RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//On yesterday’s podcast, First Cup of Coffee – November 2, 2019, I talked about building up daily wordcount gradually. So I’ve resurrected a previous post that gives a suggested strategy for hitting that 50K in November NaNoWriMo goal. Come on over to the SFF Seven to read about it!
//
//
//
I still get a total thrill when people send me pics of my books on the shelves. Maybe one day I’ll get over it, but not so far. Could be I’m getting tiresome about it because I showed my mom a pic on my phone that someone sent and said, “photos like this make me so happy!” And she said, “I know,” in that *tone* people get, like when you’ve said something too many times.
But, hey. Look! Me and Guy Gavriel Kay!
Hee hee hee.
I’m over at Word Whores today, trying to explain more about my process and why I don’t really care about learning to pre-plot my books.
//
I’m over at Word-Whores today, launching our 2014 topic calendar and talking about the crucial importance of taking action – on anything at all.
//
I’m over at Word Whores today talking about writing fight scenes. That may or may not be me under the umbrella.
//
One good thing about dark winter mornings is that I’m awake for the sunrise. Not something I would otherwise make an effort for, but look what I miss in the summertime.
Today is our 21st anniversary. On this date, lo these many years ago, David took me out for a drink and to see a movie after the Superbowl. I’m terrible at dating and neither of us had much fun. Still, he persisted and I liked him, so we had a little fling.
We’re still flinging.
Funny how that works out. More and more I think that life, the universe and everything doesn’t take well to being planned out. Certainly not to being controlled. That’s why I like the idea of Tao – grab a wave and do your best to ride it without drowning.
It seems I see a lot of people grasping for control lately. Maybe it’s a feeling of instability embodied by that deathless phrase “in this economy.” I don’t even know what that means anymore, except that it somehow conveys that people are afraid. And fear often makes us hold on tighter, with clenched fists and squinched-up eyes. We might become less tolerant, rather than more flexible. Less inclined to let the small stuff go. Less able to see that it’s all small stuff.
One of my book blogger Twitter pals posted this today – a contract that an author sent to a book reviewer. It seems to be yet another attempt to control the uncontrollable – if, when and how a book gets reviewed. And, it’s ultimately an unenforceable contract. I’ve heard of other authors telling reviewers that they can only post reviews of three stars or better. Or arguing with readers who give story “spoilers.”
Ultimately it’s like trying to keep Tom Cruise from being cast in your movie: it might be terribly wrong, but it’s not a fight you can win.
As my friend Laura Bickle says, “I don’t want to die on that hill.”
A particularly poignant way of pointing out that we have to pick our battles. Fight for what you want, for what’s right, necessary and important.
But, really – don’t sweat the small stuff.
(Hint: it’s pretty much all small stuff.)
//
The Buddhists have this idea that every person you encounter has a message for you. If you learn to listen, the theory is, you’ll know what path to follow in life.
I think there’s some truth in this.
I also think the people who thought this up lived in a much smaller society where they met only a few hundred people in their entire lives. That’s about two minutes on Twitter. Do I think every person on Twitter has a message for me that will illuminate my life’s path?
Oh no no no.
That actually sounds more like a Jim Carey movie than the road to enlightenment.
So , the point is, you have to be discerning and know which messages to listen to. The crazy guy preaching on the subway? Probably not. Your well-meaning senior colleague offering advice on keeping your job “in this economy?” Hmm. The family member throwing the word “selfish” at you because you’re not doing what they want you to? Uh, definitely not.
As with many aspects of life, it comes down to considering the source.
The other day one of my writing buddies wrote a post about taking critique. She mentioned a scene that five of her six readers/critique partners loved and one hated. Because she didn’t want a sixth of her potential readers turned off, she made revisions. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Except that I thought I probably would not have made the revision, had it been me.
Now, I’m not saying I think she was wrong to do it. There may be a deeper level to this in that the comments of the “hater” resonated with her and that’s what really drove her to make the change. Very likely she trusted the source.
Trusting the source becomes key. When your best friend gently takes your hand and tells you that the lipstick you’re wearing makes you look like a plague victim, if you trust her, you know she’s looking out for you and not cutting you down. When a stranger comes up to and offers a piece of information that answers the question you’ve been asking in your head, trusting that is an act of faith in the world.
I think that’s what the Buddhists were getting at.
//
This pic is from the same series of watercolor rain shots I posted before. This photo isn’t framed as well, but I love it for the hummingbird zooming in on the middle right, like a guided missile. (um, left to you folks)
We have about four hummingbirds in residence right now and they are practically part of our household. Every morning I wake to the sound of them whizzing past the open windows, squeaking at each other. They dive around the feeders under the front portal (pronounced pohr-TAL, for you non-New Mexico types), bulleting through at impossible speeds. Their game is intricate – one perches near a feeder and waits for another to come in, then dive bombs the interloper. They scream off over the desert, quickly becoming pinpoints against the sky, while another leisurely bobs in to have a drink. The other day I saw one, perched on the saucer of this feeder, wait while another screamed in at him, at a zillion miles an hour, then popped up, letting the other bird pass right underneath him. Hummingbird Tai Chi.
It’s funny to me to observe their busyness and compare it to my own. The emails screaming in, one after another. The phone calls and conference calls, an intricate dance of back and forth. And while you’re busy dealing, someone else slips in and takes a long drink of your nectar.
So it goes, eh?
I told David this morning that today looked pretty hairy for me and we talked about why. Then he said, “why do jobs have to be that way?”
It’s a good question. I suppose we should seek the Tao and be One with the universe. Then the politics, the pressures and deadlines wouldn’t matter.
I don’t know anyone who can do that.
What I do see is that the hummingbirds seem to glory in their games. They are beautifully vital, vibrantly alive. They make me laugh, to see them whizzing past.
I love that.
//
When I planted these morning glory seeds, I had a vision of the wisteria vine taking off and climbing up the portal, with the purple morning glories winding through. Gardening is a lot about grandiose visions that reality sometimes can’t quite catch up to. Our dry winter and even drier spring slowed things down. But, now that the monsoon rains have started, look! I have a blossom. With more promising.
It thrills me to to see it.
Saturday, at the local post office, the guy there was saying to everyone, I can’t believe summer is almost over! Someone else – not me – piped up and pointed out that we’re just heading into August and that we have at least two more months of warm weather. Really four, because we don’t get freezes around here until around Thanksgiving. Post office guy shrugged that off. “But the kids start school in two weeks!”
You all know this is the part I find interesting.
This week at Word-Whores, the theme is made-up holidays. Already Linda and Laura have said interesting things about Holy Days and traditional holidays vs. special and intimate ones. We have all these layers of schedules in our lives, rhythms dictated by the turn of the seasons, the ebb and flow of work, the divisions of school breaks, the intensive celebrations that require tons of preparation. We plan around these things, always looking ahead to which train is coming down the tracks.
Never mind that the school schedule is changing. We set up summer break originally to correspond with labor-intensive planting and harvesting schedule. Now schools go through summer, start early, have longer winter breaks. But still we associate school starting with harvest ending and the onset of winter.
There must have been something about Saturday, because the woman at the gym – not Crazy Gym Lady, a different one with her own special, gentler brand of nutty – was telling everyone who came in that Christmas is only four months away. Someone else – not me – pointed out to her that it was really almost five months. Which, when you think about it, is far closer to being half a year away than actually looming. Still, she was undaunted, keeping her gaze on that Christmas train.
The Taoists say that the key to serenity, to real spiritual understanding, is to keep ourselves in the present as much as possible. In their view, only the present is real. Being awake and fully aware of what’s happening right now allows us to enjoy our lives. No anticipating the future, for good or ill. No dwelling on the past.
After all, how can you enjoy summer when you’re thinking about it ending?
So I’m enjoying the transitory bloom of my morning glories. I have them now, and that’s all that matters.