Just Pondering

Over on Outside the Box, I made some negative statements about myself this morning and it got me to thinking.

Years... ahem, decades ago I heard something about 'negative self-talk and how we all needed to do away with it.  I think it was Leo Buscaglia.  He was big back then.  Anyway, it sort of made sense.  I mean, the one person you should count on to not say negative things to you and about you is yourself.  Right?

Lately, though, I've been wondering.  Some of my biggest accomplishments have occurred after I got downright nasty with myself.  Drill sergeant screaming in my ear nasty.  "Okay, Meissner*, you big, diaper-baby, are you going to sit in that wheelchair and whine, or are you going to walk again?" "Oh, boo-hoo, you sissy. No agent will represent you?  Well, wah.  Get off your dead ass and publish the books yourself."  "Books aren't selling?  Well, you turd, you haven't done anything to make that happen, now have you?" "Feeling fat?  Put down the damn bowl of ice cream and go for a fucking walk, ya loser."  That sort of thing.

Yeah, I could be nicer about it, but nicer doesn't work for me.  (Of course, if anyone but me talked to me like that, I'd kick 'em in the jewels.)  I can be nicer to myself after I get shit done.

If all you ever hear is that you're awesome, how do you know when you're not?  Maybe we need a little 'you suck' every once in a while to kick ourselves in the ass.  :shrug:

I don't mean in a 'ruin your self esteem' way.  Pointing out the negatives here and there shouldn't overwhelm the positives.  It isn't all gloom and doom.  I'm a good person.  I get stuff done.  I like me.

But it isn't all rainbows and lollipops either.  As I said on OTB, I'm weak and fainthearted sometimes.  If I don't point out the flaw, I won't fix it.  Shine a big ol' light on it so it can't hide, and then kick its lily-white ass.

So, yeah, you should be kind to yourself, but you should also kick your own ass when it needs it.  

Just pondering.

*When I yell at myself, I use my maiden name.

Sunday Update - Week 15

The fifteenth week of the year and who knows how many weeks into the chaos.  Woohoo.

I'm not still not writing or editing.  I admire greatly anyone who has the ability to shut this off long enough to focus on being creative.  I ain't one of you.  I wrote that yesterday morning, preparing this post for today.  Then I kicked my own ass for being a whiny baby and got back into the edits for Ugly and the Beast.  I edited almost 100 pages yesterday.  The end is near.  This chaos crap has wasted enough of my time and mental real estate this year.  Time to open back up for business.

Also, I had some new thoughts about Cinder Ugly's next scene and I'm feeling good about getting back to that again.

I have been reading, naturally.  That shuts the chaos off for a while.  Other than what you saw on yesterday's Reading Wrap-up, I finished The Mummy and read a whole, albeit short, book yesterday, too.  I'll talk about those two next Saturday.

In baking news, I did granola bars, chocolate chip cake cookies, and oatmeal raisin cookies.  We're out of baker's cocoa now and powdered sugar, so chocolate anything and cake frosting are off the menu for a while.  We're also out of cake mix and chocolate chips, but that might not necessarily preclude me from making more cookies.  I have mini Hershey bars I could chop into bits, as well as the ingredients for cookie dough.  As long as the eggs hold out.  Still can't find eggs locally.  =o\

This morning, I'm going to make an omelet using eggs I had previously frozen.  I'll let you know how it goes.

My activity level's been pretty good this week.  I did the Hard Target Walk yesterday - 1.6 miles - and I shaved two minutes off my usual 30-minute time.  Also did a couple of shorter walks this past week and some cleaning.  And went fishing twice.  I gained back a pound from the stress-drop, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Weight: 174.6.  Still down eight pounds for the year.

Another active thing I did this week was spraying the poison ivy.  Die, you rancid bastards, die!

The deer are starting to look pregnant.  Yay!  And the hummingbirds are back!  Yay! 

And that's about it for me today.  What did your Week 15 look like?

Sunday Update - Week 8

Eight weeks into the new year.  I'll admit my resolve fell down already, but I kicked my own butt and I'm back on track again.  Mostly.

I haven't written any new words, but I'm editing along nicely again.  I worked through about 90 pages of line by line edits.  Almost made myself cry at one point - the story not the editing.  Jeni's nieces and nephews are too damn cute to have had such a shitty dad.  Anyway, I've got about 45 pages left to go and then a quick read through to make sure I didn't leave any huge errors. 

I finished out the marketing for the Once Upon a Djinn series with 8 sales - 2 each - and no page reads yet.  Oh well.  I tried.  Once I get some new books out into the world, maybe sales will improve.

My reading week was pretty good.  I finished three and only DNF'd one, and I ended the week yesterday with an awesome Mickey Spillane.  (Awesome Mickey Spillane is redundant.)

On the activity front, I did 4 out of 7 days - three days straight of the yard expansion project and then 3 days off with a mile or so walk yesterday and kneading rolls.  Yeah, kneading counts as exercise when you do it for 8 minutes straight.  I was burning calories like crazy there, folks.  Upper body workout like you wouldn't believe.  Anyway...  I'm back at 179.0 again.  Roller coaster time.  Wee.

Speaking of rolls, I was trying a new recipe yesterday.  Iranian Barbari rolls.  It sounded easy.  Umm...  It was more effort than it was worth, so let's not talk about that, k?  Earlier in the week I made oatmeal cookies, though, and that recipe always works.  Yay.  Today, I'm thinking maybe a chocolate cake is necessary.  We'll see.  I was going to make more applesauce bread, but Hubs has been eating the applesauce straight, so there isn't enough left for bread.  Next time I hit the Wallyworld, I'm gonna buy an economy size vat of applesauce.

The yard expansion project is as finished as it's going to get until Spring.  Hubs did the last of the clearing crap out on Wednesday.  It looks pretty good.  Barren, but good.  Now green things can grow.  There about 6-8 little trees - 3-5' tall - growing in the new yard area.  Once those leaf-out, we'll see which ones get to stay and whether any of them can go.  They might all stay.  We'll see.  The most satisfying part was getting the vines off all those trees.  A couple poor sycamores were being killed by those damn vines.  No more.  Fingers crossed the sycamores recover.  I like sycamores.

It's been too cold to go fishing, which is driving me nuts.  I need to sit by the lake and drown worms for my sanity.

Alright, I've said more than enough for one Sunday.  How are things with you?

Kicking My Own Butt

There are times when the lazy and the procrastination get out of hand and I need to kick my own butt.  I spent yesterday morning whining about how much I had to do and how unmotivated I was.  Then I kicked my own ass and got to work.

I had three major projects to complete this week.

1)  Finish editing Unequal so I can get it published on Sunday for a Monday release.
2)  A packet of work arrived from the pay-job.
3)  Creating and manipulating spreadsheets for 2019

A fourth project arrived in the email yesterday, which was another set of spreadsheets to do.

Right now, the fourth project takes precedence because no one else gets paid until I complete it.  I'll get that done this morning.  After that, it breaks down like this:

Finish #2 this morning and get the line edits done for #1 before bed tonight.  The rest of the week, keep working on #1 and do some #3 as time and brain power allows.  Usually it's better for me to do spreadsheets in the morning and do writerly work later in the day or at night when my brain is better suited to it. 

And I still have to find time for Christmas cards.  Some people might get them late.  Sorry.

So, yeah, yesterday.  I was watching House reruns when it hit me that I really needed to get off my ass.  So, when the episode I was watching finished, I turned the damn TV off (yes, another House was starting and the patient was played by James Earl Jones, but I pulled my big girl panties up and hit the OFF button), had a cigarette out on the back deck, made a pot of coffee and got to work.  About 2pm.  I worked until 7 with a brief break for dinner at 5.  Then I vegged for an hour and went to bed.  From 2-4 I worked on pay-job stuff, from 4-7 I edited.

I didn't get nearly as much done as I would've hoped, but looking back, I made some significant headway. 

And now, I really need to step away from the internet.  #4 is calling my name.

Have a great day, folks.  I'll try to check in from time to time.

Neurotic? Who Me?

Just because I'm sitting on a pendulum, swinging between "Oh my god, this is going to be so awesome!" and "Oh holy shit, this is going to suck so bad!" doesn't mean I'm neurotic.

Just because I want to tell the world about my book that's coming out, but I'm afraid no one will want to listen...

Just because I'm afraid to go to the local bookstore for the first time because I think THEY'LL think I'm only visiting there now because I have a book coming out soon...

Just because I wished a forgotten friend a happy birthday on FB after not really saying anything to her for god knows how long...

Just because I sat listening to my husband read Dying Embers (to himself, no less) for the first time, waiting for any slight sound that would tell me whether he still respected me after reading my words...

None of that makes me neurotic. Or maybe it does.

Or maybe it just makes me a writer getting ready to send the first self-published book into the world.

And hey, just because I'm suddenly afraid you're all sick of hearing about my first self-publishing adventures, doesn't make me neurotic.  Much.

Edited to Add:  Oh hey, I keep forgetting.  I have a writer PAGE on Facebook now.  Go like it and the first 50 likers will be entered into a contest for a $25 gift card.   The final cover with the tagline is also up over there with the cover copy!

Mistakes

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.  I ran that red light.  I fell off my bike three times in one summer.  I dated... too many wrong men to count. 

You know, they say if you don't learn from your mistakes you're doomed to repeat them.  And I think I am the poster child for that statement.  Didn't learn from the red light that almost killed me, ran another one and not only totalled my car, but got sued.  I wore the wrong shoes while riding my bike the first time... and the second time.  The third time, I was carrying a tote bag in the handle bars and when the bag got caught in the spokes... Well, I only did the one once, but it was in the same summer, so I'm counting it.  As for the men, the fact that I can't count them should account for the fact that it took me a really long time to learn from those mistakes.  (Hubs proves that I do eventually learn, but that was after 17 years worth of heartache, etc.)

Anyway, now I'm stuck in a rut where I rehash everything.  What could I have done differently to avoid making the same mistake in the future?  Well, I don't ride bikes anymore.  I am super viligent on the roads - especially at traffic signals.  And like I said, I fixed the dating mistakes by finding the right one and hanging onto him.

But I still wonder about past mistakes.  I know there's nothing I can do about them.  You can't change the past.  Maybe I'm hoping to change the future.  Maybe I'm looking for places where I've done something I can still rectify.  Perhaps I'm still looking for a way to fix the unfixable. 

Most days I'm pretty good about staying in the now and looking toward the future.  Some days I get stuck in a loop where I'm still rehashing a phone conversation I had years ago wondering where I went wrong, or I revisit a fight with someone I don't even know anymore to figure out what I could've said to end the fight on a different note, or I remember some parenting thing I did that finally years later I realize was probably the wrong way to have handled it.  (And then I apologize to the Kid who doesn't even remember what I did and who rightfully thinks I've slipped a gear.) 

:shrug:  It's a thing.  But I like to think I'm getting better. 

Although, next week, I'll probably be laying in bed wondering if this post was a mistake and whether I could've written it differently.  ;o)

(Don't even get me started on the nights I lay awake wondering if I started a story in the right place, ended it in the wrong place, or totally screwed up the plot.)

P.A.M.

Years ago I was a tragically negative person.  To the point where a co-worker and friend said he was going to start calling me Pam.  At my confused look, he explained...  P.A.M. is short for Piss And Moan.  (What can I say, I attract straight-talking people.  Someday I'll tell ya about another friend of mine, Larry, who wouldn't let me get away with anything.)  And whenever I would start being all negative around him he would refer to me as Pammy.  As in "Okay, Pammy, whatever you say, Pammy."

I don't know if that marked a turning point in my life.  I know I still get into moods where I am totally PAM. but they're less frequent than they used to be.

Unfortunately, it seems like more people are turning into PAM every day. Or maybe as I get more positive about life, I notice the negativity more.

One thing I do know is that negativity never gets you anywhere.

Sure, someone situations suck.  Sometimes your whole damn life can feel like it sucks... HARD.  But letting yourself get lost in all that suckage doesn't make the suckage any better.  Hell, most of the time, it makes it worse.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you shouldn't be bummed out because other people have it way worse than you do.  That never helps either - and it just makes you feel shittier.  Yes, there are people who can top your personal heartache with a royal flush of pain, but that doesn't mean you aren't entitled to feel like shit.  I'm just saying it doesn't help.

Lemme tell you a little story...

Once upon a time there was a silly girl who'd just been in a car accident.  Everything hurt.  She couldn't think straight.  She couldn't walk.  She couldn't remember stuff.  And every morning was just as sucky as the next.  Some chick she didn't know would roll her out of bed, into a wheelchair, and roll her down to physical therapy where she would have to undergo a serious increase in her discomfort.  And all she could do was bitch about it.  To anyone who would listen.

Then this dude ambles over to her one morning while she's bitching about how much PT hurt and how she COULDN'T walk so just stop making her try... DAMMIT.  Now at this particular moment her therapist had gone off to get some thing or other, and she was just sitting there, waiting to bitch at Blondie Therapist some more.  This dude who ambles up he was wearing one of those erector sets that keeps you from moving your head.  And he gets in her face - as much as he could for a guy who couldn't bend, and tells her "Will you QUIT WHINING."  He said some other things about how if she spent more time working and less time bitching, she could get off her ass and walk. 

Turns out he'd broken his back in a motorcycle accident.  But that wasn't the point.  He never said 'Look at how bad off I am and I'm not bitching'.  He just said 'Look at how good off you are, so quit your bitching.'  And he was right.  I mean, at first, she was totally shocked and offended, but by the next day, she saw how right he was.  She started actually trying, and learning to use the walker, and getting more active by rolling herself to therapy.  All of it got way better after I... I mean SHE got more positive.  (And okay, so I wanted to show that know-it-all nosypants that he DID NOT know everything.)

It's all in the attitude.  You can choose to be PAM or you can choose to kick PAM's ass and be Positive Polly instead.

It's like this weekend's golf tournament.  I don't know how many of you watch golf, but it was the US Open.  And there was this guy - Erik Compton.  He'd never won a major tournament in his life.  he wasn't even on anyone's radar for being in the top 10... 15... 20 players.  What he was that made him kinda noteworthy is a two-time heart transplant recipient.  One heart transplant when you're 12 is awesome enough, but surviving a second one when you're in your late 20s is spectacular.  That alone is an achievement.  He could've waved the flag right there and spent the rest of his years kicking back on his laurels.  But he wanted to play golf.  He wanted to thrive at golf.  And he tied for 2nd.  His attitude was phenomenal all the way through.  And every time he went in the weeds, he could've shrugged and given up.  Every hole he didn't birdie could've made him walk off the course.  But he didn't.  He kicked ass.

Attitude people.  If you don't like what's happening in your life, you have the choice of complaining and being all PAM about it, or you can choose to change your attitude.  Life sucks?  Well, it's better than the alternative.  Ya know?

Or you can sit and bitch.  Cuz, like that's the most fun thing ever. (Not really, but if you spend enough time on social media, it sure can feel like people think that some days.)

Now, what's something you can change your attitude about today?  Personally, I have an upcoming 'big thing' that I can't talk about online* but that's making me all negative and nauseous, when I should be looking at it as an adventure.  And since Friday, every time I start to get all Negative Nelly about it, I sing this in my head:  Think Good Thoughts by Colbie Caillat.  And I actually slept the last few nights straight through!  Wow.

*It's not anything crucial, but like everything else I tend to think ahead of time of all the bad things that could happen.  Prepare for the worst and hope for the best - that's been my screwed up philosophy for years.  Problem with that is that in preparing for the worst, I think of every potentially awful thing that could conceivably happen.  Which is also why I wasn't sleeping, btw.

Eat Your Peas

Okay, I think I may have a handle on this thing.  Something occurred to me this morning - I promised myself I wouldn't start anything new until I get some of this backlog of writing into shape to be sent out into the world.  I mean, come on, I have like 13 books in various stages of 'ready' - which is to say not ready because if they were really ready, someone somewhere would've wanted one of them by now.  And starting something new right now just feels like adding to that steaming pile of unfinished.

I spent the better part of the summer whipping a manuscript into shape only to decide I wasn't going to try to publish it. 

Now I'm in the middle of editing the one book that was the hardest for me to edit.

And I hate editing.

I don't know how the rest of you were raised, but I had to clean my plate before I was allowed to get up from the table.  The meat I never had a problem with.  No prob on the starches either.  But the vegetables?  OMG, I did everything possible to not have to eat those.  I would hem and haw.  I would whine.  I resorted to stuffing them along the edge of my plate and then making sure I was the one to clear the table - until I got caught.  I even went so far as to swallow some of them whole with a generous gulp of milk so I wouldn't have to actually taste the loathsome things.  (This worked best with peas because they're really just green pills, and if I could swallow hard aspirin, I could certainly choke down soft peas.)

In order to get to the fun stuff in life - like dessert and playing outside - I had to eat my peas.

In order to get to the fun stuff in writing - like creating new stories - I have to do my editing.

:gag:

So in some immature, foot-stomping, breath-holding, pissy-bitch fashion, I've been refusing to eat my peas which leaves me stuck at the proverbial table, staring down at what are now incredibly cold and nasty veggies, whining about how I want to go play.

Hell, even worse, I already made a deal with myself that if I got this particular manuscript done I could go play with the NaNoWriMo kids.  (Deal making is the scourge of parenting, btw, but that's a subject best left to another day.)

Basically, I have to eat my peas.  Now if I could just find a glass of milk large enough to wash down 300 pages of edits before November 1st.

And don't try to talk me out of it.  I fixed this plate and I'm going to eat it all, even if I have to sit here 'til Christmas.

A Little Self Pep-Talk

My house is a pigsty.  My 'to-do' list is half-forgotten under a pile of other notes and it doesn't have a third of what I really need to do on it.  My story sits on a 5-subject notebook buried in a pile on the edge of the dining room table.  (You should see my dining room table.  Seriously, have you seen it?  Because I haven't seen it in days.)  I don't even want to think about the pork roast I meant to cook three days ago that's sitting in the fridge (hopefully not rotting). 

Today, all that crap stops.  Regardless of what else is going on in my life right now, I need to get my head out of my ass and get to work.  So what if I'm scatterbrained?  So what if things that are happening stall me to the point where I drop on the couch afterwards and embrace the TV coma? 

"Geez Louise, girlfriend, you're pathetic."

Today I will work, regardless of distractions.  I have too much to do and too little time to do it in for all this lollygagging.  And if something does pull my focus elsewhere, I will take care of the immediate issue and then get back to work.  I will not be lured into watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy, or Dr. Phil (my new secret shame), or leftover Frasier and Friends episodes.

And if I'm all done with the stuff on my list for today, if I'm sort of close to getting my daily life in some kind of order - I will sit down with that damn notebook and WRITE.  Because regardless of what else is happening in my right-now life, writing is my forever-life and it doesn't deserve to be shunted aside like the ugly girl at prom.

So there.  =op