As I wandered around the house this weekend, I kept wondering when I’d lost control.
Betsy’s Blog
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When Did I Lose Control?
As I wandered around the house this weekend, I kept wondering when I’d lost control.
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Labels
As I tottered around the Palatial Horvath Estate making preparations to confront Tropical Storm Sandy a/k/a Hurricane Sandy a/k/a “The Storm Of The Century” a/k/a FRANKENSTORM, I thought about labels.
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Aftermath
It’s been a couple of weeks since I updated the blog – sorry about that. The Palatial Horvath Estate, although not on the coast, was in the direct path of Hurricane Sandy. I lost power on Monday night October 29th, and didn’t get it back until Friday night, November 2nd. The Horvath Family Manse, and my elderly mother, lost power on Monday and got it back on Saturday.
We were two of the lucky ones. Many people in the area lost power for significantly longer. Some of them had just gotten it back when they lost it again after the storm on November 7th that slapped the coast with snow.
You never think too much about electricity until you don’t have it for a significant amount of time. My mother and I both have public water, so at least we didn’t have to worry about flushing the toilet, but most other things were dead – including traffic lights and gas stations in our towns.
The Wal-Mart down the street from me never lost power. I find that amusing.
First there was the rain and the wind and the fury. Then it calmed and, with the electricity off, everything was quiet (well, quiet until my neighbor bought a generator and started it up). It was cold – cold enough that I could see my breath in the morning. It was dark. I find that without electricity I immediately switch to more natural sleep patterns – meaning I go to sleep when it’s dark and get up when it’s light. I got more sleep during the time the electric was off than I have in months. Maybe not since the electricity went off for five days last October 29th.
There was a stillness to those powerless days. It was almost an enforced hibernation. A yanking back from the insanity of modern life. Political rants on Facebook did not matter – I couldn’t access the internet until Thursday anyway. Competing ideologies did not matter. Nothing mattered except making sure my friends and loved ones were all right, staying warm, and finding something to eat. The true basics of life.
And what is the aftermath of this impressive storm? The Palatial Horvath Estate and the Horvath Family Manse did not suffer any damage, but many others did. Some people were injured in the storm itself, or in the cleanup.
But for all of us, this can be a time of new beginning. Sandy forced us back to the very basics of life – life stripped of our modern conveniences. Then the modern conveniences came back.
What we do now is up to us.
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The Blogging Poem
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Happy Day
So, today is my birthday. It’s one of those “milestone” birthdays that you either try to ignore, or celebrate intensely to dull the pain.
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I Like Fall
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Revisions
Okay, so I’ll come clean and tell you that my contemporary romance novel was rejected by Carina Press. I was disappointed, but the editor sent me a very, very nice email and gave me some suggestions to point me in the right direction. If you’re a writer, I don’t have to tell you how unusual that is – most of the time you get a form letter and a hearty farewell.
I let things sit for a couple of weeks, but it wouldn’t leave me alone so I’m taking some time to work on revisions before I continue working on the next book.
It’s my own fault. I should have known there was still work to do when I was having so much trouble finding the ending. In part I panicked because I felt like I should have had another book finished by this point. On the other hand, I probably also decided it was finished just because I was tired of revising.
It can be annoying to run the same course over and over again. After a while you can’t see what you’re actually looking at. You just see “I want this to be finished” and so you call it complete.
If you’re like me, then once you finally have the basic structure of a thing set, whether it be in art or in life, you forget it can still change. You try to work within the framework you’ve created, even if the framework has problems. Pulling apart an existing framework is like performing microsurgery – you have to put on your magnifying glasses and look at the thing strand by strand. It’s a lot more fun to decorate a house than it is to repair a cracked foundation.
As far as my manuscript goes, I think I know where I went astray, so I’m picking apart the strands to sew them into a different pattern. I know the basic changes I want to make, but one change in a story leads to other, bigger changes down the road so I have some work ahead of me.
Stories. They’re like life. One change leads to a bunch of others.
What else can we do but enjoy the trip?
“Good writing is essentially rewriting.”
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Clean Out The Closet
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen that last night I dreamt I cleaned out my closet and got rid of a lot of stuff.When I woke up this morning and remembered the dream, I was kind of amused. I’ve been determined to get organized this fall, so I’ve purchased a lot of storage boxes (which are now sitting in my kitchen). I figured the boxes were calling to me.
But the more I thought about the dream, the more I realized it went deeper than that.
In the dream, I was in my parents’ house in my old bedroom. The closet had a small section close to the bedroom, but it also had a larger back room (this was some closet!) I knew that I had forgotten about that back room and I hadn’t been in it in thirty years. I knew that it needed to be cleaned out, so I opened it up and went in.
The back room of the closet was very large – larger than the rest of the house (hey, it was the TARDIS of closets). It was filled with row upon row of stuff. Bookshelves and books, clothes and furniture. All of the things I’d purchased over the years was there – books, record albums, clothing, tapes. It was all piled in there, moldy and rotting. Precious little could be saved – it had all sat in this back room forgotten. Now it was all useless.
People I knew were helping me clean up and they were taking boxes and bags away. Everything in that room – wheelbarrows of stuff – was either going to be sold in a yard sale or trashed. Quite a lot of it was trash.
I looked around and started to cry. So much money spent for things I had let molder in the closet. They were locked away, apparently safe, but they had been forgotten and left to rot.
I’ve been thinking about this dream, and it occurred to me how much money and time and effort I spend acquiring things I just stuff in my closet. Not only physical items, but other aspects of my life are acquired, shoved in the closet, and left to mold, forgotten.
I’m still trying to understand everything the dream was trying to tell me. But I guess one lesson is, you can keep something, try to protect it, squirrel it away, and all it will do is clutter up your closet.
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Ball of Confusion
The problem with books about writing is that a lot of writers write good books about writing. Because they are written by professional writers writing about something they love (writing), the books are usually persuasive and present compelling arguments for whatever arguments the book is trying to compel you toward. They might even have good tips or advice.
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Re-Imagining
I don’t have much time to do it these days, but I love building miniature scenes. Not children’s dollhouses so much, but true little settings or shadowboxes. The photo to the left is from a shadowbox I have in a curio cabinet.
One thing I love about miniatures is the way they make your imagination work. You look at a full size thing and say, “hmm…what can that be in my miniature world?” Thus a necklace clasp becomes a little deadbolt, and the pendant becomes a wall-hanging. Florist tape and wire becomes a palm tree and buttons (with the shank cut off) become dishes. You look at a thing, re-imagine it in another setting, and voila! It becomes something else.
I think we need to do that in our lives as well. We need to look at the bits and pieces we’ve stuck together and try to imagine them differently, to see them in new ways and in new settings. Is the way we’ve always understood or looked at a thing the only viable configuration? If we turn it just the slightest bit, could it be something else?
When you’re presented with an object or an idea, it’s hard to see it differently than what you’re told it is. If you are given a button, and told it is a button, it’s hard to look at it and say “hey, you know what? This is really a tiny plate.” We so often are trapped by what we think a thing is.
So today I invite you to look at what’s around you and inside you and re-imagine. Even if you don’t build anything new out of what you see, seeing them differently might help you understand that everything can change.
Even you.
This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.
Steven Pressfield
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Traveling Time
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Which Do You Want More?
A lot of times the question I’m asking isn’t “what do you want?” It’s “which one do you want MORE?”
For example:
“Do you want to buy a new car? Or do you want to be out of debt? Which do you want more?”
“Do you want to eat a baked good? Or do you want to be fit? Which do you want more?”
“Do you want to watch the Kitten Cam? Or do you want to push forward on your book? Which do you want more?”
And the problem I run into is I don’t want either of them more. I just want them both.
In other words,
“Do you want to play solitaire or do you want to write?”
“Yes”
“Do you want to shop at the Best Buy or do you want to pay down your credit card?”
“Yes”
“Do you want to have pizza or would you rather have low blood sugar?”
“Yes.”I think you can see where this line of thinking can cause some issues.
The problem is, when I ask the question “which do you want more?” the thing I actually WANT more is the thing that will not take me to a better place. And yet I know I shouldn’t want it, I know I should want the other, better thing, even though I don’t. So asking which I want more just leads me to answer “yes”
I guess the question should be not “which do you WANT more?” but “which do you NEED more?” Much though I might rationalize needing a bagel (hey, I can rationalize any baked good), I know I need to be healthy more.
So, I guess I’ll try to change the question I’m asking, because answering “yes” to “which do you want more”, just leads to inertia. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been inert long enough.
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A Few Thoughts On Habits
Habit: an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. (www.dictionary.com)
Habits. We all have them. Whether we want them or not.
As the definition says, to create a habit you have to do the same thing over and over again, for an extended period of time, until the action or thought pattern becomes almost involuntary.
Awesome. It’s like hardwiring your brain. Talk about a timesaver!
Buuuut….
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
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Finding The Blogosphere Part 2
When last we left our intrepid band of adventurers, they were getting ready to enter the Emerald City in search of the Great and Powerful Blogosphere…
Betsy: Wow. Everyone in this city is…green.
Coffee: It ain’t easy.
Muse: And they’re all singing. I want to sing too!
Betsy: No. We have to find the Great and Powerful Blogosphere.
Coffee: Maybe we should follow the sign that says “This Way to the Great and Powerful Blogosphere.”
Betsy: Shut up.
*all three creep through city, following signs* *enter a room* *stop short at sight of giant monster*
Monster: What do you waaaaannnnnttttt!!!
Muse: I want to know who does your makeup! You are like totally goth!
Betsy: Muse, please. Monster, we’re looking for the Great and Powerful Blogosphere.
Monster: Blooogggooooosphere? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Coffee: Hey, there’s something behind this curtain.
Monster: Pay no attention to the machinations behind the curtain.
Betsy: *darts forward* *pulls down curtain* Blogosphere! It IS you.
Blogosphere: *sigh* Yeah.
Betsy: Well why in the hell have you been avoiding me? Why have you turned your back on me?
Blogosphere: You turned your back on me first.
Coffee: Told you.
Betsy: I have not turned my back on you. When did I turn my back on you?
Blogosphere: Hey, you don’t have time for me? I don’t have time for you either.
Outta sight, outta mind.Betsy: But I had to get my book finished. I had to move on with my life. YOU told me to do that!
Blogosphere: Well, I didn’t mean you should ignore me. You think I care about your life? If you’re not interacting with me, you do not exist.
Muse: Now that’s not fair, Bloggie, honey. She was spending some quality time with me. BFF, you know?
Blogosphere: *shrug*
Betsy: *stares, disillusioned* I get it now. You…you’re all tricks and magic but…but there’s nothing of substance to you. *eyes fill with tears* *lip quivers* I just want to write a good blog. But if I’m not following you around like a sheep you don’t want to have anything to do with me. *sob*
Muse: *puts hand on Betsy’s shoulder* Hey, I’m a freaking goddess, I don’t care what Bloggie says, I’m telling you that you have the creativity.
Coffee: *dribbles on Betsy’s foot” And I’m a freaking beverage. I’m telling you that you have the caffeine.
Betsy: *turns to hug Muse and Coffee* Thanks, guys. I’m just going to go on write the best darn blog I can. And piffle on the Blogosphere anyway!
Coffee: Piffle?
Blogosphere: *heavy sigh* Oh, all right. I’ll come visit you again – I promise. Now get out of here. Put on these ruby slippers and click them together three times while saying “there’s no place like my homepage”.
Betsy: The ruby slippers are diabetic sneakers?
Blogosphere: Go. I have some more smoke and mirrors to take care of before the next celebrity scandal hits.
Betsy: *looks at Muse and Coffee* Ready?
*Muse and Coffee nod*
Betsy: *takes deep breath* There’s no place like my homepage. *click* There’s no place like my homepage. *click* There’s no place like my homepage. *click*
whirl whirl whirl whirl
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Finding The Blogosphere
Betsy: Blogosphere?
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It’s Not Perfect
As you know if you read my last blog post, I sometimes have trouble finishing things. Part of that is, as I mentioned, because when you finish something it goes out into the world to be judged by the masses (most of the time). That can be a little intimidating. But the other reason I sometimes have trouble finishing a thing is because I have a hard time knowing when it’s, well, finished.
One of the many valuable lessons I learned going through the whole publishing process with HOLD ME, is that nothing’s ever perfect. You try to make something perfect, you try to revise and refine and whittle away at it, and people still look at the thing and see major flaws. I don’t care what you’re doing – you just can’t please everyone. On the other hand, you want to do the best that you can. You want to give it your all and make it the best thing that it can be at that moment.
So, how do you know when it’s finished? How do you know when you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns, when the revisions or changes or tweaking you’re going to do will just steal the life out of the thing instead of making it better? When do you know that it’s time to take the next step and move beyond where you are now?
I don’t know. I’m still learning. I know that you can’t base your decision on what you think other people will say. I know that you can’t NEVER make that decision – at some point you’re going to have to move forward. I think all you can do is look at the thing you’re doing with a heart open to know when it is the best you can make it. Then you have to let it go. And realize that it’s not perfect.
Which is easier said than done. 🙂
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Finish What You Start
You may have noticed that I haven’t been around the blog too much in the last few weeks. Well, maybe you noticed. Maybe somebody noticed. Maybe? Hello?The reason I haven’t blogged much lately is I was finishing up a book I’ve been working on (a contemporary romance novel). Sometimes I have trouble finishing things. When you finish something, it usually needs to go out into the world to be viewed by others. That’s scary.
For this new book, I gave myself a deadline. Okay, I gave myself several deadlines. And I missed them. Looking back, I probably invented reasons to miss them, although I didn’t think so at the time.
I finally pulled on my big girl panties and gave myself a drop-dead deadline. I committed myself totally to meeting that deadline because I knew that if I didn’t, I would be fooling around with the manuscript for months to come, making deadlines and missing deadlines.
Last month, whenever I wasn’t working at my day job, or caring for my mother, I was working on my manuscript. I was focused and I was intent. This thing was going to get done, and it was going to be submitted. I was going to finish what I started.
My drop-dead, if-I-don’t-meet-it-I-won’t-respect-myself-in-the-morning deadline was Labor Day. And, I made it. Actually I probably could have made the day before, but because I felt like I had time, I fooled around and didn’t have the synopsis finished.
Regardless, I got the book done, and I got it submitted on Labor Day. Then I went into a full-blown, hyperventilating panic attack. Then, on Tuesday I started another book. And now I’m flailing around like a muppet on a stormy sea once again.
Will the book I submitted be accepted? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll have to submit it to multiple publishers, or if it will be considered publishable at all. I know that I like it, and it amused me when I wrote it and I had a lot of fun writing it. I also know that I started it, I refined it to the best piece of work I could produce at this time, and I finished it. No matter what happens now as I go through the whole submission process, it is a success as far as I’m concerned.
I guess the moral of the story is: no one will ever benefit from anything you’re trying to do if you don’t actually start. And they won’t know the thing exists if you don’t finish it and get it out there into the world.
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Care And Feeding
Feed me, Seymore. Feed me all night long.
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Where Do You Invest Your Time?
As you may know if you’ve read my blog before, I have a love-hate relationship with Time. Well, it’s more of an epic struggle. I wrestle with time the way Jacob wrestled with the angel at the side of the road. I’m kind of outmatched.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about time and the way I use the time I’ve been given. It occurred to me that the activities where you invest your time are the activities where you see returns in your life.
Think of time as Monopoly money. We’re all given a bankroll when we begin playing the game of our lives – a certain amount of time allocated to us for our own use. We get to invest that time in whatever we want. We’re using our time to purchase things, and where we spend it determines what we’ll get.
There are some things we have to do – like clean the house. We can invest a minimal amount of time in cleaning and organizing the house. A minimal amount of time investment produces a house that looks like mine. Or you can invest a lot of your time cleaning and organizing the house. Then you may end up with a closet fit to host the Queen of England should she come pay a visit. And that’s absolutely fine as long as you find the payment you receive (a clean house, a spectacular closet) to be worth what you invest to get them (your time).
But I think you have to be careful. If your goal is to be a writer, then you have to invest your time – your QUALITY time – writing. If you invest it in Twitter or Facebook, chances are you will be paid with many followers, more than a little drama – and no book. If your goal is to be a painter, then you’d better invest your quality time painting. If you invest it in other things, you’ll be rewarded – but you won’t be rewarded with a painting. Ditto with any other pursuit worth pursuing. You have to invest your time heading in the direction you want to go. If you invest it elsewhere, you’ll end up in a different place.
Well, that’s the way it works in my life anyway.
So, where did you invest your time today?
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The Story of “Joey Balone”
In honor of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars earlier this week, I thought I would share the story of “Joey Balone” from the Little Betsy files. I’m pretty sure I meant “Joey Baloney”.
This was written at the beginning of third grade when I was 8. It might be a little hard to read from a .jpg, so I’ve typed the full text after the photo, preserving the original spelling for full impact.
And away we go!
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The Trouble With Self-Imposed Deadlines
You may be shocked to hear this, but I have trouble with time. It always takes me longer to get where I need to be than I think it will. If I want to be somewhere by a particular time, I usually have to fool myself about either the time I have to leave, or the time I need to get there. Otherwise I find myself leaving the house at the time I should be arriving at my destination. Since teleportation does not exist in my neighborhood, and Dr. Who is busy saving the galaxy, this generally means I’m going to be late.
Just as a side note regarding teleportation, do you remember the remake of the movie “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum? Creepy. I think even if teleportation did exist, I’d still drive.
I have the same problem with self-imposed deadlines as I do with appointments. I set a goal, set a deadline, and then apparently think I’ll get to the destination almost immediately. However, as with a physical journey, the journey from idea to achievement of a goal can take a little time. Invariably I leave the starting block too late, life gets in the way, and I see my deadline speeding towards me like a pack of wild elephants. In panic, I push it off, say I’ll start again tomorrow, and go eat carbs to drown my sorrow. The deadline never gets hit, and the objective never gets met, or gets met a lot later than I’d hoped it would.
Ironically I’m only this bad with self-imposed deadlines. If somebody else gives me a deadline, I can usually make it with no problem. It’s like being expected at a particular place at a specific time – I do whatever I need to do to make it happen. In other words, I’m okay when it’s not just about me. If I’m trying to meet another person’s expectations, I give what I’m doing importance.
Someone once said that a “goal was a plan with a deadline”. Well, if a goal has a deadline, and if I have trouble meeting my self-imposed deadlines, then I”m going to have trouble meeting my goals. And that means I need to give my goals and the deadlines associated with them the same priority I would give another person’s expectations. After all, shouldn’t I want to meet my own expectations? Shouldn’t the expectations I have of myself be given priority and importance too?
I guess the short way of saying this is, life gets in the way. And you need to set reasonable deadlines you at least have a chance of hitting. But if you have a goal, you can’t keep pushing the deadline out of the way to make room for everyone else.
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The Benefits Of Routine
I’ve probably said this before, but there really are a lot of benefits to routine. I’m always reminded of this when my routine is broken for one reason or another.
I’ve found that in my life I need a routine. I need structure. Without it, I find one thing bleeding into the next until the whole day has passed with precious little to show for it. But if I have a plan, I can get things accomplished.
I also find a routine to be comforting. It’s a way of controlling an uncontrollable world, and gives me a way of having power in my own life. I might not be able to control the stock market, or world governments, or even my Internet connection, but I can control my routine, at least to a certain extent. The order of a daily structure helps me anchor my life and opens a window of space and time and opportunity for the Muse to show up for a lengthy conversation.
You might think that having a daily structure would stifle creativity, but it really doesn’t. Rather, the framework gives me a chance to be who I am. As with a sonnet or a haiku, there is a set structure, but the exploration of possibilities within that structure is endless.
But life being what it is, you can’t always follow your routine. People and circumstances push into your personal space, push past the boundaries you’ve established, push aside your routine and insist on their own demands. I find those times to be especially challenging. I become disoriented and much less productive. I also find myself becoming extremely anxious and looking around for ways to anchor myself. Some of the ways I choose are not good alternatives. So I cherish and try to preserve my routine, and I try to build enough flexibility into it that I can bend without breaking.
I hope this doesn’t make me anal, but I guess it probably does. And I’m okay with that. Because there are a lot of benefits to a good routine.
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Muse In The Morning
For your entertainment, I would like to share a typical morning conversation between me, my Muse and Coffee.
Betsy: *drags self out of bed and over to computer* Hi.
Muse. Hey.
Betsy: *yawn*
Muse: Is that Coffee?
Betsy: Yeah.
Coffee: Hi.
Betsy and Muse: Hi.
Coffee: Wanna drink?
Betsy: More than life.
Muse: Don’t make the “you consume me” joke again.
Coffee: ‘K. *pours*
Betsy and Muse: *sip, sip, sip*
Muse: Okay, we ready to do this?
Betsy: I guess. *brings up Word document*
Muse: *murmur, murmur* *drinks more coffee*
Betsy: *type, type* *drinks more coffee*
Coffee: Oh, yeah. We’re moving now. Caffiene, baby!
Muse: *talk, talk, talk, talk, talk* *drinks more coffee*
Betsy: *type, type, typity type* This is great! Where’s this coming from? *drinks more coffee*
Muse: Hello! I’m a freaking goddess! *SHOUT SHOUT SHOUT*
Betsy: *clatter, clatter* Wait! Wait! I’m missing it!
Muse: I DON’T CARE! *SHOUT SHOUT*
Coffee: MORE! DRINK MORE! BWHAHAHAHAHA!
Betsy: AHHHHHH! I have to stop! I’m going to be late for work!
Muse: No! *SCREAM SCREAM*
Coffee: Drink, my minions! DRIIIINNNNNKKKKK!
Betsy: No! No, please! I have to stop!
Muse: I WILL NOT LET YOU!
Betsy: I have to…have to….have to….*reaches out with shaky hand* *powers down computer*
Muse: *scoffs* Oh, and you think that’s going to stop me? I’ll just keep talking in your head the whole way to work when you’re driving and can’t do anything about it. HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Coffee: And I’ll zip through your bloodstream for hours and then let you drop right when you need me the most! MWHAHAHAHA!
Betsy: no….no…. *whimper* *drags self off to get dressed*
Muse: *heavy sigh of satisfaction* *stretches* Man, I need a cigarette. So, same time tomorrow, right?
Coffee: You bet, babe. Hey, why don’t we call the Blogosphere and then torment her with shame because she’s surfing the net?
Muse: *wink* I like the way you think.
Betsy: NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
And then I go to work.
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Fear
Sometimes I find myself totally paralyzed by fear. It comes from many sources and for many reasons. Usually it’s fear of failure or a fear of my own inadequacy in a particular situation. Sometimes it’s fear of the future or fear of the consequences of my own actions. Sometimes it’s fear of change or the potential that might come after change. But I find myself stopped at the crossroads, unable to make a decision (as I mentioned in this blog post).
I have to remember that, even when fear has me in its teeth, I always have at least two choices. I can choose to stay, or I can choose to move.
I can, if I wish, let fear keep me in place. I can let it rob me of everything I want in my life. I can let it steal my energy and my dreams. Or I can move anyway. Even when I’m so afraid that my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating. Even when I don’t know exactly why I’m afraid, I just know that I’m terrified. I can push the fear aside and move forward in spite of it.
I’ve been trying to remind myself of these things in the past couple of weeks. I want to change, but change is frightening. I want to continue to move forward, but movement is terrifying. I want things to be different, but different means things will not be the same and that’s scary. Even if I think I am not choosing, the choice is there – to stay paralyzed, or to move forward.
Here’s a poem by Langston Hughes addressing this very subject:
Dreams
by Langston HughesHold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.I think we have to look at the fear, acknowledge it, and choose to fly anyway.
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I Am Not In Anaheim
I am not in Anaheim. Nora Roberts is. But, wait. Am I telling you the truth? After all, have you ever seen me and Nora Roberts in the same place at the same time? Could it be…. Hmmmm….
