anybody that tells you differently is lying to your face. So do yourself a favor, save your boyfriend/husband the trauma and throw away that pair of spandex pants with the horizontal stripes and put on a pair of jeans.

3 – Letting your dog run around in public off leash.  Just because you love your dog does not mean that everyone else does.  This is not only one of my biggest pet peeves, but a potential nightmare that I have to live out almost every time I walk my dogs.  Inevitably the dog owner will holler from 100 yards away, that their dog is “friendly.”  Well that’s great, mine isn’t.  My little girl Zoey has been attacked so many times in her seven years of existence that she has taken up the attitude of “bite first, ask questions later” should a strange dog get a little too fresh.  So unless you can guarantee me that your “friendly” dog will remain so after Zoey bites him, get your dog on a leash!  Because when that dog fight starts, it’s gonna be my two dogs against yours and it’s gonna be up to me to break it up because you’re 100 yards away and I’m attached to the fight by two leashes.  Not cool!

4 – French kissing at the end of a first date.  Unless you’re looking for a one-night-stand, or are unable to control your raging hormones because you’re 16, save this for later.  I have three reasons for this.  1. A little anticipation really does make things better.  2. If that’s how you expect a first date to end, how are you expecting the second date to end?  If I’m not ready to take that plunge and I’m on the fence about you anyway, I very well may just bypass the second date completely to avoid the hassle of having to say no.  3. Should I ever have kids – it might happen – and one of them asks me to tell them the story of our first kiss, “He walked me to my car, looked into my eyes, smiled and gave me a quick kiss,” makes a much better story than “He pressed me up against my Chevy Malibu and stuck his tongue down my throat in the parking lot behind McDonalds.”

5 – Making a habit of treating people horribly, then coming back around later to apologize for treating them horribly and thinking that this makes everything better.  Seriously, why do people think that this is an acceptable way to interact with people?  After the second consecutive time you’ve done this to me, I no longer accept your apology.  You may be sorry, but I don’t care.  If you were truly sorry you would try to change your behavior so that you don’t have to apologize for it all the time.  Don’t expect me to provide you with forgiveness and assuage your guilt because you were an asshole.

Break a Plate

LifeLeave a comment

Is it just me, or does anybody else feel like all of this social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc – is one big popularity contest after another?   How many friends do you have, how many followers, how many people have liked that post, that picture, that meme, etc.  Which is all well and good and people can choose to partake as much or as little as they please . . . except there really isn’t a choice.  Social media has weaseled its way into the way that business is done, especially the arts.   I know people that have lost out on jobs because their Twitter following wasn’t big enough – apparently if you have less than 5000 followers you’re not even worth considering.  I’ve been told by a writing coach that talent has taken a far second seat to platform.  Most publishers and agents won’t even look at you unless you already have a steady following and a built in audience.  It doesn’t matter how good the writing is.

When did this happen?  When did we all get shoved back into that endless popularity contest that was high school?  I didn’t like high school. When I got out I ran as far and as fast as I could and never looked back.  Yet here I find myself right back where I started.  Life is now composed of recording every moment as if it is golden so that you can one up everyone else.  You have 47 likes on your new page, well I have 562 and it’s only been up for 2 days.  You went out for Mexican food and margaritas, well I went out for lobster and pinot grigio in Maine.  Your kid painted a picture, well my three kids made the paper first and then painted pictures on them using minerals they crushed themselves.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m exhausted!  I’m tired of feeling the need to compete with everyone around me at all times.  I’m tired of relying on the capricious whim of a following to provide validation by “liking” my witty quips or adventurous exploits.  I’m tired of trying to network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You know what, sometimes I want to go home to a glass (or three) of wine, a tub of sorbet and marathon watch serial killers on “Criminal Minds” until I’m so freaked out that I seriously consider taking a baseball bat with me when I take the dogs out before going to bed.  Because let’s be honest, puggles are not guard dogs!  It’s not glamorous, it’s not note-worthy but sometimes it makes the perfect evening, and I don’t feel the need to tell everybody that I know – and a good handful of people that I don’t know – all about it.  I definitely don’t feel the need to play a game of one-up and compare what everyone else did.

Why does it matter what everyone else is doing and where they are in their life compared to me?  I think there should be a whole new site.  One where you go on and post what you’re doing and working on and where you are in your life, and nobody else gets to see.  Then three months from now when you throw up a post about how you finally made it to the gym, virtual confetti goes flying across the screen with bells and whistles as an old post comes up where you said that working out more was a new goal.  Guess what, you just took a step toward your goal and that should be celebrated.  It doesn’t matter that Joe Blow has rocked the gym every day this week, it doesn’t matter that Jane Doe has lost 10 pounds so far this month.  What matters is that you improved yourself.  You did better than what you have done in the past, and isn’t that what we really should be focusing on?  Now that’s something that I can get behind.  I say we call it MeBook.

Characters, WritingLeave a comment

I find myself struggling with one of my characters.  He’s one of my main characters, but for the most part I’ve been avoiding writing him as much as possible.  Because quite frankly, I don’t like him.  There, I said it, I do not like him.  I feel like I’m that parent that very clearly has a favorite amongst their kids, but I can’t help it.  I just don’t like the guy!  So I avoid him, and I’m getting to the point that I can’t avoid him for much longer.

He’s so cocky, and arrogant.  He’s one of those guys that doesn’t really have to work for things, they just fall into his lap.  Things have a way of working out for him even when he doesn’t deserve it, especially when he doesn’t deserve it.  So I find myself throwing things at him to mess with him.  I chop off his leg . . . he gets a wife out of the deal.  Damn it!  His wife proves to be a far superior spy . . . he takes credit.  Double damn it!  It’s like no matter what I do to this guy he pops back on top and it annoys the crap out of me!

At this point, I think I’m almost afraid to write him, because I really don’t think I can hide the fact that I don’t like him.  I’ve never had this experience with a character.  I have never vehemently disliked a character to the point that I not only wish him harm, I cause him harm.  Unfortunately, the story will out, so he always winds up fine.  I already know how it ends and he’s in the end, so I can’t kill him off.  Triple damn it!

Although I guess there are worse things than hating a character.  I could feel ambivalent toward him and that would make one hell of a boring character.  So I’ll grit my teeth and let him play out his part of the story and I’ll take my consolation from Henry.  Him I like.  Huh, I don’t know that I’ve ever put this together before, but I like my Confederate officer.  It’s my Union officer that I don’t like.  Interesting . . .

Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

I know that I will sometimes fall into the trap – and I’m quite certain that others do the same – of getting caught up in a mood or situation and thinking that you’re all alone.  No one else has ever been in the position.  No one else has ever grappled with these thoughts or can relate so I’m going to stew in my own juices and be maudlin.

Well I’ve come to the conclusion that no one is that special!  Other people have been in your situation, other people have grappled with you same issues and it’s actually a bit of a relief!  It’s good to know that you’re not alone.  It’s comforting to know that there are like-minded people in this world and others have had your same struggles and come out the other side only a little worse for the wear.

More than anything else, this blog has taught me this.  I’ve lost track of how many times a post will talk about thoughts I’m struggling with, or a situation I’m in where I really feel a bit like I am on an island all by myself.  Inevitably it’s those posts that I get feedback like, “Yes!  I’ve been struggling with that too!” or “How true!  I’ve been dealing with that a lot lately.”

At first I didn’t know how to react to this.  After all, their emphatic feedback proclaimed loud and clear that I was not alone in my thoughts and feelings.  They did not make me special . . . and that’s what we all strive for right?  We want to feel special, that there is something about us that makes us stand out from the crowd.

Then it occurred to me, sometimes you’re just not that special, and in instances where you are struggling or feeling alone, it’s a really good thing that you aren’t special in that.  Sometimes it’s nice to know that you are part of the crowd; that you fit in.  Because as much as we want to be special, don’t we also strive to find a place where we fit in?  Maybe the trick is finding a balance between the two.  Fit in when we are weak, and shine when we are strong.

Life, Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

Maybe it’s an occupational hazard, but life seems to me to function in chapters.  Sometimes one chapter closes and you move on to the next with no warning.  Something big happens unexpectedly, or you just look around one day and realize that without you knowing it, you’ve moved on.  You’re in the next phase of your life, the next chapter.

Other times you can see it coming.  You can sense that things are starting to come to a close; things are wrapping up to move you on to the next great thing.  That’s when the impatience sets in.  You can see it, what lies over the next horizon, and you can practically touch it, feel it, taste it, but you’re not quite there.  You want it so badly, you start moving on prematurely, jumping ahead and skipping steps.  Which inevitably leads to falling flat on your face because you moved too far too fast.  You weren’t ready for that step; the universe wasn’t ready for that step. So discouraged you get up and head down the road again.  Maybe this time you’re more cautious.  Or maybe this time a seed of bitterness has set in, you’re tired of this chapter and can think of nothing but the next.

But you can’t do that.  You can’t skip ahead.  Dues must be paid and every step that is required must be taken.  Just because you can see the next chapter does not mean that you get to stop writing your current chapter.  I can see my next chapter, but I’m not done with this one, not even close.  I’ve simply found enough clarity to see where this road leads, and I like what I see.  But I have to finish this chapter first, and I have to finish it the way that I started it. I’ve made the journey by myself.  One step at a time, through the brambles and bushes, and I have to continue up the hill until I see the top.

Of course I’ve had my life-lines, and there have been stretches that they have carried me part of the way, but when all was said and done they put me back on my feet and let me stumble my way forward.  Nobody held my hand. Nobody laid the path out neatly before me.  They let me find my way on my own, and so it is partly to them that I owe it to finish this out on my own.  Finish this chapter first, and then move on to the next.  Look to the here and now, focus and do the work required to finish this out.  Finish like I started.

HistoryLeave a comment

A little 4th of July humor for you.  Play safe today friends!

 

Comic

Happiness, Love, WritingLeave a comment

Last year I got to watch my best friend get married to a truly great guy, and because she loves me and wants me to be happy she didn’t make me buy a hideous bridesmaid dress.  So thank you for that!  She did, however, ask me to do a reading for the ceremony.  I immediately said of course and when I asked her what she wanted me to read – I was expecting a psalm or a poem, etc – she instead asked me to write something . . . and she didn’t want to read it or hear it until her wedding day . . . no pressure or anything!  Ack!  At any rate, I came up with this and wanted to post it today to say happy one-year anniversary to Jolene and Tim.  All my love to you both and I still think you made a beautiful choice!

 

Love Is

There are many occasions in life to symbolize when a girl becomes a woman, and a boy becomes a man.  Some are manufactured, some earned and some merely attained through the passing of the years.  I think it is best to leave symbols to literature and find our definitions through the living of life.  Therefore I believe that a woman and a man are truly born of a realization.  A realization and acceptance that love is not the thing of fairy tales.  There are no knights in shining armor, problems aren’t solved in the span of a catchy song, and while you may get to ride off into the sunset, the story continues the next day.

No, love is not the thing of fairytales.  It is much more powerful than that.  It is more akin to the love that the poets speak of: a fire that can warm and enthrall the senses, or rage and burn through the night as a torrent of emotions engulfing all within its wake. It can be a fiend that slowly, imperceptibly fades away, leaving naught but its smoky ashes.  These fires can be left to rage and fade, skip and jump where they will, or they can be harnessed and used to sustain you through to the end of your days.

Love is hard, because it is work.  It is work that has to be done each day, because love is not unconditional. Love is a choice.  A choice to recognize that even if your fire is raging, your partner’s may be flagging and need encouragement and a gentle stirring of their faltering embers so that they may burn brightly by your side instead of being snuffed out and engulfed by your heat. A choice to carry someone else’s voice in the back of your mind; to not always pick the option that is best for you and you alone. It is a choice to always say you’re sorry, because over time the little things can hurt just as much as the big.  It is a choice to open oneself up, bare one’s soul and risk the whips and scorns of judgment from another human being; to make mistakes and risk carrying the scars of those mistakes with you for the rest of your days.

But it is also a choice to be seen and accepted for who you truly are.  To know someone so well that when they look into your eyes they see to the very depth of your soul.  It is a choice to share the good times, weather the bad, and when there are no words left to hold each other tight.  It is the burning cinders that keep you warm at the end of a long, cold night.

Love is compromise.  It is sacrifice, acceptance, forgiveness and joy.  But above all, it is a choice, a beautiful choice. So may you stand together as Woman and Man and choose love, everyday, for the rest of your lives.

Theater, WritingLeave a comment

I’ve been a theater critic in Los Angeles on and off for about three years now, and in that time I’ve been given quite a bit of advice – some solicited, some un-solicited – about what a critic is and how to be a good critic.  For the most part it seems like there are three camps.

 

Camp 1 – synopsis of the play followed by “Yay, everybody was so good!”

Camp 2 – synopsis of the play followed by a history lesson about the play, the playwright, the time period that the play takes place in, the theatrical convention used, etc, followed by critical remarks about the production

Camp 3 – synopsis of the play followed by scathing remarks tearing apart anything and everything that was even remotely sub-par with the intent of culling the weak theater out to make way for the good.

 

Honestly, I don’t know that I fall into any of those camps.  I’m a critic, not your mother.  So if you want/need to hear, “Yay, everybody was so good!” then you better put on one hell of a good production.  And while a little background about the play, time period or theatrical convention used is warranted if it helps to illuminate the critique; I don’t feel that a full-on history lesson is needed.  In this day and age if people are really that interested they can Google the particulars.

Lastly, I definitely don’t believe that it is my JOB to weed out the bad from the good.  I am one person and what I have to say is one person’s opinion.  There will be productions that the majority of people will love, that simply aren’t my cup of tea.  I commonly have this conversation with my sister:

 

Sister:  How was the movie/play?

Me:  Ugh, it was horrible.  The acting was mediocre, the plot predictable and the story contrived.

Sister:  But would I like it?

Me:  Oh, yeah, you’d love it.  Go see it!

 

This is not a commentary on my sister.  It’s a commentary on me.  I am hypercritical of everything I watch.  I always have been, and it’s a rare circumstance that I can turn that part of me off.  Yes, I’m the same with my own work, so at least I’m an equal opportunity critic.  That being said critiques come down to one thing – they are the opinion of one person, and this person loves live theater.

I root for the theater companies.  I want them to do amazing work and try new things and experiment and create art that can move their audience.  Some of the most amazing experiences in my life have taken place in theaters either in the audience, onstage or backstage.  However, as in any art form, when you put yourself out there and take a risk, sometimes you miss the mark and as a critic I do have an obligation to my readers.  If they only have enough money to go see one show, then I need to steer them to the show that will help build their love of theater so that they’ll keep coming back.

So I tell it how I see it and I try valiantly to walk that fine line between being honest and being mean, because there is a difference.  A HUGE difference.  And if I can’t come up with anything positive to say about a production, I prefer to say nothing at all.  That’s the kind of critic that I want to be.

Characters, WritingLeave a comment

So I realized that my original intention for this blog was so that I could chronicle the creative process of writing my novel.  Of which I have not been doing at all.  Instead, for the most part, I’ve been writing about anything and everything except about my novel.  But then it occurred to me, that I actually am chronicling my creative process, because this is pretty much how my creative process goes.

I’ll glance at my computer, and then go make some coffee.  Then do the dishes, or go walk the dogs.  Then I’ll turn on the computer, and start thinking about something else entirely.  Maybe write about that, or whatever it is I’m thinking about will lead me to start pondering life in general.  Then I’ll take a shower, play with the dogs.  Go do some grocery shopping.  And as I’m choosing produce it will occur to me:

 

Yes!  Because of what Henry does to Emma, she’s driven to the edge, which leads her to meet the guy in that place where she does the thing.

 

Then I finish my grocery shopping, go home.  Make some food, do some dishes, watch some Criminal Minds.  Go to bed.  Wake up.  Go to work.  Then I’ll be doing some filing in the file room and:

 

Oh!  Because of the thing that Emma does in the place with that guy, she winds up invited to the party where she meets Kady.  And because she meets Kady, she figures out her revenge.

 

Which gets me to thinking about something else, so I write about it, and go about my business, all the while these little epiphanies that I have kick around in my head building off of each other, growing and connecting to form one cohesive storyline.  I get the structure and it’s pieced together slowly in my head.  You see, I don’t write in chronological order.  I tried, I tried really hard.  My type A personality really loathed the idea of writing any other way, but I couldn’t do it.  I have to write whatever is at the forefront of my brain.  I have to write whatever is in the queue first; so that it isn’t lost as I work on whatever is second and third in line.  So I surrendered to doing it out of order and it seems to be working for me.  I wrote my last chapter long before I’d ever written my first.  I know where my characters are going. I know what happens to them.  It’s their journey that is being revealed to me piece by piece and like the movie “Memento” it all fits together . . . eventually.

But sometimes I have to write the other things first, because those are important too.  So I guess that’s what this blog has become.  A place for the immediate thoughts crowding my headspace that so desperately need an outlet so that everything else can move up in the queue.  My repository for everything that cut in line and wound up in front of my characters.

Oh, and my epiphanies are much more detailed than that, but the thing that Emma does to the guy in the place is pretty good, and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Dating, Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

I had an epiphany today.  I’m a member on an online dating site.  Yes, I’m a single woman in the . . . the . . . this day and age – seriously what is this day and age called, does anybody know? – so of course I’m on a dating website.  No, I have not found Mr. Right, truth be told I haven’t even found Mr. Good Enough For Right Now.  For the most part I’ve found invites for Internet sex or sexting and requests that I send pictures of myself in a bathing suit.  Which officially begs the question, do women actually send pictures of themselves in a bathing suit to men that they’ve never met? Crrrreeeeeeepy!  At any rate, I’ve tried out a couple of these sites and they all have these questions that you answer so that they can match you with guys.  Without fail, there is always a question similar to this:

So far has your life been motivated by?

  1. Love
  2. Money
  3. Commitment
  4. Dedication

Honestly, I think they’re missing the real answer for a lot of people: fear.

I know that for me it is true. I think for me it was something that was learned very early on.  My childhood was spent in a state of anticipation, a state of fear waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have no studies or testimonials to back this up, but I’m going to guess that this is probably a pretty universal experience for kids that grew up with a sick parent.  There was always a fear of what was to come next.  Was she going to be okay, was it going to be a good day or a bad day?  Would she suddenly take a turn for the worse?  My mind was filled with fear.  No matter how much reassurance I was given, the fear remained.  When she died, mixed in with all of the other sundry emotions was a palpable relief; relief that I no longer needed to wait for the other shoe to drop, because it just had.  It was as if I was Atlas and the world had been lifted from my shoulders.  Shortly thereafter a heavy helping of guilt replaced it, but that’s another topic all together.  The fear was gone, but only fleetingly.  Like all old habits, it came back and I found other things to fear.

I was afraid that if I was my own person no one would like me.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t be good enough . . . at anything.  Even in jobs that I knew I was doing good work and that I was a valued employee there was still this underlying fear that one day I would do something that would upset the applecart so egregiously that they would fire me on the spot.  I thought that I had tackled these fears years ago and moved on, but traces remain and pop up in the weirdest of places.

I’m afraid that I’m not taking care of my dogs properly.  I’m still afraid that I will get fired from my job suddenly.  I’m afraid that somebody will find out that I like Taylor Swift’s music more than Beyonce’s.  Whoops, let that cat out of the bag!  I can’t help it Swift’s music is catchy and quite frankly, “Cause I’m not your princess, this ain’t a fairytale, I’m gonna find someone someday who might actually treat me well“ is a much more interesting lyric than, “If you like it then you should have put a ring on it” repeated ad nauseum – no offense intended to the Beyonce groupies out there, I just don’t get the hype.  With how much money she has, she couldn’t afford to buy another lyric?  C’mon!

My point is, why live in fear?  How is that profitable?  Which brings me to my Shakabuku – for those who are saying “What is the world is that?” see here or here.  You can’t live in the moment if you are perpetually afraid of what might happen in the next moment.  It’s impossible.  Go ahead and try it, you can’t do it, and the key word in that sentence is MIGHT – it’s not even a fear of a definite.  So this living in fear has got to stop.  Right. Now.  I believe that everything happens for a reason, the good, the bad and the really shitty.  I don’t regret anything in my past, because it has made me who I am today, and I am strong.  I can take anything that life throws at me, because quite frankly I’ve probably already been through worse.  So bring it.  After all, if everything happens for a reason, what is there to fear?  How’s that for a swift kick to the head?