Betsy Horvath

Everybody has a story.

Betsy’s Blog

  • Memories

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    the museO Coffee, my CoffeeBetsy    …and then do you remember how the Muse got all caffeinated and we laughed and laughed because she was just chattering and jumping around…

    Muse     I was not!

    Betsy    You certainly were! After that typing session my arms were so sore I couldn’t even take off my glasses!

    Coffee   *chuckles* *kisses Muse on cheek* Ah, ma Cherie, you did indeed zip around Betsy’s brain like you were on amphetamines.

    Muse     When all I was really on was you, pookie *snuggles into her cup*

    *general laughter*

    Betsy     Good times. Good, good times. *sip*

    Coffee    Here. Let me bring you another mug of myself.

    Betsy     No, no. I’m good. I have to get up tomorrow and go to *sigh* work.

    Muse     Um, we didn’t want to say anything, but Coffee and I have noticed you haven’t been spending nearly as much time with us this week as you did last week.

    Coffee    Yes, ma petite. You’re back to only drinking three or four pots of me a day, and a lot of that is *shudder* decaf.

    Betsy      I know. How well I remember those full caf days we had last week. I ran and ran and ran….

    Muse      And now I try to buzz in your mind, but you’re too busy thinking about, like, marketing. And it’s so dark in your brain now. And cold. And vacant.

    Betsy     O Muse, I know it’s frustrating for you. Just stick with me, honey, okay? Last week I could leave the lights on in my brain all the time.  This week we’re back to working with strobe lights.

    Muse      *pouts* Well I don’t like it. I want you to spend all of your time thinking about me.

    Coffee    And I want to give you the energy and excitement you had while you were hiding in your house like ze mole.

    Betsy     I can’t. I just can’t. I have to be grown-up about these things *stomps foot* And that means I have to, you know, work. Make a living. Pay bills.

    Muse      I thought *I* was your living. 

    Betsy     Sadly, no. In the regular course of life you, my sweet Muse, must share your space with thoughts of *sip* marketing.

    Muse      Humph.

    Betsy     And you, my bold friend Coffee, must share my refreshment, not only with decaf, but with *sip* water.

    Coffee    Merde!

    Betsy     Tell me about it.

    *silence*

    Muse      But when the strobe lights are on, they’re all on me?

    Betsy     You’re like a stripper doing a pole dance, baby.

    Coffee    And you may drink water, but you won’t drink…tea. Will you?

    Betsy     Never!

    *Coffee and Muse exchange a look*

    Coffee    Okay. I’ll be there when you brew.

    Betsy     Thank you, Coffee. And Muse? Will you desert me?

    Muse      Not… yet.  

    Betsy     I love you both so much. And remember – we’ll always have vacation. We didn’t… we’d lost it…we got it back when you came to Casablanca.

    Coffee    Casablanca?

    Betsy     I mean, the Palatial Horvath Estate.

    Coffee    Palatial?

    Muse     And we’ll only have vacation if you stop spending your precious time off vacuuming and mulching.

    Betsy     Hmmm.  Oh, okay. If you insist.

    talking to coffee

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  • Creativity Is Important

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    butterfly1As I contemplated going back to work at the end of my week of vacation, I realized I was looking around the house thinking, “I really didn’t get much done.”

    Wait…what?

    I wrote every day for at least 5 – and most days more like 7 – hours a day.  I have the structure of the book (finally) finalized.  More, I have the whole project basically roughed out, except for some scenes added due to structure / flow / plot changes.  I’ve thought about how I want to proceed once it’s finished and even came up with a pretty good cover concept in case I end up going the indie publishing route.   In other words, I made more progress toward my writing goals this week than I have in the previous eight months.  But I still felt vaguely guilty, like I hadn’t done enough with my time off.

    It occurred to me that this is one of the reasons it’s so easy to get sidetracked from a creative pursuit.  I didn’t get any gardening done.  I didn’t vacuum.  I didn’t clean.  I didn’t paint the living room.  I didn’t go to Disney World.  There isn’t a single tangible thing I can point to and say “I accomplished this on my time off,” except my book.  And I can’t even point to that yet because it’s not finished.  It’s not going to be finished for weeks, maybe even months.  All I can say is that I worked very hard, I can’t raise my arms due to inflamed tendinitis, my eyes burn like fire…and I feel better than I have in a long time.

    Because creativity, and having the time to exercise it properly, is important.  And weeks like this remind you of that fact.

    It’s easy to look at the way I spent my time and say that I didn’t “do” anything.  And only people who have creative pursuits of their own that they love will understand me when I say this was the best vacation ever.

    So it’s back to work and routine life.  The challenge now becomes, how can I carry the spirit of creativity into the week with me?  How can I hold on to the quietly important in the midst of the loudly urgent?

    It’s a question we all have to answer in our own way.

     

    `I don’t know what day of the month it is.’ said Scrooge. `I don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby.

    Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol

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  • Vacation

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  • Conference Thoughts

    conferenceI’m on vacation this week because, when I was planning my time off, I thought I would be going to the Romance Writer’s Association 2013 annual conference in Atlanta (July 17-20).

    But I’m not going.

    I’ve been trying to decide how I feel about that.  I’ve decided I feel ambivalent.

    A part of me is sad I’m not there.  This conference is a big huge deal for romance writers, and it’s freaking awesome if you are a romance fan-girl like me.  Plus, it would have given me a chance to see people I met in 2011, and to meet new people.  I’d be able to talk to people I interact with all the time on Facebook and Twitter, and I really, really wish I was there with them.  Who knows when I’ll have a chance to see them in person again?

    On the other hand, I’m pretty glad I decided not to go.  I’m feeling kind of fragile about my writing at the moment, and I’m just trying to get into a productive and professional routine with it.  You’d think it would help to attend a professional writer’s conference, but it doesn’t.  In fact, when I went in 2011 I found the conference to be a huge distraction that disrupted my writing production for months.  I’m not entirely sure why, except to say that when I’m writing – like today – I’m in a very private, interior space.  A dark, quiet place.  The conference shines bright lights into that place and it blinded me.

    Understand that I’m talking about myself here.  There are people who totally thrive on the excitement of conferences.  I’m just not one of them.  I was pulled out of my comfort zone – both personally and professionally – and it took a long time to get my balance again.   But it was also a good experience.  Not only did I meet wonderful people, but eventually I was able to come to a better understanding of myself and my writing goals.

    Will I go to the conference again?  Yes, I think I will.  There’s an awful lot to be gained by going – but you have to understand what’s being offered, and what you can expect to get out of it.  I’ll know more when I go the next time, and hopefully I’ll be able to manage myself and my time better.  But I’ll only go if I’m in a secure writing space.  The writing is what’s important.  The conference just supports that – no matter how big and glitzy and exciting it is.

    If you’re going to the RWA conference – I hope you have fun!  And I’ll miss seeing all of you so very much.  But I’m kind of glad I’m here at home working on my book too.

    writing

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  • Lazy Life

    BIG wave

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  • Why Everyone Should Be An English Major

    PileOBooksAs I discovered a few years ago, deciding to get your undergraduate degree in English – especially when you are a student of non-traditional age – is an open invitation for confusion and ridicule.

    Nobody ever questioned me when I was a marketing major or a business management major or an accounting major or a computer science major (I had a lot of majors), but when I finally committed to being an English major, people looked at me askance. Potential employers reviewed my resume and demanded explanations for my strange path. My friends tut-tutted. My parents stared at each other in horror. Why? everyone asked. Why in the world would you get an English degree? What are you going to DO with it?

    Quite a lot, actually. In fact, I’m going to boldly state that the older I get, the more I think every English-speaking person should be an English major, even if they DON’T want to be a writer or work at the Starbucks!  So there!

    All right, all right. Calm down.  I know that’s a little extreme.  But just consider this – when you pursue a degree in English, you….

    • Learn how to interpret incomprehensible stuff.

    You think that spreadsheet you’re working on is hard to understand? Please. Try reading anything written by James Joyce and interpreting it in a meaningful fashion – then we’ll talk.

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  • It’s Hard

    WritingNow that I’ve dedicated myself to writing again and am trying to pursue it with intensity, I am reminded of one important fact.

    It’s hard.

    Not the writing itself (although sometimes it can feel like you’re chiseling granite with a dental pic). No, what’s hard is sitting down to write, and then actually writing.

    That sounds stupid, I know. After all, if you love to do something, why should it be hard to make yourself do it? If you know the act itself is going to give you pleasure and fulfillment, why is it a problem?

    It makes no sense, but I think it happens with everything that’s worthwhile. As soon as we commit to a particular path, things rise up and get in the way. Internal things. External things. Fear. Arrogance. Pride. Family responsibilities. Car trouble. Drama at work. Drama at home. Anything and everything that can distract us from our goal comes into play.

    Sometimes the distractions aren’t even overt, and that makes them more insidious. As I’ve said in other posts, I have a hard time concentrating if I don’t turn off my wireless router before I start working. If I leave it on, I find myself surfing the Internet, following link after link, or browsing my various social media sites until I get a headache. People aren’t really saying anything vital, yet I sit, chin in hand, mouth open, eyes vacant, scrolling along. When I finally tear myself away, I’ve lost all of my writing time – I’ve given it to the Internet. Even turning the router off doesn’t always help. One day last week I threw away my writing time because I was re-organizing my iTunes playlists. Why did I do that? Why did I think that task was so urgent it needed to be done right that second? I have no idea.

    I think the challenges we face when pursuing a worthwhile goals are tests of our commitment. Can we push through? Can we develop good habits and good practices? Can we focus? Will we chase that thing we love even when it flits away and is caught up in the fog of everyday life? Maybe we are always offered the chance to face these challenges but we don’t notice until we’re trying to look beyond them.

    If you can muscle through, I think the reward is great. Even now, when I persevere and beat back the weeds trying to crowd me, I can see glimpses of what might be possible. And I already know that letting the weeds win, letting them swamp me and choke me, will let them steal the most valuable part of me. I know it because it’s what I’ve lived during the past year. I know it because now I’m trying to beat the weeds back, one writing session at a time.

    Man, I hope I remember all of this six months from now. Those weeds aren’t going away – they’re like darned wild strawberries. They’re just setting down stronger roots, preparing to attack again, ready to take over my whole garden.

    Because it’s hard.

     

    Lives go down the tubes one repetition at a time, one deflection at a time, 140 characters at a time.

    —Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro

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  • Always Connected

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    connectmeThanks to the unexpected and brutal death of my main computer, I find myself the proud owner of a spanking new laptop.  Don’t worry – I didn’t lose any files.  Back up, people!  Back up!  STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND BACK UP YOUR FILES NOW!

    Erm, sorry.  Anyway, because I have a new computer for the first time in four years, I’ve been introduced to the wacky and wonderful world of Windows 8.  This post will not be about Windows 8, but let me just say that Windows 8 makes me nostalgic for Vista, and I didn’t think that was possible.

    What I’ve found the most interesting about setting up a new computer is the bland assumption that everyone will be connected to the Internet at all times.  And, perhaps more importantly, the assumption that people WANT to be connected at all times.  The whole system, and most of the supporting software, is designed with one goal in mind – connectivity.

    Based on my observations, this is a pretty fair assumption.  Most people of my acquaintance have smart phones or tablets and, according to research I’ve read, computer use is switching to mobile devices in a big way.   That, combined with the new cloud-based thingees out there means everyone can indeed be connected all the time.  You can have your music all the time.  You can play your games all the time.  You can access your files all the time.  You can be on your social media networks all the time.  You can text or actually make phone calls all the time.  You can reach out and touch somebody’s hand ALL THE TIME.

    But….

    There’s a price for everything and it seems to me that there’s a steep one for all of this connectivity.  Because we are always connected, we are expected to – and indeed required to – always face outwards.  We are always supposed to be available.  Always supposed to be ready for mental company.  Always ready to interact.

    If people can always reach you, can you have a room in your own mind that’s just for you?  If’ we’re always connected to the hive, are we able to have our own private mental space as well?  Our own personal dance space?

    And if we don’t have our own space, where is our freedom to just be ourselves?  If we’re always “on”, when do we have the time to think?  To be who we are?  To create?

    Or is it the fact that we’re afraid to be who we are that makes all of this immediate connection so very tempting?  How often have you sat down at your computer to do something constructive only to find that the Internet has sucked away hours of your life without you even noticing?

    I don’t know the answers.  I just know that I need to turn off my router if I want to get anything done.  And I’m kind of glad I don’t get cell phone coverage at the Palatial Horvath Estate.

    And I hope I figure out Windows 8 soon because I’m getting some pretty big bald spots from yanking out all of my hair.

    Guess it’s a good thing I don’t have Instagram.

    buildingabridge

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  • Another Chance

  • True Confessions

    daffodils2

    Okay, dear readers, it is true confessions time here at Betsy’s Blog.

    I’ve been struggling with my writing for about eight months now. I mean, REALLY struggling. The fact is, I’ve been pretty disheartened by the whole situation.

    My second book was rejected by the publisher of my first book, and probably rightly so. That’s not unusual – writers get rejected all the time. Heck, I’ve been rejected more times than I can count. But this time it was more difficult to o’er leap the bounds of discouragement.  My work stuttered and staggered, lurched from side to side.

    At the same time, the voices in my head began speaking, and they’re not always fun to be around.

    Why wasn’t your book good enough? Why don’t you have more written? Why haven’t you produced more? Why do you only have one more book written and _____ has three? You know how you want to rework the book, why can’t you just do it? Why do you always take longer than everyone else to get things done? Why are you so slow? Why can’t you commit like ______ can?

    These are not necessarily valid or healthy thoughts, but they’ve been buzzing around inside me since last fall, growing in intensity. And finally, at the end of March, I had what I guess you could call a crisis of faith. I just couldn’t see the point of trying anymore.

    One day it struck me that I didn’t HAVE to be a writer. I told myself that, because I call myself a writer, and I’m not producing as I think I should be producing, I’m a failure. But if I DON’T try to write, then I’m not a failure…right? I mean, what the hell? Other people aren’t tormented this way. Other people just live their lives and watch the TV and go to their jobs and are perfectly happy.

    So at the end of March, I stopped writing. Everything.

    At first it was okay. I felt a little guilty, but it was also a relief not to be under all of the internal pressure.

    But the energy I’d been putting into writing turned and spun out into strange obsessions, as I mentioned in my last post. Weeks passed, and I lost my way. Most importantly, I lost my sense of self. I lost my center. I wasn’t the hamster, I was the wheel spinning around and around.

    Finally, I started writing again. Just a little.

    Before I’d stopped writing, I’d been reworking the manuscript that had been rejected. When I looked at it again, I realized it was pretty good.  Not perfect, but…pretty good.

    More importantly, as soon as I opened Scrivener to pull up my work, I felt better. I felt more like me.

    I think I needed to go through this crisis to understand (again) that I’m a writer, no matter how I second-guess myself. For better or worse, it’s not just a label I’ve slapped on myself – telling stories is an essential part of who I am.

    I also realized that some of my issues were because I felt I needed to trail after everyone else on the path towards being an “awwwthor“.  Don’t get me wrong, the business side of things – publishing, promotion, marketing – is indeed of vital importance, but for me it just can’t take priority over the actual writing.  The writing is what I love and the writing it what sustains me.  If I want to stay sane, “writer” has to come first, not “author”.

    So, I don’t know. I’m human – I still feel discouraged when I see people publishing multiple books and I only have one out. But  the past few months have taught me one thing – no matter what else I may be, I AM a writer.

    writing

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  • Between Love And Avoidance

    CypressMulchI guess I’m kind of an obsessive person.  Once my train gets on a particular track, I do not derail easily.

    In some ways that’s kind of a good thing.  It’s one of the reasons I can write a novel, clean out my closets, or mow my lawn.  I might not be fast, but I keep plugging away until the thing gets finished.  I think I can….I think I can….

    But it can also be, um, problematic.

    If I had more time and less shame I would, for example, make an excellent stalker.  When I’m in full obsession mode, I pull out all the stops and the obsession becomes my single point of focus.

    The last two months I’ve been in the middle of a full obsession attack.  This one lasted longer than most because one area of obsession morphed seamlessly into the next until I came back to sanity a week or so ago.  Don’t believe me?  I’ll show you.  Following are my recent obsessions in the order in which they appeared.

    1.  Selling books to buyback sites.

    Hey – it takes a lot of time to look up over 3000 ISBNs, especially when you have to do them one at a time for the most part.  And that doesn’t even count packing and shipping the things.  I spent hours and hours and HOURS selling these books.  It was, literally, a second job.   Although I did pay down some debt.

    which morphed into…

    2.  Learning eBay so I can sell the books the buyback sites didn’t want.

    I am now the proud owner of a digital postal scale and a variety of boxes.  I have also organized my product neatly into various containers.  I haven’t actually sold anything yet though, because before I started…

    this obsession moved without pause into…

    3.  Mulch and the spreading thereof.

    Suddenly I decided that the garden desperately needed weeding and mulching (and it did), and it was getting hot (and it was), so I had to do EVERYTHING all at ONCE and I had to do it NOW NOW NOW!  I cannot express to you how obsessed I’ve been with mulch.  Seriously.  At one point I was having dreams about its purchase, transport and spreading.  I really hate mulch.  I hate gardening.

    thoughts of mulch led to…

    4.  SUVs

    After I realized how much mulch I could carry with my sister’s SUV, I became obsessed by the thought of buying one of my own even though I can’t afford one.  I started spending a lot of time watching SUVs in parking lots, evaluating them, pricing them on-line.  In other words – I stalked them.  See?  I told you I’d be a good at it.

    and then I came back into my right mind.  More or less.

    Sadly, the above list basically takes us from the middle of April to the middle of June.  Obsession city.

    So, what were these obsessions?  What were they really (besides slightly psychotic)?

    Avoidance.

    These tasks were not avoidance simply because I performed them.  Except for the SUV insanity, everything on the list needed to be done.  No, these tasks were avoidance because I focused on them to the exclusion of all else.

    And do you see anything missing from the itemized list of obsessions above?

    That’s right – writing.  Somehow I managed NOT to become obsessed with writing, even though writing is my goal.  As a result, two months of my life went by and I basically got nothing done.

    The tasks listed above are just distractions.  They’re just things that need doing or “something to think about”.  In my life, they aren’t important in the deepest sense of the word.  Obsessing over these kinds of things lets me complain about how busy I am, when in reality I’m just running from one thing to another to avoid doing my work.

    But in the end, the work is what matters, not the amount of mulch on my flower beds.

    Because I obsessed about non-important busy-ness, I spent my precious time doing a lot of things I hate just so I can say they’re done.  And I pushed aside the thing that really does bring me joy.

    It is a true fact of life that these little, annoying, day-filling tasks are never done.  There’s always another one coming at you.

    Tomorrow may never come.

    Today is all we have.

    You will always have busy tasks.  Make room for the important stuff.

    For me, that means writing.

    Hey!  I think I’ll go do that now.

     

    More Mulch

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  • What Can I Do?

    PeonyHorrible things can happen in our city, our nation, and our world. Horrible things can happen in our neighborhood, and even – God forbid – in our homes. Yet it has been my experience that most people are still good people. Maybe not perfect – but good.  Well, as good as they know how to be.

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  • Dealing With Discouragers

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    discouragerWhen I run up against discouragement in my life, it tends to come from two different sources.

    First, I face discouragement from inside myself.  That’s when I don’t think I’m good enough, or I’m not sure I can handle what needs to be done.

    The second source of discouragement in my life comes from other people.

    These are the discouragers, and we all run into them all the time.  They’re the people who, when you tell them your dreams or hopes or plans, give you THAT look.  Then they shake their heads as if you’re insane and try to talk you out of what you’re trying to do.

    In fairness, sometimes we need to be talked out of what we’re trying to do.  Sometimes we’re heading in a direction we should not go.  Not every dream should be encouraged.

    But a lot of time the discouragers are talking out of ignorance or fear or because your actions, and the actions you are about to take, make them acknowledge parts of themselves they’d rather not face.  In that case, even if they’re speaking from a place of love and concern, what they’re saying is not helpful.

    For example, I remember talking to my dearly beloved grandmother years ago.  She was in the nursing home, but still very coherent at the time.  I was telling her about my struggles to pay for books for college and how I hoped my employer wasn’t going to change their tuition policy.  I had not gone to college after high school as a traditional student, but I had started going to night school about a year after I graduated.  I was employed full time and often had at least one part-time job while I was taking night classes.  It took me years and years and YEARS, but eventually I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in English and no student loans (since I had my various employers pick up the tab, thank you very much).

    Anyway, we were talking and she gave me THAT look and said “I don’t know why you keep going to school.  You never get anywhere anyway.”

    Um…thanks!

    I forgave her – after I calmed down – because I knew her well enough to understand why she’d said it.  But I was discouraged.  I didn’t stop going to school, but her words stayed with me for a while.

    A week or two ago, another person made a similar discouraging comment, this time about my writing.

    As with my grandmother, it was said from a place of concern, but it was still discouraging.  It still made me question whether or not I was crazy for trying to pursue something a little out of the ordinary.  It still made me wonder if I’d wasted years and years and YEARS of my life.

    But then I shook it off and moved on.  Because that’s all you can do with a discourager.

    The fact of the matter is, a discourager is just trying to keep you in the place where they’ve put you.  Sometimes they’re doing it out of love and misguided concern.  Sometimes they’re doing it because you are beyond their comprehension.  Sometimes they’re doing it due to their own insecurity.  But no matter why they’re doing it, they’re trying to keep you slotted into a comfortable definition.

    But you are not defined by other people.  They may try to box you in, but you are free.

    And you have to remember that sometimes you are a discourager too.  Sometimes you try to keep people in the boxes where you’ve put them.  Sometimes it’s uncomfortable when one of the lobsters tries to break out of the pot and you want to pull them back in the water with the rest of us.

    Sometimes we’re the windshield, sometimes we’re the bug.

    But none of us can always see what’s best for another person.

    rain

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  • Here Comes Spring!

    ForsythiaHere at the Palatial Horvath Estate, the catkins on the pussy willows are full to bursting, the forsythia have started to bloom with golden splendor, and the robins are busy building nests in both the forsythia and the pussy willow.

    Yes, okay, the winter juncos are still here, but the red-winged blackbirds are showing their red shoulder patches and singing to entice the ladies. Ducks from the nearby pond have started pairing up, waddling two-by-two for take-out at my bird feeders. This morning a love sick mallard quacked a NEVER ENDING song to the object of his affection right under my bedroom window.

    That’s right.  It’s spring.

    With all due respect to Punxatawny Phil, it seemed like spring took a while to get here this year. I asked Pennsylvania Paul – he’s the groundhog under my shed – for his opinion, but he just grunted something profane. Well, he’s taking a break from weather forecasting to spruce up his den.  I do believe Pennsylvania Paul might have a little wooing on his mind.

    I like spring. Specifically, I like early spring in Pennsylvania. We’re just on the cusp; you can feel it as soon as you walk outside. The sun is shining for a little longer, the days are a little warmer (or, today, a lot warmer). Everything is gearing up, building towards the mad dash of re-generation that happens so miraculously every year. It’s vibrating there – right under the surface, ready to pop.

    In the next day or two or three, plants will suddenly start growing a mile a minute, trees will bud, weeds will come back to life, bugs will multiply. Nature is on her mark, and in just a short time she’ll be off and racing. Birds! Buds! Leaves! Flowers! The pollen will coat my car and my sinuses. The love sick ducks quacking under my windows won’t be so cute anymore. Then the baby ducks will start coming to my feeders and they’ll be cute again.

    We’re right there. We’ve been balancing, teetering on the edge for a long time. But the forsythia are blooming now. I think they might have just pushed us over.

    Get ready, Pennsylvania – here comes spring! Ready or not! One…two…three… LIFE!

    Fast Forsythia

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  • Strangled By Books

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    BOOKS!I haven’t had time to blog this past week because I’ve started to sell books. I don’t mean I’ve become a bookseller. I mean I’ve started to sell my own books.

    I had a lot of books. A LOT of books. At the time HOLD ME was published, one of the fun facts I gave the publisher was that I had well over 3000 books. Since then, the number, um, swelled.

    A LOT of books.

    I love books. Freaking love them. I think every house should have lots and lots of books. If I get interested in a subject or latch onto a new author, I purchase EVERYTHING I can find about that subject or from that author.

    That’s not necessarily bad, but my acquisition of books had gone well beyond the point where it was healthy. I can’t tell you how much credit card debt I’ve acquired from purchasing books and e-books. I’m a publisher’s dream. I distinctly remember a time when Amazon was delivering boxes to my house EVERY DAY. Once sanity raised its head, I found I had charged well over a thousand dollars for books. And don’t even get me started on Kindle’s One Click purchasing system…

    The worst part was, I didn’t always READ the books I bought. Don’t get me wrong – I always wanted to read them, I always intended to read them. And I kept them because I told myself I would read them. Someday. Besides, what if I needed them?

    I want to be clear here – collecting books – even books you don’t read – is not a bad thing. But for ME and in MY circumstances, it wasn’t good anymore.

    A few weeks ago, I had one of those dreams. I dreamt I was struggling to walk down a road, but I could hardly move because I was weighed down by my books. They were strangling me. When I woke up, the dream clear in my mind, I realized I had begun to think of my books as a burden instead of a joy.

    After thinking some more, I saw that I thought owning a lot of books meant I was happy. If I wasn’t happy, I just needed to buy more books to become happy again. I had tied my happy to books.

    Now, I know books CAN make you happy. If you read them, and they work their magic in you, they are wonderful. But if you just own them and give them space in your house, if you resent them because purchasing them has put you in more debt, then they don’t make you happy any more.

    I also realized I’ve held onto books simply because people have mocked me for owning a lot of books. They haven’t understood the importance books have in my life. So part of it was stubborn pride on my part.

    But you can’t let the things you own strangle you just because of stubborn pride.

    So I’ve started to sell my books. Not all of my books – NEVER all of my books – but the books I owned for the sake of owning a lot of books. So far I’ve gone through my hundreds and hundreds of reference, literary and various scholarly-type books. I’ve even made money from them (thank you, book buyback sites) and what I couldn’t sell I’ve been able to donate. I haven’t really touched the paperbacks yet, but I’m making progress.

    The books left on my shelves mean something to me now. They aren’t just owned.

    It’s so easy to think that you have to hold onto something without considering why you’re doing it. It’s so easy to get to a place where we work to support our possessions because we think we need them to be happy.

    But sheer quantity of possessions – even books – can’t make us happy.

    And lifting all of the boxes of books to ship or donate them sure has built up my muscles! Here – let me flex for you.

    FLEX!

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  • 10 Bad Things About Blogging

    hello, blogosphereHello, Blogosphere.

    Hey.

    Did you know tomorrow is our two year anniversary?

    Sure.

    Do you care?

    No.

    What if I told you I didn’t want to blog anymore?

    Please.  You won’t stop.  You were practically pooping sunbeams and rainbows in your last post.

    I was not!
      (more…)

  • 10 Good Things About Blogging Regularly

    Betsy bloggingWow.  I can hardly believe it, but as of this Friday I will have been blogging regularly for two years.

    I know!  It’s crazy, right?  Yeah, I’ve missed days here and there, and I had a time in the fall last year where I didn’t give my blog much time, but for the most part I’ve been routinely posting three times a week since I went “live” on March 29, 2011.  And they said it wouldn’t last.  Well, okay, I said it wouldn’t last.  Yet here I am!  Top of the world, ma!

    As with all things in this imperfect existence of ours, I’ve found blogging regularly has its ups and its downs.  Because I’m a sunny, glass-half-full kind of a girl I thought I would share a few of the good things first.  We’ll save the bad  things for the next post.

    Okay, so here we go…10 good things about blogging regularly!   (more…)

  • Be Careful What You Give Up

    readingI know not everyone will relate to this, but I’ve made it a practice to give up things for Lent.  Every year I pick one or two things I consider to be important, and try to give them up for the seven weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  I’ve done this for years, with varying degrees of success.

    This year, I had the bright idea to give up fiction.  For seven weeks, I would give up all fiction but my own.  Books, television, audio books…all fiction.

    First, let me say I didn’t give up fiction because I consider it to be bad.  Quite the contrary.  I knew I loved fiction so much it was going to be a real sacrifice.  And I’ll admit I was hoping the “fast” would force me to focus on my writing.

    I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

    To be honest, it’s been an interesting experience.  I don’t think I ever really understood how vital fiction was in my life.  That was pretty stupid.  After all, fiction is what I do.  Not only do I write, but I read constantly – fiction – and listen to audio books – also fiction.  If I watch television (which I don’t do too often), I’m usually watching movies.  Fiction, fiction everywhere.

    Over the past few weeks, I’ve still been reading and listening to audio books, but I’ve confined myself strictly to non-fiction.  For the most part I’ve stuck with history, books on writing, and spiritual/self-improvement-y type stuff.

    I knew I used fiction as a way to escape after dealing with the usual crap all day.  I didn’t realize it was essential for my mental stability.  I don’t think that’s bad.  Sometimes you just need to be swept up in lives that aren’t your own and taken away from what’s ailing you.  Most non-fiction doesn’t do that for me.  It’s too fact-oriented.  Plus, it really happened, so there’s no fantasy.

    I was also surprised to realize how much I learn from fiction.  To be honest, I’m feeling kind of browbeaten by my strict diet of non-fiction.  Everyone is so serious and…certain. 

    Fiction tends to teach you more obliquely.  See this person?  See what they’re doing?  Let’s watch and see what happens to them…

    Now, don’t get me wrong.  Non-fiction is awesome.  But I’m more than ready to have my fiction back too.  I need the balance it brings me.

    I guess my point is – be careful what you give up.  You never know how important it is to you until it’s gone.

    Can someone read a novel and let me smell your fiction breath?

     PileOBooks

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  • Who We Think We Are

    reflectionIt seems to me that we are all two people – who we think we are and who we really are.

    Who we think we are is based on a lot of things. It’s based on how other people have seen us, and how we’ve been treated in the past. It’s based on who we’d like to be versus who we’re afraid we’re becoming. It’s based on our parents and our history and all of the millions of different experiences we’ve had from the instant we burst from the womb.

    In other words, who we think we are is very much based on the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

    The person we think we are might be far removed from who we really are. So much of our story is based on perception – our own or that of others. This can be a problem because, although you may not believe me, no human being sees with absolute clarity.

    Then there’s the fact that our perception is fluid.  How we see something or someone can change based on what we had for lunch or a dream we had the night before.

    In other words, perception is subjective. If you’ve ever been forced to sit through a company-wide meeting, you know what I mean.  You may watch the presentations and not even recognize the organization being discussed, even though you work there.  Different people see things differently.

    But here’s the thing. Perception is not who you really are. Who you really are is under all of that mud, the rock at the bottom of the river.

    To get down to the bedrock of ourselves, we have to recognize that who we think we are might, in fact, not be true. What we see when we look at ourselves might just be muddy, fluid, subjective perception. It might be that when we pull back the layers, we will see someone quite different than who we thought we’d find.  It might be that we’ll discover we’ve been telling ourselves a lie.

    And if that is what we find, my friends, then we need to rewrite our story.

    After all, nothing is chiseled in stone.  Perceptions can change.

    Even our own. 

     

    butterfly2

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  • Life Happens

    circus-bear-pic2It is one of life’s bitter ironies that just when you think you’re moving forward, stuff happens.

    In fact, I believe stuff does not happen UNTIL you feel that you are finally making progress.  I think stuff sits off to the side, chuckling to itself, watching you.  Then, just when you start to get all of your plates spinning, just when you, like a little circus bear, are dancing on top of the ball, stuff comes running into the ring and gives you a shove, cackling maniacally.   And the plates fall and the ball rolls over you and you cry like the bear you are and sit in the sawdust and eat carbohydrates.

    Or is that just me?

    And when I say “stuff”, you know I want to say something else, right?  Right.

    Stuff happened over the past week or so.  Life stuff.  Things that needed to be dealt with.  Things that were upsetting for the parties involved.   Things that took time to work out.  You know.  Crap.

    It is a fact of life that, well, life happens.  We can’t control it.  We can’t even anticipate it.  All we can do is try to keep moving as best we can in spite of it all.  Sometimes it’s not possible for your little bear to keep dancing on the ball.  Sometimes the issues are too serious, too devastating.   I have to say though, a lot of the things that tend to shove me into the dust are just crap.  It might not even be my crap.  But if it shoves me hard enough, I fall off the ball and try to escape into food or the Internet or some other mindless activity.

    I let crap derail me this time.  Under pressure, I fell back into some less than healthy patterns.  I came to a stop with my writing and now I have to start up again.  Right now, the ball is on top of my head.

    But I won’t be there for long.  My bear’s ready to dance.

    And the next time life happens, maybe I’ll be able to keep my balance.

    Instead of getting knocked off onto my…keister.

     

     Dance!

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  • Digital First: The Socratic Dialogue. Sort Of.

    ,

    Hello, Blogosphere! It’s good to see you!hello, blogosphere

    Why am I here again?

    Welllllll, because you love me. *blink, blink*

    Right. That must be it.

    No, no. *chuckle* I asked you to come here today because I had a thought.

    ERMAHGERD!

    Erm…Oh. *chuckle chuckle* You’re so darned trendy, Blogosphere.

    You betcha. So, what’s up? Time’s a-wastin’. I’ve got places to go, people to see, rantings to rant.

    Well, see, here’s the thing. Some of the blog posts I have planned seem like they’re going to be a little, well, dull.

    NO!

    Yes! And I thought maybe I would, you know, have you come on and we can discuss them instead. Won’t that be fun?

    Oh, absolutely. No.  Really. I mean it.

    I know! They’ll be like Socratic dialogues! With you! Instead of, you know, Socrates.

    Socratic…

    Remember how Plato wrote dialogues so he could state his opinions without them just being running monologues? And then he made it sound like Socrates was saying stuff that he, Plato, believed?

    I’m the Blogosphere, baby, not a philosopher. Formal logic does not compute.

    Just work with me here. Please?

    Oh, okay.  What the hell. Hit me.

    Oh! Oh, goody. Okay. *rustle, rustle* Hmmm…shopping list….to do list….plot list….

    Can we hurry this up? I’m turning into another version as we speak.

    Shut up! Oh! Here we go. *clears throat* Hello, Blogosphere.

    We did that part.

    For our first dialogue, I wanted to speak with you about digital first publishing.

    Uh huh. Why?

    Well, because you’re, you know, digital.

    Insightful and yet obvious.

    So digital first publishing is publishing, but it’s digital, FIRST.

    Get out! Really?

    Yes! So like there’s this publisher, and they contract a writer, and then they publish them DIGITALLY. FIRST. Then they might publish them other ways too, but not first. Later.

    No way! Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Digital first publishing is publishing digitally first.

    Yes! *beams*

    You’re talking about self-publishing.

    No! See that’s where people get confused. If you’re working with a publisher, digital first isn’t self-publishing. It’s kind of in-between self-publishing and the fully monty traditional I’m-going-to-be-in-every-book-store-and-the-WalMart-and-Target-and-the-grocery-store publishing. And because they publish you digitally, there are less up front costs. That means the publishers are more willing to take a chance on a new author like me.

    But the publisher still edits and comes up with the cover and markets and does all that other publisher stuff?

    Yes! In self-publishing the author has do all of that. Because they’re publishing the book themSELVES.

    Gotcha.  And they pay you royalties?

    Yes they do!

    Good.

    *silence*

    *crickets chirping*

    So, that’s it?

    Yup.

    That’s a Socratic dialogue?

    Nope. But it is a blog post.

    Yes it is.

     

    dialogue

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  • Making A Start

    startAfter I moved into the Palatial Horvath Estate, I was intimidated by my closets for thirteen years.

    Sad, but true.

    See, I wanted to organize them, but I had so much stuff jammed in there I didn’t know how to begin. Year after year it kept getting worse…and worse…and worse. It was overwhelming. So what did I do?

    That’s right. I did nothing.

    Then Hurricane Sandy came and the power went out for five days. I couldn’t go anywhere. It was cold. It was quiet. And, without even realizing what I was doing, I found myself organizing a closet.

    Once I started, I couldn’t stop myself. Over the next couple of weeks, I whipped through my closets like a gerbil on speed. I wore myself out, but most of my closets are organized now.

    What had I done? I’d started. That’s all. Just…started.

    I thought about my closets the other day as I was contemplating the manuscript I’ve been working on for over a year. I’m still learning how to work with this whole writing gig, so I’ve made another classic newbie mistake – the beginning of the book is polished and seems pretty good, but everything falls apart about half way through. Looking at the manuscript, knowing I have to fix it or I’ll be wasting a lot of good effort (not to mention over a year of my life), was overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to do it.

    What did I really need to do? I needed to start.

    That’s all. Just…start.

    So, (finally) that’s what I’ve done. I started by outlining what I had, and that’s showing me where I need to go. It turns out everything I need is mostly there anyway, there’s just a few vital pieces missing.

    The point is, I’ve started. Now I have some momentum going, but it’s only because I (finally) started.

    There’s power in making a start. Taking one step makes it easier to take the next one. It can be hard to overcome the inertia, but we have to do it. We eat an elephant one bite at a time, but if we never open our mouth to take the first bite, the elephant isn’t going to get et.

    So if you have something you’ve been putting off, start. That’s all. Just…start. Because you can’t finish it if you never take the first step.

     

    Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
    Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!  Begin it now.

    W. H. Murray
    The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

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  • No Rush

    ,

    AAARGH

     

    Sometimes I look at what I’ve done in my life as opposed to all of the things I still want to do.  That’s almost always a mistake.  It’s really easy for me to think I have accomplished very little.  Then I judge myself and tell myself I should have gotten a lot more done by this point.

    That’s when I usually panic.  Ahhhh!!!  Time is slipping away!!!  My life is waning!!!  The zombie apocalypse is coming!!!  I need to get things done NOW!

    Now

    Now

    NOW!!!!!

    The problem is when I feel like I have to get things done immediately, I rush around like a deranged chicken clucking at windmills.  Seriously.  You should see me.  I pull things out of my mental (or physical) closet and throw them around the room.  I dash from one end of the house to the other.  I mutter to myself about my plans.  I make lists.

    And lists.

    AND LISTS.

    Then, invariably, I feel overwhelmed and stuck in a prison of my own making.  Which is when I curl up on the sofa, sobbing softly while I eat carbohydrates and play solitaire.  It ain’t pretty.

    So here’s the thing I have to remember.

    There’s really no need to rush.

    Yes, I have a lot of things I want to accomplish.  And yes, I need to move forward.  I can’t just sit in my rocking chair and watch the world go by.  But just because I recognize there are things I still want to do doesn’t mean I have to get them all done this second.  In fact, as in Mario Kart, rushing to get everything done at once only increases the chance I’ll run off the road and crash into a brick wall.

    I think the most important thing is to move.  If you move, you’ll eventually get things done.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  Sitting and staring at the elephant isn’t going to get it eaten.  By the same token, trying to stuff an entire elephant into your mouth all at once isn’t exactly productive.  

    So join me in taking a deep breath.  Ready? Okay, INHALE….hold it, hold it, hold it….EXHALE.  Good.  Let us all be calm.  Just because we may not be moving as quickly as someone else we know doesn’t mean we’re failures.  We don’t need to judge ourselves.

    We need to move, but we don’t need to rush.

     

     hamster

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  • The Search For A Post, A Blogger’s Tale

    ,

    fairytaleOnce Upon A Time… there was a girl who wrote a blog.  Although it was not all she wrote, and although she did indeed have other tasks to perform, the blog did demand that she doth update it regularly.

    “Dance, little writer!  Dance!”  it would yell as it cracked a whip over her head.

    And she did dance.

    “Scurry, little writer!  Scurry!”

    And lo, she scurried.

    “Write, little writer!  Write!”

    And verily, she did write blog posts and keep the blog updated regularly.  And the blog, it was pleased.

    Then came the day when, alas, the writer did not know what to write on her blog.

    She did think and think and think.  And, lo.  Her thinker doth break and was sore.

    So she walked from the house lest the blog realize she could not update it as it demanded.  After she had walked for some time, she came across an ogre.

    “O Ogre!” she did cry.  “Please truly tell me what to write in my blog post!”

    But the ogre did just howl a great howl and brandish a club and chase her into the forest.

    In the forest, she did climb a tree and confuse the ogre.  After it had gone, she did climb down and begin walking.  And she did walk and walk until she saw Bigfoot.

    “O Bigfoot!” she did cry.  “Please truly tell me what to write in my blog post!”

    But Bigfoot did just give a mighty Bigfoot yell and he did then lift his leg and mark a tree.

    And the writer did say “Ew.” and began walking again.

    And then she saw an elf that doth look eerily like Orlando Bloom riding upon a white horse.

    “O Elf!” she did cry.  “Please truly tell me what to write in my blog post!”

    But the elf did just sneer and ride off on his white horse.

    Finally, all despairing, the writer did returneth home.

    “O what shall I write!” she did cry.  “The blog will be much displeased with me!”

    And she did shudder at the thought of the blog’s displeasure.

    Then one of her cats did come forth and spaketh thus:

    “Oh, for God’s sake!  Just write any damn thing you want to write!”

    And so the writer did.

    And they all lived happily ever after.

    Except for the ogre, because ogres are notorious for their bad moods.

     

    The End

     

    unicorn

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  • Single, Working, Writer

    computerwithcatI am single.

    I work.

    I write.

    Ergo – I have no time.

    I love writing, I have to work, and I’m actually quite happy to be single, to tell you the truth.  But they each do tend to produce their own difficulties.  And managing them all together can be somewhat…challenging.

    Here’s the thing – if you’re single and live alone, everything that needs to be done has to be done by, well, you.  I mean, I can tell the cats to take out the trash or do the dishes, but they don’t cooperate very well.  Yes, I know I need to put my writing first, but honestly I also need clean underwear.  And I can only live in so much filth before I feel compelled to do something about it.

    I read a book by Nora Roberts where the heroine worked all day, took care of a child as a single parent, stayed up all night setting up her own business and cleaning her house AND got involved in a passionate affair.

    Right.

    Oh – and then there’s the one, another Nora, where the woman is a witch and she cooks, right?  So she gets up at the butt-crack of dawn every morning, sings while she bakes muffins, gets to work by 7:00 am with a full load of (freshly made) food for the day, learns all about magic and witchcraft, AND gets involved in a passionate affair.

    Maybe Nora is an insomniac, but this is not happening in my life.

    We all have our challenges.  People who want to write or do something else creative and have families (especially young children) probably have it harder than I do.  At least I have a little  control over my schedule.  I know a lot of people who plan to live their lives after the children have moved out.

    I’m here to tell you that it won’t be any easier then.  There will always be new excuses, new reasons not to reach for what you want.  And it will always be difficult.

    You just have to do it.

    So, I’m going to stop whining about my time and get with the program.

    But I’m still not singing as I get up early in the morning to bake muffins.

     

     run run run

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