Category Archives: Snippets of the Everyday

These posts don’t deal directly with my writing life, though of course, inspiration comes from everywhere.

Violence and Silence: Lessons in Leadership

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I stumbled upon this Ted Talk while procrastinating on Twitter researching for my WIP. It’s roughly 20 minutes long, but it’s worth the watch.

For those who don’t have time to watch the video now, Katz challenges the current dialogue around violence, stating that most of the discourse centers around the victim (oftentimes, turning the conversation into one of victim-blaming) rather than the perpetrator of violence.

In a linguistic example that morphed the line “John beat Mary” into “Mary was beaten by John” to “Mary is a battered woman,” we see how even these cognitive structures are set up to be passive against the attacker and focused on the victim.

The victim then gets the spotlight, while the perpetrator is left unexamined.

In cases of domestic or sexual violence, for instance, we seem to ask:

“Why didn’t she just leave him? What was she thinking being with him/wearing that outfit/going to that party?”

versus

“Why did he hit her? Why did he rape her?”

Or, an even better question, “What are we doing in this society that would allow or influence these decisions?”

Jackson Katz makes many, many great points, but the one that resonated the most with me is one of Leadership. It’s not enough to talk about the problems in our society, or who is at fault, or why. The point is that true Leaders will act not only in response to an immediate need but will also act to avoid perpetuating the cycle of violence; as a bystander to the perpetrator and victim, how would you respond?

This Ted Talk found its way to me right after I read a great article from The Art of Manliness.* In it, McKay recounts two incidents that happened in New York, both nearly identical life-or-death circumstances. In the first incident, bystanders looked on while someone was killed and in the second, the bystanders interceded and saved a life.

McKay goes on to ask: Why do some men freeze up and react passively in a crisis, while others take action? Why do some run away from danger and others run toward it?

Why are some men sheep and other men sheepdogs?

And which one are you?

Needless to say, I have a lot of reflecting to do about what action I would take as a bystander.

{*I highly suggest you subscribe to The Art of Manliness if you don’t already.}

Clarity

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“All things are difficult before they are easy.”

April was hands down the most challenging month I’ve experienced in recent memory (and that includes the craycray of this past holiday season). There were days that I refused to go to sleep because that meant that Today had ended, and Tomorrow would come. I did not want Tomorrow to come. Tomorrow meant yet another Obligation to face down, another Necessary Evil to endure, another Reality Check that I needed to accept. Tomorrow was heavy, and I was tired of shouldering that burden day after day.

On top of that, there was the never ending winter weather that melted into apocalyptic April showers, and pretty soon, I believed that this heaviness was my new normal, with no end in sight. It’s like every facet of my life decided to challenge me at the same time. To quote dear Bilbo Baggins, I felt “stretched…like butter scraped over too much bread.” I seriously considered just withdrawing from the world, and living on my own little island.

That is, until the internal and external challenges I faced came to a head and I was more or less forced to stop All The Doing and Busyness, take a step back, and evaluate my situation from a more objective place.

What did I find? I found that I had a problem with perfection that I NEVER thought I had inside me. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the heaviness I experienced was the constant disappointment I felt against myself because I didn’t know All The Things and I didn’t execute Things perfectly on my first try. I mean, that need for perfection tainted my view on everything recently, including feeling betrayed by my body when I caught my first cold in seven years.

Once I did recognize it, I was able to correct my mindset and began to find peace. I allowed myself to accept my fumbles and missteps. I let myself be OK with uncertainty. And, I found myself being grateful for this much needed experience just so I can look back and remember how I can be better next time. More importantly, I now have this reminder that I faced seemingly big challenges, and I was able to stretch, scrape, and push myself past them. If I could do it once, I can surely do it again.

I’m not going to lie: it’s hard to face your own incompetence day after day. I know. I live it. But man, when that moment of clarity dawns on you, when the fog in your mind disappears and you suddenly see the solution to the problem you’ve been staring at for-freaking-ever, you almost feel like the god of your own universe. That moment, in and of itself, far outweighs the price of all the struggle.

manager photo[Edited to include photo]

A Peek Outside

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I like my cave.

My cave is warm and filled with coffee and the occasional chocolate.

No one lives here but me. I am enough.

I create things of beauty and light and wonder.

I don’t wonder if I am good enough or original enough or artsy enough.

My creations make me happy.

But then, I peek outside, and see All The Others do All The Things, Things that are BIGGER and BETTER than I can ever make them, and I feel so small. And my creations are nothing but misshapen lumps in my hands. I let them go and they drop with a thud.

I shuffle back into my cave.

My cave that is no longer warm but cold and I huddle in a corner.

But now instead of just me, a great many Others fills my cave.

They crowd me.

I am lonely.

But then.

Then.

My creations peek into my cave. They call to me.

I resist. I remember the small feelings, and how they can hurt.

One by one, my creations return to me. I refuse to see them. But they refuse to go until they are seen.

And little by little, I see them.

And I see they are not misshapen lumps after all. They are just different from All the Others’ Things.

And even so, their form is not the point, not the goal in itself. Creating them is.

I am happy when I create them, and in that moment, the creation is a thing of beauty and light and wonder.

I remember this truth, and I crowd out All the Other voices.

And I see that All the Other voices is just my own insecure voice echoing around my cave.

And when I stop speaking my insecurities, they disappear and I am just me again.

In my warm cave filled with coffee and the occasional chocolate.

And I see that I am enough.

Here’s To The Dreamers

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“Do not go gentle into that good night…”

Some time in between facing a challenging time at my paythebills job, watching episodes of the Korean drama, “Shut Up and Let’s Go,” and reading Inheritance, I had one of those moments, an epiphany I guess, about my long term goals and what I really wanted out of my life, and why I’ve been struggling recently to do anything about them even though I knew what I needed to do to accomplish my goals.

It’s silly to even think about it because my issue was so obvious: fear. There were different flavors and rationalizations, but it all boiled down to fear. Paralyzing, life-ignoring, shield-myself-from-pain-and-disappointment, fear.

Well, enough of that. Issues of failing or succeeding, which by the way, are arbitrary measures, were never present in my goal-setting in the first place. I chose my goals simply because they made me happy, and regardless of any other external factor, I’d be doing them anyway (the only difference is now I have deadlines).

Also, it’s no surprise to me that experiencing other dreamers daring to live their dreams gave me the epiphany (read: punch in the face) that I needed to push on. No one accomplishes much by wallowing.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Steve Jobs

2K A Day–Word Counts and Workouts

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The end of this month will mark the anniversary of when I first started really working on WIP2. I’d had the idea, the first chapter, and scene sketches since January 2011, but was still stubbornly working on my Hot Mess of a first novel.

Now, after a few breaks, a few re-visions (one of which was a POV switch from first person to third. Now I’m back to first), and a few weeks of seriously considering shelving it, here I am a year later fleshing out WIP2. And, this is by far, my most exciting re-vision yet.

I’ve been able to commit to, and complete, 2K words a day. It’s only been a week, but any progress is great progress, especially since I’ve been regularly writing 1K a day before.

Recently, I stumbled upon this article via a retweet by @LauraJMoss…

…and was intrigued! I loved the Knowledge, Time, and Enthusiasm metric, and was tickled to know that I already do this in a vague form. I’m already excited that I was able to increase my daily word count to 2K, but I would love to see it an extra push, especially on my days off from the paythebills job.

With that, I’m going to be a bit more diligent and aware about my most productive writing time. Most days, I’ll need to take what I can get, which is usually an hour before and after work. But maybe I can find better circumstances like before or after I eat; or, before or after a workout.

Speaking of workouts, I’m ashamed to say that in my excuse of focusing on WIP2, I gave myself permission to stop focusing on my health. Which is silly, because that’s like saying I gave myself permission to stop living!

So, in the spirit of 2K a day for my word counts, I’m also logging in 2K a day for my workouts. Not that I sprint 2K* each day or that I use 2K in any way for my weights, because that’s kinda weak, but that I have the mindset of pushing myself and challenging myself to be the best me I can be each day, including incorporating my strength training, which should never ever have stopped. Lesson learned. Moving on.

(*Besides, I just simply liked the phrase, “word counts and workouts.”)

I already have a big obstacle in the form of my Very Important Work Conference that I get to go to next week. It’ll be non stop, go, go, go, activities (which works well with the workout portion of my challenge…especially with their onsite weight facilities), but I may have a hard time crunching out 2K words between the activities during the day and the celebration dinners at night.

But, at least I’m working out a plan before I even leave: chapter outlines! So even if I’m ridiculously bone tired, I have a road map to help me churn out words regardless. At any rate, I remember my days of writing my Hot Mess and coming out of NaNoWriMo with 50K words while working two retail jobs in the height of the holiday season. Working out a way to write around the activities with the VIPs of my company for four days should be cake!

Have you tried any of these fast drafting techniques? What are your thoughts on them? For those who attended Candace Haven’s Fast Draft class at DFW con, do these principles seem familiar?

(For those interested in my views on fitness/health/mindset, I recommend Jason Ferruggia’s site. He is focused on making athletes bigger, stronger, faster, but when you read with discernment, he has a wealth of knowledge on his site that anyone must know. Fair warning: he uses strong language and his posts are littered with scantily clad women, but they don’t bother me. I actually view most of them as a visual to shoot for. ;)

My favorite posts of his are: Life Wasted, My Personal Journey, The Main Ingredient.)