Ditch the Expectations and Watch Out for the Good Stuff

I recently watched a movie called The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. An exchange between two actors has stayed with me all week.

Evelyn: Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected.
Muriel: Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff.

This couldn’t be more applicable for my writing journey. Many authors write multiple books before ‘the one.’ I was certain the first book I wrote was the next “Secret Life of Bees.” (It wasn’t.) Then, I was inspired to write my first young adult novel — which featured a ghost just as the market was getting oversaturated with ghost/paranormal stories. Then, my cozy mystery flowed so effortlessly (well, not that effortlessly) and was so well-received that I sensed I’d have a career as a mystery writer. (I didn’t.) 

Somewhere along the way, I went back to an idea that had been niggling at my brain for some time… a story about a high school girl whose face had been burned in her stepfather’s meth lab explosion when she was little. I had even purchased a couple of books on burn survivors for research purposes.

This week, that book (titled Facing Fire) is featured in two different online contests whose purpose is to get book excerpts in front of literary agents. My book is doing well in BOTH contests. One agent loved my excerpt so much, he asked to see the full manuscript immediately. In the second contest, my excerpt was chosen one of 60 entries that 15 agents will review next week. There were 427 total entries.

It takes some faith (and tears and chocolate) to keep writing, to keep revising, to keep querying. But when I put away my expectations for what a writing life should look like, opportunities opened up. I need to remember this feeling for the tears/chocolate times ahead.

Rescuing the "Self" from Selfish

In late February, I spent more than 37 hours in the air or in an airport during an eight-day period. (One travel day was 17 hours because of snow delays.) I can’t even describe the exhaustion I felt upon my return. (Let’s just say there were tears involved.)

A family function I felt I had to attend in Texas piggy-backed a stressful business trip. The family thing was important, and I’m glad I did it. But it brings up some issues for me related to self-care. I kept telling myself “I have no choice! I have no choice!” That's a steaming pile of horse manure.

I always have a choice. To stay in my current job or venture into something new; to exercise regularly or watch more TV; to eat more protein or stress-eat with sugar; to foster nurturing friendships or guilt myself into staying in one-sided relationships.

The crux of the matter is that taking care of myself is the harder choice because most of us are conditioned from an early age to think that self-care is selfish. And the first baby steps we take to put ourselves first often results in guilt.

I’m convinced it just takes practice. What do you think?

Easy is a Four-Letter Word

I bought a beginner’s yoga DVD about two years ago. As of yesterday morning, it was still shrinkwrapped and unopened.  I’ve been sick for about three weeks with a lingering cold (and haven’t exercised in much longer than that) so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Surely, it’d be easy! What a gentle way to ease back into exercising.

So, yeah. Today, I can’t lift my arms over my head, my knee is tweaky and the bones in the top of one foot ache. So much for easy.

From time to time, don’t we all make assumptions that something will be easy?  How many times have you uttered, “How hard can it be?” only to then utter, “Damn hard.”

One of my resolutions is not to make assumptions.  Another is not to give up on something that isn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. Like writing daily. Like staying connected with friends even though I have hermit tendencies. Like exercising often, even if it’s just a walk around the block.

Is there something you've stuck with even thought it was harder than you thought it'd be? (I mean, besides marriage.)

Fighting Extinction

First the demise of the Twinkie and now this! Hasbro has eliminated the beloved iron token from the Monopoly set and replaced it with a cat.  A cat! I know, right? And they let the PUBLIC vote via a Facebook page.  Do they think that’s a representative sample of the Monopoly-playing public?

Okay, that’s not the reason I’m irritated. I’m irritated by change. It unsettles me. I feel a part of my worldview is altered. I feel less and less connected with people born before 1990. (Let’s forget for a moment that I write young adult fiction.)

I’m not against progress. Hell, I experienced the horror of “Sun In” hair lightening spray. It’s just that whenever I meet someone who doesn’t remember something I remember, it feels like another part of me has gone extinct.

So, today is my tribute to outdated things that hold a place in my memory…and will until said memory falters with old age.

• Interchangeable IBM typewriter balls for different fonts
• Tab soda
• The smell of mimeograph paper
• Push-button transmissions (like the one on my ’64 Valiant)
• Flashbulbs for cameras
• The old Monopoly set that had wooden pieces

Feeling nostalgic? Check out the book Do You Remember Technology? Geeks, Gadgets and Gizmos.

The Delight is in the Details

For some time, I’ve wanted to find out why there’s so much hub-bub about the British television series, Downton Abbey. Its fans are downright obsessive about it.

So, the flu and I decided to spend Saturday watching … 11 STRAIGHT EPISODES. Yeah, obsessive is the right word. The multiple story lines and interesting characters were engrossing. As a writer, I was most fascinated by the way the smallest details told the most powerful story.

For example, the staff ironed the newspapers each morning before his Lordship and family read them. A subtle detail like this said so much about the expectations of the upper class in 1910s and 1920s Britain. The show’s writer didn’t have to hit the audience over the head with an explanation of the class distinctions of the time. The day-to-day workings of a household said it all: female servants couldn’t serve in the dining room and never answered the front door; bad news was often kept from the ladies of the house because of their delicate natures; a hierarchy existed among the staff as well; some servants felt genuine loyalty and sometimes love for their employers, as if they were family.

I recently finished a novel called The Language of Flowers. In it, a very minor character often dyed her hair wild colors like hot pink. But the reader found this out by the stains on her pillowcase.

Other viewers and readers may not notice precise details as I do. After all, it's often the sum of the details that sets the mood of a television show, movie or book.

Still, I delight in writers who say so much with so few words.

Perhaps the smallest details of our own lives tell the biggest story as well.

Forget the Timetable: We're Not a Swiss Train

I’m pissed off. DO YOU HEAR ME, BLOGOSPHERE? PISSED OFF! Here’s why. I was on Twitter (yes, when I should’ve been writing) and ran across this tweet by the online editor at Writer’s Digest.

If you can’t carve out at least a short portion of your day to dedicate to writing,

then you aren’t serious about finishing a manuscript.

My first thought was “Where do you get off?”
My second thought was that he was trying to pick a fight.

Finally, I decided he was channeling my subconscious, which knocks, knocks, knocks daily with the same message. “You’re not a REAL writer if you can’t get up at 5 a.m. and write for an hour, or come home after work and write instead of watching Wheel of Fortune. You should’ve finished the damn manuscript weeks ago. Remember your plan to write throughout Thanksgiving break and instead, you baked!”

So, maybe I’m mostly pissed at myself. More like disappointed. But enough finger-wagging.

Here’s the rub: a lot of writers feel this same way. And we make it worse by reading about other writers and their craft and their writing schedules and their successes. We refuse to believe that it’s okay to write a book in six months by only writing on Fridays and sometimes a Sunday or two. We find any reason to belittle our “process” because it makes the sting of rejection feel justified.

So, let’s rewrite that editor’s post using a different shaming example.

If you can’t carve out at least a short portion of your day to dedicate to exercise,

then you aren’t serious about being healthy.

Can we agree that’s a load of hooey? Then let’s agree that we all have our processes, our timetables, our high-energy days and our low-energy days. And the sweetest freedom is choosing when we create.

Was Grandma This Excited When TV Was Invented?

I’ve joked to co-workers that I’m a social media dinosaur. With as much time as I spend on Facebook and Twitter, that’s not exactly true. I follow multiple blogs. I have Pinterest boards. I get most of my news online. I designed and update my own website.

But I’m 47. Which means I didn’t have email or a cell phone or the Internet in my first couple of jobs. I faxed news releases when I was a media relations coordinator and followed up by phone. My word processor required coding for bold, italics and centering.  (Anyone remember WordStar?)

Communications channels have changed dramatically over the last three decades. And I am thankful for it EVERY DAY.

Because of a writer’s blog I follow, I found two new critique partners this past week and we’ve already exchanged and reviewed chapters via email.  Because of Twitter, I learned of a blog contest where literary agents bid on writers’ work – and my last book will be featured starting tomorrow. Because of a friend’s Facebook post, I found a six-week online course on making my personal and professional dreams come true. Because of e-readers like Kindle, I sent my sister the first chapters of my latest novel for her review.  Because of Google, I can fact-check manuscripts instead of going to the library to look up the same information.

My life as a fiction writer – and a citizen of this world -- is tremendously richer because of technology.  What mind-boggling advances await us?