A place for those wandering the dark wood of life, writing, and spirituality

Tag: Dreams

Pushing Beyond

I know that you are tired. I know you want to just get a little bit of rest. Every single day we get up and we push. Through pain, through exhaustion, through all those things that weigh us down. We do it because we have to; there are kids/animals/friends that look to us for support and help. There is no laying down. So when it comes to the things you want to do, it doesn’t feel like there is any gas left in the tank.

Ordinarily, I’d tell you to take a break, that your brain isn’t any good to you if you have nothing to give. However, there has to come a time when you stop letting being tired get in the way of your dreams.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been tired for, oh, I don’t know. The last decade? It hasn’t gotten better. No matter how much I sleep, the exhaustion is untouched; my tired is mental, no physical. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is born of the natural misery of not doing what your passion leads you to.

I cannot imagine being this tired if I was getting up every day to write. Not to dream of writing, but to actually do it. If this was how I made my living, if my routine was to get up and do it, then no. I cannot imagine being unhappy, even on my worst day of writing.

So maybe the answer is this. We have to work in spite of the exhaustion. Will it be our best work? Probably not. But, then, when do any of us think that anyway? My short message to you, tonight, is this. Just do it. Your bed will still be there in ten minutes, half an hour, or a week from now. I believe this is actually part of the journey. We have to face the times when it is damn near impossible to chase our dreams; then we will always remember later.

If you don’t forget what it was like to pass up your bed in favor of your dreams. When you remember having to work around the edges of your day job, you will not take it for granted when you have it every moment of every day. So embrace your exhaustion. Embrace it and accept that you are going to stay tired, nap or not, and then get to work.

The Idle Writer

I think the best piece of writing advice – besides embracing my own life – that I ever got was to be idle. Now, this is something I used to do naturally, back when I first started writing. I would pause before putting pen to paper, staring off into space, listening to myself and the world around me. This was not daydreaming – something I use far too often to escape. No, this was a sort of preparation. I would sink into my life, plucking at the strings and seeing what came up. Without fail, a beautiful first line or idea would swim up out of the murk and, once I put it to paper, I would keep going for hours, riffing off those first words in whatever rhythm they created when they came.

Sometimes it would take ten minutes for that line to come, sometimes an hour. It didn’t matter. I never strained toward it, just listened and waited. I didn’t try to force it; I knew it was there. I didn’t try to guess and jump in faster; I had faith that it would be worth waiting for.

As I grew older and started thinking of my writing as a career, things changed. I began to struggle with it, fighting for every line. I often would groan and moan about not getting my word count for the day. Ever notice yourself doing that because it seems like other writers expect it and you don’t want them to feel bad? Yeah. Quit that. I would guilt trip myself and try to force myself to write and the more I did that, the less I wrote. Lately, I’ve been trying to get back to that initial passion. I mean, back then, it was all so easy. I was hungry for the words. I didn’t care where they took me as long as they showed up. I had discovered that sentences had vibration and putting them together so that they rang out a certain way was my obsession. I filled whole notebooks with words, at least one a month. Once, I filled an entire Mead composition notebook in a single night. Yes. Two hundred pages, back to front, in my small ass writing, done in less than twenty-four hours. Did it matter if the writing was good or not? No. It was, but I didn’t care. Did it matter if I’d rewritten the same thing a thousand times? Nope. It wasn’t about the content, then. It was about the feeling the writing gave me and creating something beautiful. I didn’t worry about right or wrong. I didn’t think about what other people thought. I honestly could have cared less; I was drunk on creation. I was oblivious to how I got into ‘the zone’ because I pretty much never left it. My entire life was lived just for the sake of writing about it.

I look back at that time and I feel a sort of wistful longing. At some point, this became a job, it became something I am supposed to do, rather than something I want to do. I cannot really describe that loss as anything other than losing a lover; this person you know from the tips of your toes to the top of your head is suddenly a stranger, someone you see in the hallway, someone you talk to, but neither of you feels any connection anymore. When I lost my desire for writing, that is what if felt like. Not even like they were gone, but like they were still there without being there, like some couples who fall out of love but keep clinging to each other for lack of another plan.

So the question became, what was I to do? Run away? Find something else that woke me up inside and set me on fire? I tried lots of things. Rock climbing. Studying trees. Hiking. Traveling. Running. But everything had lost its flavor. Ever notice that there are things in your life that bring all the other things into focus? That was writing for me. It didn’t just give me life when I was writing. It was the reason I became present in the world and lived. I was constantly watching and listening, perfectly aware and fully in the present moment because it was all food for my writing and writing was life. I don’t remember when I stopped doing that. Certainly, it wasn’t a conscious decision to become absent. It just happened. I stopped trying to hear everything. I stopped thinking about how to describe the color of a flower or what the air smelled like next to a river. I was walking and talking and breathing, but I was numb inside.

So, the thing about going off to find yourself is that you have to take the good and the bad together. The good is that I still love writing. I still wish for it the way someone who climbs cliffs must wish for each ascent. It isn’t something you do for anyone else when it is your passion. You do it for you. That is the good; this is how I feel writing should be and this is what I want to recapture. The bad side, though, was that I’d gotten to a point where writing was my job. The stories I needed to write, the books I promised, the characters and plots all designed to be perfectly good, but failing to excite me, for some reason, all of this was for ‘the job’ side. I started thinking ‘when was the last time I just wrote to write’ and I had to face up to some pretty embarrassing truths.

I had stopped writing for me. I was just trying to finish the job, trying to get each story ready for reading and so busy worrying about the mechanics of making it ready for the public that I’d lost touch with the side of me that actually enjoyed writing. I was idle no longer, caught up on a clock that says ‘do your work or starve’. So I did the only thing that could create the space I needed to rework my thoughts. I got a different job.

I know, it sounds counter intuitive. How can taking on another job make more time for being a writer. Well, it can’t. But here is what it can do. It can pay my bills. It can make it possible to go to workshops and conventions. It can pay for classes. And, most importantly, it takes all those mundane worries about money and puts them to rest. So that, when I sit down and stare off into space, I can let the words come at their own pace and there is no pressure or stress. I know, I know. If you want to succeed, you have to make success your only option. But that only works if you aren’t actually chasing your dream. I’m not using this new job as an excuse not to write. I’m using it to give my writing room to grow. One day, I will live on my writing alone. But, until I find a way to separate my midwestern work ethic (push hard, push until it breaks, work to succeed) from the act of writing (open the window and sit quietly until something bubbles up), this is how it has to be. I am working so that I can become the idle writer again. And, well, when it comes to living so you can write, a job is a good way to get o

Love Your Life

Raise your hand if you’ve heard this: I have nothing to write about. I bet every writer, at some point, has said those words to themselves. I know I have. I have damned myself for being too middle class, too white, too female, too boring. I’ve berated myself for thinking I have anything worth telling anyone and I’ve told myself to just go get a job more suited to the ordinariness of me. And I have also given myself the mental equivalent of a bitch slap and reminded myself that every life is beautiful and every life has stories worth telling.

Here is what I want you to understand. I don’t care if you grew up in a ghetto or on a farm. I don’t care if you are rich, poor, woman, or man, you have stories. And here is why they are worth telling; because you lived them. Each of us has unique lives. Even if we were to walk the exact same road together, none of us would ever see it exactly the same way. Some of us would notice the flowers, some of us would notice the color of the asphalt. Some of us might even think about that dog we had as a child that ran out into a road like this and died. Your life is all about you. It is full of beautiful tragedy and heart-stopping joy. And this tangled web of experiences has come to you for a reason. If you are a writer, you learn to see it all as material. And, sometimes, if you happen to be me, you forget this lesson.

There are days when I’m struggling along, just trying to figure out where the hell this story or that one was going and I think ‘who the hell do I think I’m fooling?’ There are days when I forget to bring my personal sight to my writing and everything starts to fall apart. So take this post as half lesson, half me reminding myself why I do this.

I’ve got a lot of passion. I see beauty in things others find ugly. This is why I began writing in the first place, to show people what I see when I say the cornfields are beautiful. I began so I could make people see the dawn through my eyes and know the pain of loving everything that lives. I began so I could tell stories that feed the soul, above all else. In the last couple of years, I’ve been struggling to come back to this, back to the point where I thirsted for my writing the way a man dying of starvation longs for steak. I began just trying to capture the world around me in all its messy, grimy, perfect beauty. I began because I loved everything around me and I just wanted to convey that into words.

Lately, I’ve returned to some of my old writing books. Natalie Goldberg is always at the top of this list, of course. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and, a new one (new to me, that is), Brenda Ueland’s ‘If You Want To Write’. It was Brenda that really got me moving again; her insistence that every single person on the planet has a story worth telling just because they are them and nobody else can or ever will be them reminded me. She reminded me of the stories I wanted to tell in the beginning, before this became a job. She reminded me of what it was to write before I worried if the words were right or if anyone would like it. She reminded me of what it was like to pull out the beauty of being me and put it on the page.

So I’m going to share a little of her wisdom with you, a few things that, honestly, I feel we forget right around the time someone suggests that art should be a struggle and that we’ll have to fight for every inch.

This is not a job. If it is a job for you, a chore to be completed, then it is time to take a step back. It is perfectly fine to have ideas about where you want to end up. It is fine to set goals for yourself. But it is not okay to kill your creativity by expecting it to behave itself. Behaving never has and never will work in any form of art. I don’t say this because it is impossible to make money off your writing. I am saying this because you should never hold that expectation. It taints the whole process and lays a shadow over you; when you are worried about what other people will pay for, you aren’t worried about telling the truth.

Which brings us to point two. Writing is about truth. Even fiction writing. Especially fiction writing. Any story that does not contain the shadow of truth will ring flat and dull. We tell stories to teach lessons. Our brains crave it. So, if you don’t know your own truth, then how can you know the truth behind your stories? Recently, I’ve realized that I’m too open to the ideas of others and that I had lost my way a little bit. I used to know what I believed about everything and, suddenly, I was shuffling around wondering what would happen if someone told me I was wrong about something I believed. Spoiler alert: the world would go on turning, the sun would continue rising, and it is unlikely that anyone would die.

And there is point three. Pardon my French, but fuck everyone else’s opinion. Everyone has one and you are entitled to yours. You could say it’s part of the job description. You cannot write if you are scared of what others might think about it. Adopt a pen name if you have to. Move into the basement, lock the door, lie and tell yourself that nobody else will ever get to read it. I don’t care. Just stop letting the judgement of others guide your writing. If you tell the truth, you are going to offend someone. Get over it. I could offend a whole lot of people right now by pointing out that Putin is a child killing tool of evil. Their outrage will not change the fact that it is absolutely true and that our president thinks he is a standup guy. He’s outright said so. Look at that. Pissed off a bunch of people, didn’t I? Yet facts are facts and I am not here to stroke anyone’s ego. DO NOT marry your fear. Others will judge you because that is what humans do. If you lose friends because you voiced truth, then they were not your friends. Stand up for what matters to you and don’t let anyone, even your best friend, tear you down.

A little aside, here. There is a big difference between telling the truth and being malicious. If you are telling a truth that you know will devastate someone emotionally, then I suggest you don’t write it. If Betty Sue’s husband is cheating on her, don’t be a big mouth and write a blog post about it. Go have coffee with Betty Sue and break it to her gently. And keep it off your blog. There is nothing more disgusting than spreading idle gossip – especially about someone else – for your own gratification.

The final point (and what this post is really about): love your life. Look, I’m as guilty as the next person. Sometimes I write characters that are closer to who I wish I was than to who I really am – which is different than building a character that isn’t based on me at all. These heroes are pretty easy to spot. They fulfill every single fantasy, from being the perfect weight to knowing the right answer to every question. They are never wrong, never scared, never lost, and they are goddamned boring. I will spot them the second I start reading through a story and every time I am startled by it; I always think they are pure gold until that readthrough. When I do this, it is part of a pattern. Right about the time one of my characters starts marching around, only one step short of a god in their perfection, I have started feeling trapped. Not trapped in the sense I’m in a rut and need to escape, but trapped in the sense that I’m me, I’m a screwup (I’m not, but that is the first of a negative thought cycle), and I can’t do anything right. This can be the side effect of someone else’s opinion or just me choosing to walk down the road of self-damnation. Either way, poof. Instant superhero so damn straight and good that they ought to come with an obligatory halo.

I wish I could tell you that there is a one-time answer for this. There isn’t. I wish I could tell you that there is a button to push to reset your attitude when this happens. There isn’t. However, there is something you need to remember and I think it will help. Your life is unique. Nobody on earth has the exact same life as you. Nobody on earth thinks exactly like you or dreams like you. All your experiences are there, waiting for you to tap into them and they are fascinating to the rest of the world just because they are yours. Don’t believe me? Go look up personal journals on ebay. There is a huge market for them because humans are nosy. We want to know how other people see and think and live. And this is where I tell you to use that. Nobody wants some super perfect hero. They want relatable flaws. They want a life full of pain, joy, love, and loss. They want to read about someone that could be them and know what it is like to be elsewhere. You have that. So every time you start thinking you have nothing worthwhile, remember. You have your life and we all want to connect to it. If this fails to shake you out of your imposter syndrome, then take my final advice. Just keep on writing; this will pass. All you have to do is keep writing, even when you think it stinks like manure. As Brenda says, ‘you can fix crap.’

Butterfly

We all come to a point in our life where we need to evaluate and make changes. I’ve been doing this for months. It started with my separation from my husband almost two years ago. Something I thought would last forever fell apart. In fact, I learned that what I thought we had wasn’t even real, that I was no more important to him than clothes he’d outgrown and never had been.

This is a harsh lesson to learn. Especially when you’ve devoted your life to loving and supporting someone. Especially when you’ve been avoiding learning this for the entirety of your relationship. I don’t blame him, entirely, that’s the thing. I saw the signs. He told me in a multitude of ways that he didn’t think much of me and I stubbornly refused to see it. So, when I did, it was a double slap because what I’d always secretly been afraid of for years, was true. He really didn’t want me.

For a while after leaving, I was simply broken. I had no faith, no confidence, and no desire to think about anything loftier than what I was going to eat for dinner. I told myself to just build a life, any life. I told myself to be happy with whatever meager things I could scrape together out of the ashes. And that worked, for a while. Because I was wounded and hurting, I couldn’t handle much more than a life full of hamster wheels and people who didn’t require me to be anything resembling intelligent.

That changed last November. The events which triggered this sudden introspection aren’t important; it could have been anything that startled me out of my sullen silence. One thing I can guarantee is that, if you get stuck in a cycle, eventually the universe will drop a piano on your head to shake you out of it. As one of my favorite characters says in my new book, you can’t sulk forever. The time for nursing my wounds was over. Since then, I’ve been looking for ways to make the dreams I’ve had since I was eighteen come true. I’ve been making plans and sketching out ideas. Some of them are working, some got abandoned. Sometimes I find a handhold and, other times, I slip back a few rungs. The point is, I’m moving up the ladder.

I am fighting for the thing I know I’m meant to do – writing – and I am doing it the way I should have done it years ago. I’m taking online classes – mostly free, right now, but that will change – and I’m working on my weak points. I’m over-riding my natural tendency to hide and making new friends. I’m planning on going to conventions and workshops. I’m looking for any and every way to get better at what I do and build a tribe that believes in me. And I’m also embracing my spirituality. I have always believed in something greater than myself and, now, I am searching for the path that works for me best; if you want to be a success, you need balance in all things.

I am also doing something that, for me, has been a challenge throughout my life. I’m learning to speak declaratively and stand firm in my beliefs. I’ve always been extremely open-minded and this sometimes leads to me being easily swayed. I was never exactly weak-minded, just the sort of person who let others show them a different way to see a situation. This last thing is something I’m only recently recognizing as a problem. I have discovered it is fine to be open minded. But, when people are trying to justify something that is utterly wrong on a moral level as right, they really do deserve someone who does not see it their way. They deserve a piano on their head.

This is what I really want you to take away from this post, though. We all go through times of great struggle. For some, it is the sort of heartbreak that feels like it cracks your entire soul down the middle. For others, it is losing everything. For a few, it is just waking up one morning and realizing that everything they thought was true was a lie. A lot of people see these catastrophic events as reason to give up, to stop trying. Or, worse,  decide to commit suicide because nothing can or will get any better. And I am here to tell you that you are wrong.

Think of the caterpillar. He’s going along, munching leaves, completely okay with this life of mundane repetition because, hey, he’s a worm, right? That’s what worms do. Then something happens. An event that, if you were to see only that, would look pretty frightening, right? I mean, this cute, fuzzy little guy melts. Like, total goo city. Think about that. Really, really think. Because I know that, when I got home, that is sort of how I felt. I was melted down to just this primordial ooze that could barely get out of bed in the morning, never mind think about writing or creativity. I was utterly broken. I didn’t think it could ever really get better. Then November of last year came and I realized that I didn’t want to stay that way. I realized that, while I was in my cocoon, feeling guilty and angry about all my ooziness, something had been happening. I’d been piecing myself back together again. And what is emerging is no longer the same person.

Great pain happens. My words to you are ‘allow it’. Feel your pain, understand it. Let yourself become ooze, if you have to. Cry. Buy all the Ben and Jerry’s Walmart has to offer. Kick, scream, hide under the bed and bite anyone that tries to pull you out. But don’t give up. Because, sometimes, what looks like the end of a life is really the beginning of another one. Change is difficult and not one of us really wants it, so we dig our feet in and try to run right back to the same old thing. The trick here is, you have to choose to move beyond this. You have to choose to fight your way out of the cocoon and you have to accept this changed life. I won’t promise you that it’s easy or that you won’t backslide sometimes. But, if you have the courage to claim your life, I will promise that it will get better.

I am not being a snowflake here. I’m not trying to convince you that the sun will always come out and shine down on you. You have to go chase the sun, sometimes. And, yes, this requires strength and faith. But understand. If you set your mind on gaining happiness, then you will. You cannot escape pain and misery in life, but you can choose to let it form you, rather than destroy you. You can choose to build wings out of your personal wreckage. Maybe you are like me and you have no idea where those wings will take you, but does it matter? It will be an adventure and who could ask for more than that?

Aligning The Stars

Ooo, time for me to say something crazy….

Live as though you already have the life you are dreaming of.

I like that face you’re making. It’s the whole reason I have this adorable habit of circling the point (you know, like a vulture eyeing a body on the ground to make sure it’s really dead). Lol, so I’m going to say a few things and I want you to embrace how ridiculous they are because, I promise you, I have a point, it’s a good one, and you can apply it to pretty much anything.

I’ll eat better when I’m skinny.

I’ll work out when I’m not feeling so fat.

I don’t want to date anyone right now; I’m too busy envisioning that wonderful relationship I’ll have with my perfect partner.

I told you they were silly. They are also a good example of how our brains work to sabotage us and that is the point of this little rant. First, some background. A year ago, two years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, you could have asked me what I wanted to be and I would have said ‘a bestselling author’. No hesitation at all. And, just to highlight ridiculous things, I’ve actually had people say they will only read my books when I’m a bestselling author. Because I’m going to care what they think then. Right. Well, I don’t care so much now, so, all things considered, no big loss.

Anyway. I would have told you what I wanted and, well, you might even have believed me, but I can look back and see I didn’t believe myself and this looking back thing is something I recently did, though sort of on accident. I joined a group of writers planning a massive character blog story site set in a fictional town and I was talking to one of the other writers who noted how nervous they were and how out of character this was for them, which prompted me to say ‘I was the same way up to about three months ago’. And, as usual, that one fast response led me down the path of deep thought because it’s true. Three months ago you would be more likely to see me jump off a bridge into a shallow river full of glass than join this group, never mind plan two characters for it and make an initial test post. Hell, I wouldn’t have been nearly comfortable enough to write about it in my blog, which I most likely would have abandoned at this point.

My thinking did not take me down the writing path, really. It was more down the law of attraction and understanding how it works path. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to tuck your toes behind your ears and chant to magic your dreams to reality. In fact, reality and dreams are often massively different, as any parent who had pretty, pastel dreams of parenthood can tell you once they have been introduced to the mad, wild, decidedly muddy waters of actual parenthood. And that, my lovelies, is where we are going. This is about our personal stars and how to align them instead of praying for magic.

So, we humans do this thing. We picture our goals and how life will be once we have it and we say these ridiculous things like ‘I want to lose weight’ while shoveling in massive quantities of mashed potatoes and praying to the indigestion gods. What we say we want and our actual reality are at complete odds and guess which one is going to win every time. Then we hop on fad diets, lose weight, go back to the mashed potatoes, gain the weight back, wash, rinse, repeat, forever.

Or maybe not. If we catch the trick, sometimes we get off the merry-go-round.

So law of attraction says to live as though you already have the thing you want and that is, by far, the most problematic part for people to understand and is the first thing they laugh at. Yet I’m going to tell you why it isn’t just sensible. It’s scientific. I’m not going to use myself just yet, because I want you to really get this and I’m still a work in progress.

So I will use one of the biggest wants for women everywhere. To lose weight. Not just to lose weight, but to look sexy and knock everyone on their butts.

Take a generally healthy woman with the usual low to moderate self-esteem at Walmart. She sees this supermodel on the cover of vogue and maybe they even look a little alike, only the model in the magazine is talking about how she only eats chicken and that is how she maintains her sexy ribcage. Make matters worse, our girl’s boyfriend just broke up with her because she’s too heavy for him. So, as is so often the case, our girl in question buys the magazine and, even though she knows that it sounds too easy, she reads all about this model’s wonderful, fabulous miracle chicken diet. Our girl doesn’t like vegetables, can’t imagine a life without cheese or mashed potatoes, and hates to exercise. So she does the only sensible thing. She goes on that crazy fad diet and eats nothing but chicken for six months. And OH how much weight she loses. She feels sexy and maybe she doesn’t feel real great health wise, but look how those pants fit! She has attained her goal, right? Of course, now that she’s there, she goes right back to eating the same way she always has and what a relief. I mean, those six months were torture. And three weeks or two months later, she’s right back where she started.

Well.

Sort of.

Because now her body is pissed. So when she goes back on the fabulous chicken diet, not only does it not work, she starts gaining weight.

So she tries the next fad diet and the next, always ending right back where she started. Agonies! There is no point!! She gives up and who could blame her.

So, let’s rewind. Same woman, same knowledge that she wants to be slim and sexy and fit. Same likes and dislikes. But she passes on Vogue because, let’s face it, you aren’t getting anything that looks like truth from a woman who makes a starving Ethiopian village look like fat camp. So our girl sits down and has a little think about the reality of the life she wants. She doesn’t like vegetables all that much, but she doesn’t mind this or that one. And she loves cheese, but does she need the full bag of Cheetos? She does the research into weight loss and the science of sustaining it. She accepts that the goal is possible, but it won’t come overnight. She wants it as soon as possible, but having a maintainable loss is important too. So she makes a plan based on what she is willing to try out, with an eye on what other women who are everything she wants to be have done. But only half an eye because, well, they aren’t her.

So she changes the way she approaches her life, altering the things that she does, but only in a way that is natural to her. She replaces her snack eating on the couch with a treadmill because she does kind of like to walk and she can still binge on Supernatural while she’s doing it. She isn’t ready for the gym, but she’s discovered a natural curiosity about nutrition, so she takes an adult learning class and, hey, just because interacting with others keeps her from thinking too much about the Cheetos she doesn’t buy anymore, she also decides on an art class.

Pretty soon, she’s discovered that food is tasting different. Those veggies she thought she hated are tasting better because she isn’t assaulting her tongue with heavy salt and preservatives anymore. And she’s decided to try out this run walk program with Marjorie from nutrition class. Next thing you know, Marjorie has talked her into a 5k and she half thinks she’s being crazy, but our girl has decided ‘why not, I can walk part of the way’. Only Marjorie pushes our girl and they end up trotting the whole thing. It’s a slow jog, but it isn’t walking and the finisher’s medal is such a rush that our girl decides to sign up for another 5k. And another. Then, a year later, she’s running a marathon with Marjorie, they have a little arts and crafts store, and our girl leads a running group of women that are looking to train for a marathon because she’s discovered she has an aptitude for getting other women up and moving. Plus she’s adopted Mugs the husky because Marjorie and the other girls are great, but she sometimes just likes being out with a dog, like she used to do when she was ten. And, while she’s out with Mugs, this really hot guy stops her to talk about huskies – he has one too – and, next thing you know, they are running together with their dogs all the time and our girl has a rock the size of the Blarney Stone. Maybe in ten years they own a gym or maybe they aren’t together anymore at all, but, chances are, our girl will still be slim and fit and happy and when she thinks back on the person she used to be, she’ll smile and laugh at how hard she thought it was all going to be.

I did not tell you this story to make you join a gym. I told you this story because, when the law of attraction tells us to live like we already have what we want, it is very rarely explained properly. Maybe it’s a good thing to have to think it out for ourselves, but I’m like the woman in the story. I like to pull others with me on my way up. Even if I have to use duct tape and diamonds to get you there.

So I want you to pay attention to the difference in the stories because it is the only truly important thing. In one, our girl was determined and motivated (chicken for six damn months) and she was looking at the goal. In the other, she was determined and motivated and looking right were she was. The woman is the same person in both stories and, in a round about way, this is me. Twenty years ago, I wanted to be a bestselling author, so I wrote really hard and submitted a short story or two while maintaining that I was too shy to do it all the time. Mostly, I just prayed for a miracle. Five years ago, same thing with a few more stabs at blogs and contests. Two years ago. Same story, only now I have a massive case of writer’s block. And three months ago? Three months ago, I did something new.

First, I questioned the dream. Did I really want it? Enough to sacrifice for it? When the answer remained the same resounding YES it had always been, I started looking at my life a little closer. You could say I sat down to do the research and pick out the treadmill. I started looking for my miracle instead of waiting around for it to show up on its own. That is when I started really getting into the law of attraction and really inspecting my life. That is also when I started cutting things off. No toes or anything, I promise.

First, it was people. You can’t support my dream, that’s fine, but you need to no longer have a say in my life. Also, I’ll no longer be taking in your judgments for consideration. I need that headspace for this new thing I’m building. Then it was thought processes. I’m too shy for a blog and I don’t want to talk to anyone? Bull crap, I wouldn’t have a single book out if that was true and I actually love people, I just have no patience for whining and bitching and putting others down. Next? Do I really need to binge watch Supernatural before I sit down to edit this book? I mean, the show will still be there tomorrow, right?

That was step one. Step two was a bit scarier because I started this blog. I started showing up to the live webinars with the law of attraction people. No, I didn’t go to writing webinars because my writing isn’t the problem, so understand that. You have to find the stars that aren’t lining up. I paid for advertisements for my books. I started paying attention to what other authors did and picking out the things I thought I might be able to repeat. I’m still in that stage, fyi, looking for what works and what doesn’t. Right then, I was also at the stage where I wasn’t thinking so hard about stretching out, but I’m past that one now.

I’ve entered a new level of understanding since yesterday. It was only while I was talking to this person about the character blogs that I realized, quite suddenly, the full meaning of live as if. It isn’t fluffy unicorns and magical rainbows at all. I am building the life of a bestselling author around myself, right down to the environment. So I got to thinking about it really hard – circle, peck, circle, peck, oooo, an eyeball!

Oh how weird we humans are. We look at that bright, shiny goal and we don’t see it. No. We see the results. The money. The fame. the wonder of going to Hawaii first class and laughing at the suckers in economy with that kid kicking their seat every two seconds. All the hot guys fawning over us, all the clothes we’ll buy. We picture our fat bank account and dream of how happy we are going to be with all that money and… and… wait a second. Wasn’t my dream to be a bestselling author? I mean, the money is great and all, but where are the books? Where are the readers? What does that look like? I wasn’t aware my dream was to have lots of money and what’s with the guys? I’m kinda digging on being single. If it’s money I want, maybe I should start collecting dollar bills instead of books?

Here’s the thing. Yes, a bestselling author probably isn’t worrying too much about paying rent. But you know what else they probably aren’t doing? Flying to Hawaii to hang out drinking and not writing because vacations are vacations. Work is not about the vacation you are going to take. Work is about doing the work and, love it or hate it, that is the thing that brings the money. So I’ll spell it out for you. If you want a different life, then you need to live like you already have it. Not money wise. Living wise. And you don’t have to change who you are, exactly, just your behavior. Let me give you another small example.

Now, I don’t know any best selling authors, this is just me playing pretend about the life of one. I imagine he gets up in the morning. Maybe he makes his bed, maybe he lets his wife do that, but I’m guessing he does some normal human type things like brush the teeth, get some pants on, go for a walk with the dog. Or maybe he just puts the clothes on and walks right into his office to work. I imagine he spends a good deal of time writing on whatever book he’s currently working on, then maybe he visits twitter to talk about writing or Facebook to talk about what is next for his writing or a blog to talk about his newest character. Pretty much, this whole eight hour block of his day, give or take a break for lunch or to let the dogs out, is dedicated to doing writerly things, including talking to the people who buy his books in some form or another. People like Stephen King or Anne Rice don’t really need to do this anymore, even though they do, but let’s say this is a less big name big name. After he’s spent a good part of the day doing these writerly things, he stretches, goes to take his wife or kid to the movies, watches TV or, more likely, reads. In other words, he is living a perfectly ordinary day as a writer and, chances are, he was doing this long before he sold ten thousand books a week or whatever his numbers are.

Now, up to about three months ago, this was my day. Get up and make the bed. Ignore the mess of the environment around me. Feed my dogs, screw around on my computer a little and call it research, maybe even write on something or try to edit the books I’d been working on. And this was a good a chunk of my day, make no mistake, because I do love what I do. Here is what my day did not include. Any sort of interaction with other people if I could help it. Advertising my books in any way. Trying to find readers. Remember, I didn’t like people, or liked to pretend I didn’t. Then this epiphany hit me and I realized I really did want to be a bestselling author, exactly the same thing I’d always said I wanted, and, true to the type of person I am, I went into research mode. I looked into any possible way to manifest a miracle, which brought me to the law of attraction and that delivered enough proof that I opened my mind to all the possibilities, which inspired the next epiphany. Which was simply that there is no magic in the magic. There is science. You can’t say you want something and act like you want the opposite. I said I wanted it. But I wasn’t living like I did. Being a bestselling author isn’t just about writing. It is about the people that read it.

This is the difference between pastel shades of dream parenting and the actual muddy, crayon on the walls and in the poop parenting. In my dream I was floating around, happily jetting off to Hawaii or Florida or wherever without a single thought to what book I was writing, living in the results without picturing the actual living part, basically picturing the relationship without the actual partner anywhere in evidence. This realization eventually ended on the second, yesterday. When they say to live like you already have it, what they mean is to live like a bestselling author (or the person who is every day slim and fit), not like you’re rich and famous, but like a writer who is successful at being a writer. And when they tell you to picture it in detail, they don’t mean picture all the things you’ll have and lock onto it like having that thing means you’ve attained the dream. Because, if you want a big house, make that your goal instead of trying to go the round about way of being a bestselling author first.

So, when I came to this understanding, I asked myself again, because, this was a very new version. Do I really want bestselling thing? I mean, the real version. With the writing and the selling books and the finding readers bit.

Joy of joys, the answer was still yes, I am willing to sacrifice my hermit comfort to be the writer I want to be. I’ve already been doing it. I am willing to open myself up to my version of finding readers. And that is important; you have to be willing to find your own way because you can’t be anyone else. Seuss was right. Nobody else can be youer than you, so you can skip right over trying to eat like the chicken loving supermodel on the cover of vogue. Maybe eating nothing but chicken suits her, but you need something real. So you have to lose the weight in a manner that is all about you. Get it? I did. So I started shifting things. I started working different angles. I started chasing after this dream with a smile, some duct tape, and a ball bat. Hello blog, hello research, hello me trying to find a way to meet people without actually having to, you know, leave my dungeon.

I’m not wholly there yet, but I’m starting to sell more books. I have a Patreon page, which I love because I’m not just asking people for money; charity is not my bag. Patrons get something for their dollars. I added a tip jar to the blog because not everyone can swing a monthly bet on me, but, if I make you feel stronger about yourself, maybe you want to drop me a dollar. I talk about my books, but I do it in a way that is a friendly, ‘this is what I’m doing right now’ instead of trying to tape your eyeballs open and scream ‘READ IT, MONKEY!’ the way some twitter accounts seem to do. And, every day, I try to take one more step closer to the writing life I have in my head. I plan on starting a character blog this weekend (and finishing up a few things I’ve left hanging, but that one is up to the muse) and I’ve joined the group of character bloggers. I’m going to have the Patreon discussion about which project to start next and I’ll be adding the next installment to Damsel In Distress on Patreon and I’m looking forward to it because the princess is leaving the tower.

As I told the other writer, three months ago, I’d have run from almost all of this while screaming ‘BE GONE SATAN’ in a panic of ‘wait, no, I don’t want to write a character blog with a bunch of other writers’ flurry. Now I feel oddly confident because I’m following intuition and I’ve decided to embrace the crayon on the walls. There are always things about a job, no matter how much we love it, that we are less comfortable with than others. But the more we open ourselves up to things, the more we can discover that we do like. For instance, I love this blog. I love posting. I love those moments when I feel like I’ve inspired someone or cleared some clouds from their day. I love the daily riff and I love knowing that this is going to be a part of the final design because I’m more likely to give up writing altogether than to abandon this blog. I am also excited about working with these other writers because, well, I get to be in a group of people who enjoy the same things I do.

Just a little side note here. I am not just applying this to my writing. I am applying this to my entire life. I have maintained the clean in my space. I straighten and I use that physical action to smooth any ruffled feathers. I read more than I watch TV and I try, as much as possible, to make my outside life mirror the vision I have inside. Funnily enough, it has nothing to do with money; I could have a million dollars and happily live exactly as I do. So I consider that a sign I’m moving in the right direction.

This is how my life looks right now. I get up in the morning and I make my bed. Then I sit down to write. I’m editing the newest book, due out on May 23, the last of the books that was hiding away, waiting for me to decide what I was going to do during those last four years of my marriage falling apart. I might fiddle with my word magnets or I might talk to myself about what else I can be doing to get myself aligned with my life goals because it isn’t quite all there yet. I’m still searching for what works best. I am aligning my personal stars one by one. The point of this post was not to crow about reaching my ultimate goal. It was to clarify something and help others realize that they can start doing the same thing.

The best part of looking back is realizing I have changed without changing and this is something everyone on the planet can do. Yes, three months ago, I would have run from all of this. I would have run because I didn’t understand what this means to me. I would have run because I was afraid the universe would tell me no. I would have run because what if it didn’t happen. And now I stand up for it. I write and I join character blogging groups and create my characters because I’m not afraid anymore. I love my life and I’ll do whatever it takes to maintain what I have while making it better every single day. I connect with other writers and I help them to overcome their writer’s block and inspire them and anyone else I can get my duct tape around, to decide what star they want to follow. I do not expect to roll jackpot today or tomorrow or next week, I just know that it will happen when it is ready to happen and I’m good with that because it won’t change anything about the way I already am. I have re-formed my thoughts so that I think like a writer who is already a success. I am a writer and I live like I’m the bestselling author I want to be. And I binge Supernatural once in a while (still Team Dean!) because that is who I am. I will never be that person who drives, drives, drives without stopping. I need breathing time. I need my relax time. But I’m living like this is my job, not my hobby.

So go think about this. What do you want? What star do you want to chase? And how can you align yourself with it today? Have a beautiful night, the Daily Riff will be coming up in a few!

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