Category Archives: doing what you love

Screw the other two percent!

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I’ve finally gotten to the point in my life that I can be proud of my accomplishments instead of picking them apart to find the most minute flaw.   My cake decorating days were rough!  I would spend hours putting together a three-tier cake designed specifically to match the request of the bride and, although she thought it was perfect, I always found the tiniest blemish and was disappointed in myself for not making it perfect.

At least I know I came by this mental mutation honestly.   When I was in high school I was a good student, especially in math.  I would bring home a test with 98 percent and my dad thought it was funny to ask “what happened to the other 2 percent?”  Despite the fact it was said as a joke, to an impressionable fourteen year old girl, it felt like a failure to me.  Unfortunately I have carried this with me along the way and although it has made me strive for that 100 percent even more, it has also made me extremely self-critical.

With my writing, something is different.  I have more confidence in my words than I have had in any other area of my life.  Perhaps with age really does come a sort of wisdom, or just maybe that elusive two percent was never meant to cause me so much concern.   Either way, I give myself that little punch on the arm when I’m really proud of something I’ve written, and not just in theory, I really punch myself in the arm…….

   

I hope you are able to be proud of your accomplishments.  Your successes should never be measured by anyone other than yourself.

Your biggest obstacle

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smell

Take a moment to breathe.

Close your eyes and inhale deeply.

Let the scents of life permeate your brain,

and then move forward.

Stop building walls that impede you from progress.

Stop creating lingering shadows

by standing in your own sunlight.

Get out of your own way.

Life wants to you win.

Only you can choose how you play the game.

Ignore the things that threaten to hold you,

to keep you from where you want to go.

Don’t be the one thing

that keeps you from your dreams,

that keeps you from living

the life that is meant to be yours.

~~

(image credit)

 

 

 

Getting the lead out

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The Daily Prompt had me thinking again this morning.   This is what it had to say – “When was the last time you wrote something substantive — a letter, a story, a journal entry, etc. — by hand? Could you ever imagine returning to a pre-keyboard era?”

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I vaguely remember the pre-keyboard era.  Either that, or I am trying to block it out because I do remember it and it makes me feel somewhat vintage.  I was the girl who loved to write letters to pen pals, write silly love poems, short stories and crazy plays that could only be created by an 8-year-old mind and acted out by animal puppets.

I would spend hours printing and practicing my ‘cursive’ writing.  (that word plays heavily in my vocabulary these days, but with an alternate suffix and a very dissimilar meaning!)  I loved to write so much that my wonderful penmanship turned into an obsession with calligraphy.  My doodles in high school were never flowers or hearts, but intricately designed versions of the alphabet.  There was something so satisfying about being able to create that type of flare with my own hand.

calligraphy

(image credit)

Now the world is so different.  Millions of fonts can be downloaded with the touch of a button on the keyboard and all of that creativity I used to enjoy has been replaced by technology.  I miss the excitement of buying new ink for my calligraphy pen or having to buy new pencils because I had spent so much time writing that they had all been worn down to little nubs of wood and lead.

Although I began writing my novel in longhand, the novelty wore off when I realized how much faster I could record the ideas on ‘paper’ by using a keyboard.  I do miss the days of the natural flow of ideas from brain to pen or pencil and didn’t have to tune out the incessant clacking of the keys.  Oh, how we suffer now for our arts.  😉

 

 

An abundance of gratitude

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Lately I have been writing from a place deep within myself.  I have written about issues very close to my heart and the comments I have received have been, not only engaging and warm but, overwhelming to say the least.

I am humbled by the fact that my words have pulled on the heartstrings of many friends and even strangers who have taken the time to comment and let me know that my words hit close to home for them as well.  Some have expressed feeling like I am writing just for them.

Your words encourage me to listen to my inner voice and keep sharing my words.  So this afternoon, instead of digging deep into the well of raw emotion, I simply want to say thank you.   Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting and, most of all, thank you for being the eyes that absorb the ideas that I love sharing.

bottom of my heart

(image credit)

 

You can still fail at the things you didn’t want to do

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Facebook, while possibly single-handedly delaying the writing of my novel, is a wealth of, not only useless information but, rare gems that are hidden amongst the idiocy.

I will not overwrite this post because the speech that Jim Carrey gives to a graduating class speaks volumes and it is something I hope everyone has a chance to listen to, very closely, and take to heart.

Several lines in his speech truly tugged on the strings of my reality.  It really is time to ask the universe for my dreams.  It is time to stop making decisions out of fear, disguised as practicality.

A rose by any other name is just how I choose to describe it

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Moon

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
–Anton Chekhov

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There have been times when I have been writing that I feel my words have become too “flowery”, too descriptive.  I love to take imagery and let the reader truly visualize what it is that I am trying to convey.  I am also a big fan of using metaphors to get my point across.

For a few brief sentences, I tried to rein in the flourish in my writing and then I realized I would be doing myself a grave injustice.  I would be writing with another voice that is distant from the one I have come to know and love.  Sure, I could artlessly tell you that the rose petal was falling off, but I would rather tell you that the withered skin of the aging rosebud hung listlessly, clinging desperately to the last breath of life held in the stem.  That is my writing voice, that is who I am when I am being true to my craft.

But it is hard to find the balance between too much and not enough.  When I write, I want the person reading to be able to smell, taste and feel my words.  I want that person to be so immersed in the images that they feel like they have left their physical world and have been transported into my words.  But I don’t want them to get so lost in the description that they feel the train of the story is going recklessly off the tracks.

Perhaps the delay in writing my book was to allow my voice to develop through my blog.  I have achieved a level of comfort here with my words and my ideas and I know that my voice is my own and not a weak interpretation of another.  I don’t just feel like I am telling meaningless stories anymore, I feel like a writer.  And Mr. Chekhov, I will never be the one to simply tell you that the moon is shining.

 (Thank you Daily Post for the encouragement)

Awfully glad to be unhappy

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I work in the hospitality industry so it should go without saying that I am a people person.  I love interacting with new guests and getting to know them, having a few laughs and making sure they feel at home at the lodge.

There is something very personal about our small resort that allows us to really become friends with our guests.  We know them on a first name basis by their first or second day, we know their kids’ names, we get to know where they are from and eventually we remember that they prefer rye toast and how they take their coffee.

It really is like spending a weekend with an extended part of our family.   When it comes time to say goodbye, I really am sad to see them leave.  Knowing they will be back again slightly eases the sadness but I am glad that I can feel that melancholy feeling because it truly means we have had an authentic effect on each other during their stay.

MM front

I know that the long hours pale in comparison to the number of smiles I have seen or the many sounds of laughter that have echoed within the walls of the lodge during their stay.  And although it may be another year before we see them again, we are genuine when we say we look forward to having them come back “home” again.

 

 

 

Starting 2015 the ‘write’ way

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I was going to be lazy today and not pull the starter cord on my brain.  I was content to let it sit idle and enjoy the distant hum as it sat listless but that would go against everything I want 2015 to be – creative and filled with stories.  And although I am closing in on the end of a 70-hour work week, I still feel like I should at least try to conjure a few words from the recesses of my imagination and begin the new year the way I should, by writing.

words

I would like my brain to become so flooded with words and images that they spill over each other to fight for their right to be etched on paper.  I want to feel so full of inspiration I can do nothing BUT write to be able make room for the new ideas being born.  I would like to wake up in the middle of the night and rush to the computer to capture those ideas before they escape and trickle down into the abyss of lost thoughts.

If I can do this every day, if I can play my metaphorical flute and conjure those words like a snake,  writing will become a need, a desire much more passionate than just wanting to write.

Day one – success.   Happy New Year everyone and may all of your wishes come true in 2015!

 

 

The fat lady began singing last night

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The holidays are always an emotional time of year.  This year was no exception for me.  But something else happens every year, always between Christmas and New Years, that leaves me heavy-hearted and very melancholy.  Last night, the regular season of the NFL ceased to exist for 2014 – time of death 11:32 pm.

fat lady

I am a self-professed NFL junkie and I have been since I was a kid.  For seventeen glorious weeks, I am content to sit on my couch for 10 hours on Sunday and watch the pigskin travel across the gridiron.   That is my happy place.

About ten years ago, I took charge of an existing football pool and grew it from approximately fifteen participants to the seventy-one we had this year.  With a fairly substantial buy-in, this pool has been a great success over the years and has given me the much-loved moniker “The Commish”.   Running the football pool has not only been a great challenge to perfect the spreadsheets but it has introduced me to many new friends.

There is an overwhelming sadness in me today.  Although the playoffs begin this weekend, I will miss the sixteen game roster every Thursday to Monday.  Knowing the culmination of the entire season will arrive in five short weeks makes me want to stop time and rewind it back to the beginning of September….or change lyrics to songs from old musicals…..

Raindrops on grass fields and whiskers on backers,

Cheering the Chargers or watching the Packers,

Receivers that run like their feet sprouted wings,

these are a few of my favorite things.

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*Sigh – they should make a pill for this!

Oprah has a name for this…….

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Not everyone has the opportunity to experience a full-circle moment in their lifetime – that epic twist of fate when something you had spent so much time dwelling on in your past creeps up on you in your present. I had one of those moments today.

I am a product of the 80’s. I was never a slave to the hair and poorly-chosen fashion (most days) but the movies of the 80’s live on in my current reality. I can recite those movies verbatim and I recognize a bit of myself in each one of those iconic movie roles that I watched as an impressionable teenager. And though there were fleeting moments of seeing similarities between the starring roles and my teenage psyche, I always felt a deeper connection with the weirdos, the poets, the dreamers.

It was this truth that bonded me to Andrew McCarthy’s character, Kevin, in St. Elmo’s Fire in 1985. Though his role was meant to be a bit of an outcast, Kevin was the definition of how I saw myself in those days. He was a creative soul, misunderstood on many occasions but he held true to himself. Unlike me at the time, Kevin knew who he was and, although he struggled, in the end he wasn’t afraid to be that person. He wanted to describe what he saw in a myriad number of ways. He wanted to describe life by every little detail and not just watch it go by. He wanted to write. And he was going to see his way to his future on his battered Underwood typewriter.

That line stuck with me. It haunted me, actually, and I have seen that written line in a loop in my head for many years. Like a headlining banner at a movie theatre, the words “battered Underwood typewriter” scrolled incessantly around my brain. The image of that machine, the clacking of the keys, kept me bonded to that dream of writing. And now that image has become a reality.

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In a moment of complete serendipity, I have been gifted an Underwood typewriter. I have been given a battered, plunking, beautiful, historic typewriter that could write chapters of its own given the chance. Its stories are burned into the keys. Its ribbon holds a wealth of ideas and the rest is not history, but my story. It is up to me to cajole the remainder of the tales from this relic. This battered Underwood typewriter could be the one thing that reminds me that I can write and, just maybe, will help me get to the next stage of my writing success.