Inspiration Monday: Allergies

Yeah. You read that right. Allergies.

What on earth is inspirational about allergies?

Hear me out here. I promise this makes sense. At least it does to me, and I'm not sure that means much, but here we go.

Today I went to the chiropractor who keeps me surviving my hateful skeleton. I asked her straight out why my entire body hurts to the touch and why it hurt so much more than usual when she jammed her pointy little elbow into my enraged muscles. I mean, it always hurts enough to make me rethink all my life's decisions, but today was extra.

Satan's Flowers

"Allergies," she said.

"Allergies?" I asked. "In my back?"

"Yup," she said as if she had just told me that sandwiches are usually made with bread. Usually.

"How's that work?" I asked.

"Allergies are inflammation. They can make inflammation elsewhere worse." Duh.

"Ah. Choooooo! Ack! Ack! Ackkkk!"

She had me there. My allergies are OFF. THE. CHAIN. I sneeze and cough so much my eighteen-month-old has started mocking me. I never once considered that one irritant might be causing another, one that affected me in a much more significant way.

That got me thinking. (And taking my anti-histamine, but that's beside the point). I started wondering what I am allergic to in my everyday life that is aggravating the other issues I'm already struggling with.

It's no secret if you were to paw through this blog, I went through a MAJOR period of writer's block--more like all-around creative block--that was years long. I went through a lot of life changes and probably a pretty sloppy scoop of depression, and now I'm fighting my way back out of the weeds to reclaim a healthy creative life and take some steps, tentative or not, toward my goals.

It’s going to take some hefty scratching to be able to determine exactly what’s causing all my creative itches, but there’s one thing I know for sure. Like every other human on earth, I’m allergic to shame.

It’s hard looking back at my old writing. I don’t just mean pulling out my old projects and cringing at the things I’ve grown past (though there is a LOT of that), but just recognizing how much time has passed since I made any real progress. Even this blog—it’s pretty easy to look at the dates and see the gaping hole where I thought a million times how I’d like to put up a post, but couldn’t bring myself to do it for one reason or another. It isn’t that I haven’t written in all that time. I have—a lot—but it was more like I was trying to write my way through the door of my projects and I never even scratched the lock. It has been frustrating. Painful. Irritating.

Allergenic.

The thing is, I don’t think it just affected my writing. I think it bled into other areas of my life. So many time I've caught myself thinking, “How can I do that? I can’t even write a simple blog post. There’s no way I can do that.” (In this example, “that” means “anything at all.”)

You see how easily this can grow. Before you know it, it’s a tower of doubt blocking out the sky. No sunsets. No brand-new-day idea. No seeing possibilities for tomorrow because of the looming, shameful remembrance of what didn’t happen yesterday. If you’re not careful, that little bit of inflammation in one area of your life will burn you up somewhere else, somewhere important.

What are you allergic to in your life? What are the irritants, the sneaky little invaders into your life that leave you itchy and inflamed? You might find that they are affecting you in ways you never considered.

Hello (Again) World!

Blog, my friend! It's so good to see you again!

Euka the Wonderful

What? Hey--wait. Why so mad? I quit you? I just abandoned you?
No! No, no, no--it wasn't like that. You don't understand. Let me explain. See, life got very, very lifey. When I say very, I mean very. Since the last time I posted here, I've been through a lot.

I started and ended an LLC art business.

We adopted another love-bug of a giant, sweet rescue dog named Euka (who brought the words, "Green chicken!" into our daily vernacular.)

Lots of things changed with my job, in that I work at a different location in a different part of town and I'm now managing a different grant with a brand new staff.

Old car, new car. Same thing.

I was in a wreck that totaled my car. (You remember, the car that I bought a few years ago and loved enough to blog about it? Yes, that car. R.I.P. Mazie Bear.)

I lost my mom. 

Then, there's the biggest change of all:
I spawned a human.

Meet Landon, the coolest one-year-old on the planet. Cutest, sweetest, smartest, and happiest, too.  Trust me.

Small, smart, and handsome indeed.

Becoming a mom is the single most difficult and wonderful thing I have ever done. It's hard. Extremely. But it's so, so worth it. Landon is my very favorite of all the possible favorites, along with his dad, of course. 

There are probably a million other things that have gotten between this blog and me over the last few years, and they got between myself a lot of other things that I love as well. I went through the longest period of writer's block of my life. I stopped doing so many of the creative and artistic things I love because I spent so much of my energy just trying to navigate my way from dawn to dusk without ending the day less than I started.

The only way out of a hole is to climb, so here I am, scrambling my way back up the cliff and reclaiming my creativity. This weekend I attended a writer's retreat with my "long-distance" writing group from Nashville, Pretty in Ink.

I had no idea how much I needed a weekend away to shock my system out of its rut. The scenery was breathtaking, and being around those fierce, talented women inspired me to follow through with the three goals for the weekend:

1. Make progress on my pesky ten-year-old novel that I've restarted yet again. This time, I think I've really gotten to the root of where I was derailed, and I did make progress.

2. Write a blog post. I think it's safe to say that I accomplished this goal, even though I waited until I was back home to get it posted.

3. Submit a short story for publication. This was the big one. I don't know what my problem is with submitting my work. I can get amazing feedback, edit myself into a coma, finally get my stories polished to a shine, and then...nothing. I just kind of leave them sitting there on my computer in their folder, napping and twiddling their little thumbs. This weekend, I yanked one out and submitted it to two contests.

So, blog, my friend--I did not abandon you. I just wandered from the trail. I worked my way back, though, and maybe I'm a little worse for the wear, but here I am all the same. I don't know if I can commit to a regular posting schedule like I had before, but I can work on getting myself back into the groove with some kind of regularity. I have a lot of cool things simmering--some cool art commissions, and a very cool collaboration with Ellen Morris Prewitt that is as unique as it is fun.  I'm spending a lot of time trucking away on my part of that project, but I don't want to spoil it until it's time to unveil the results.

Life might have gotten a whole lot more complicated for me over the last few years, but what I've learned through all the hills and valleys, squinting through the fog, is that it creativity is what connects me to the life I'm living. It is through the arts that I experience the world, and how I participate in it. Otherwise, I'm just free-spinning through life, and I can't think of a more wasted opportunity than that.

Here's to the road ahead, and may every bump and curve become inspiration.

Writing Saturday (with Distractions)

Today is a beautiful day. It is the first day a long, hot summer has lifted up the corner of its tarp to give us a peek of a gorgeous fall to come, with a perfect blue sky and a hint of breeze to tickle your cheeks.

Naturally, I decided to plant myself indoors to get some writing done.

I actually thought it would go well. I have some motivation to make some progress on some projects, as I'm going on a writing retreat later in the month with a group of very talented, very productive writers. I want to at least put myself in a position to get the most out of the uninterrupted writing time by putting my projects on a solid trajectory. I picked up my pen and notebook, and told myself there would be time to enjoy the beauty of this Saturday after I had gotten some work done. I meant it. I did.

Right away, my stubborn brain did the thing stubborn brains do when they're being forced to sit and write on a schedule. At least, it is what my brain does, and I like to think I'm not alone! One thing after another popped up suggesting any other activity except sitting still and getting words on the page.

I decided I would combat the insta-ADD by writing down the list of errant, distracting thoughts as they came, then get the bit in my teeth so I could go back to my writing.

This is the gist of things:

Okay, so I did just wake up, and I haven't gotten very far in my writing project. But! There is enough of this lovely day to go around. There's still time to get more work done.

And blueberries. There's still time for blueberries, too. 

Inspiration Monday: Start Where You Are

When life gets busy, finding time to write is hard. Finding the energy, motivation, or inspiration to write when you do find the time can be even harder.

Trust me. I know.

The longer I sit and try to make things work, the harder it gets. I can't find my way to get back into whatever it was I was writing before life stalled me out. I can't find the voice, momentum, motivation, or character, or purpose.

This weekend I spent some time--a few slivers at best--staring at pages I've written and looking for the door. I remembered writing some of it, and some of it was like reading someone else's work. Some brought back the struggle, and some I remembered writing as my pen skated happily along, full of fun and imagination. I could look in the rear-view mirror and see where I had been, but nothing on that page really told me where I need to go.

The problem isn't plot or outline. I wish it was that simple. I know what needs to happen. My problem is that I can't seem to push myself hard enough to just throw it on the page. I think I've found my problem though: it's that darn rear-view mirror.

Looking backward can tell you a lot of things about where you've been, but it doesn't do anything for you when it comes to looking where you're going. When I think about beginning work on my projects, I knew so much less about what I was doing and where I was going than I do now, and yet the writing came easier. That was probably because I wasn't trying to live up to my own ideas, I was just writing my way through it. There was nothing in the mirror, only the road ahead.

I'm going to write today. I don't know what it will be or how it will turn out. The voice of my characters may not match what I wrote a month ago, but that's okay. In another month, I won't match the person I am today, and when I read back over it, those things will be easy to fix. The important part is to pry my eyes away from what was and focus on what will be.

If you're like me and have a habit of getting caught in quicksand, I encourage to you pick up your pen with me today and start again. Don't look back, don't look too far ahead, just start right where you are. Here's hoping we can meet on the finish line.

From the Wilds of Creation

Blog! There you are! You stayed there, right where I left you and you kept my seat warm. I am grateful.

I am especially grateful BECAUSE there has been a reason I have not been blogging, and now I CAN.

I made myself a rule that I could not blog (or do anything else that is fun, basically) unless I was caught up for the day on my Nanowrimo word count. Then I proceeded to be behind the curve all stinkin' November long.

Except now. Except today. Because today I am ahead. I am caught up and since caught up is one whole step behind the preferable comforts of being ahead, I took that step. For right now, I am victorious. Later? Eh. We'll see.

Writing this month has been a challenge. Yes, Nanowrimo is a challenging experience in and of itself, but it has been extra challenging given all of the life-bits fate has seen fit to throw at me. Given the choice to sink or swim, I continue swimming. Sometimes I feel like I'm going with a half-drowned doggie paddle, but I'm not going under just yet.

It has been a full month and it is not over just yet. I am hoping that by the time December rolls around, the world will have one more unfinished mess of a novel in it, the guilt monkeys currently residing in my brain will be through with their feast and leave me a few neurons for my own personal use, and I will be able to use contractions properly again (why use one word when it can so easily be two?).

Until then, I have a new muse on the case, and there is still plenty of work to do!

There's yer problem: Muse asleep on the job. Amateur.

Inspiration Monday: Making it Official

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending a wedding. This couple has been together since the night they met eight and a half years ago. All that time, they never once broke up or thought they were going to. As soon as they locked eyes on one another, it was a done deal--and yet it took them the better part of a decade to "make it legal." There's nothing wrong with that. That's how their journey played out and I'm sure they wouldn't have traded a day of their time to have it any other way. They ended up where they needed to end up and they did it in their own time.

The few, the proud, the unfinished. Well, some of them.

It just got me thinking about how this very same concept affects my writing. There is something about putting down some words and calling them "final" that terrifies the pants off me. As I think I have mentioned before, I am notoriously finish-phobic. I have more work that is half-written and collecting dust than I have dinner plates or pairs of shoes.

I'm not exactly proud of this. I mean, does a body of work count as a body of work if none of the work has a whole body?

Once, when I was a bookseller, I got to hang out for an afternoon with Tom Piazza. He's such a cool, friendly guy, and he has a good eye--or good ears. We were chatting while he was signing his books and he looked up to me and said, "You're a writer, aren't you?"

"Well, sort of," I said. "I don't know if I'm a writer, but I write."

He nodded. "I could tell by the way you talk."

I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but it made me even more self-conscious than I already was--which is saying a lot. (I am more notoriously self-conscious than I am notoriously finish-phobic.)

He went on to ask me about my work. I described a couple of pieces to him and he seemed interested. "You should get them published. Are you going to try?" he asked.

Hello, ground. I'll get down there eventually. Somehow.

I squirmed and toed the carpet with my shoe. "Well, someday," I said and fought not to scrunch up my nose like a frustrated rabbit. "They're not exactly done."

He nodded again and gave me a little grin. "Ah, I know your type. You're afraid. You're afraid to finish."

I didn't deny it. I wanted to, but he was right. "Do you know the cure?" I asked.

"I've been there," he said and shook his head. "There's only one thing to do. You've got to land the plane. It doesn't matter if you crash it or ease it down, but you've got to get it on the ground somehow. You can worry about how you got there later. All that matters is that you finally write 'The End'."

Since that day, I've thought a lot about what he said. The plane analogy made a lot of sense to me. I am afraid of crashing the plane. If I get to the end of a work and it doesn't feel like I thought it would (and it rarely does, even by midway), am I missing out on something else? Did I make a wrong turn? Did I take something pristine with real potential out of its wrapper and squish it up with my dirty hands and destroy it?

Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I didn't have the right to manipulate my own ideas. Some of them are good ideas, and if I put my grubby little hands on them too much, I'll mess them up and there won't be anything good left of them. If only these ideas had been born to someone who already knew how to fly, someone who could get them on the ground safely and with a dash of style.

But they're mine. I am the only one who sees them whole. I'm the only chance they have of existing as they came to me and if I turn them down, they will fade away unknown and unloved. I owe them more than that. I have to try. Besides, if I can't crash my own planes in my own runway, how can I ever hope to learn to land properly?

So, I'm trying. I'm trying and trying. When I start to catch myself burning out on one project, I pull out another one and tack a few more words on that one. I'm making my way toward the finish line inch by inch. It may take me eight and a half years to make it down the aisle, but I'm going to get there with every one of these projects and we're going to make it official.

Someone beat us to it.

If you're like me and you're just a little afraid of ruining your own work, I challenge you to jump in face first and mess it up a little, just to see that it doesn't hurt and there's nothing you can do to it that you can't undo. It can actually be kind of fun, like the time my friend Laura and I turned all our main characters into zombies...er...xombies. (Zombies are so overdone. Xombies are the future.)

Do whatever you need to do to get there. Take all the time you need, but don't ever forget that every plane has to land one way or another. Give yourself a chance to land it right before you run out of gas and fall out of the sky. Your work is your work and nobody can do it better than you. Write it the way it was meant to be written--in the way that only you can write it. 

Inspiration Monday: Ambiance

You know the feeling. You get into a place where there is just enough buzz--conversations, colors, lights, smells, art waiting to happen--that you just can't help yourself. You have to grab a coffee (extra points if you are a latte-drinker and your barista knows how to pour a perfect fern) and a table by the wall, whip out whatever writing implements you have on you (this is where napkins and pens from the register often come in handy), and you create something.

What is it about certain places that make our brains tingle more than others? I wish I knew the secret. It would come in handy, let me tell you.

Lately, I've been in a serious writing funk. It's nothing unusual. On the contrary, it's part of the natural landscape of being a creative person. Sometimes it comes easy, and sometimes it doesn't. 

When it doesn't, it is my job as a "serious writer" (what does that mean???) to be "serious" about it and try to break open my funk and pick apart its shriveled up brains. I cannot let it beat me because it has beaten me before, friends, and it is not fun. 

It Is Not Fun.

I spent a year in a whirlwind of self-hatred, writing endlessly words and words and words, none of which satisfied me. They were fake words. Poser words that I knew good and well would not stick to anything, but I kept writing them anyway because I did not want to admit that I was beaten. 

What I forgot during those dried-up desert days was that writing words is only half the battle. It keeps the train on the tracks all right--you can't get by at ALL without writing the words--but the other half of the battle is being engaged with the words. 

This is the hard part, and the part that costs us something. Being emotionally engaged with a project, and in turn creating a project that will keep readers/consumers emotionally engaged, requires fuel. You have to pay in to get something out. 

Now, I'm not saying that we have to sit there and wait for inspiration to bite us in the rear before we can write anything that is actually worth anything. I've heard that excuse tooooooo many times (yesfrommyownmouthbutwhateverstopjudgingme). What I'm saying is that we need to pay attention to when things start to get hollow and pay something into the account. 

That's where ambiance comes in for me. 

Sometimes, it is as simple as finding a place where there is actual living being done by actual livers* of a life.  

Sometimes it means getting in a place where your brain can perk itself up and think, "Huh. I would never have thought of that on my own." 

It is absolutely about getting in a place where your brain can perk itself up and think. Period. 

For me, an independent coffee house that is a little battered around the edges and where one can find a perfectly poured latte is enough to wake up, as Hercule Poirot would say, "the little gray cells." There is something just writerly about these places, and whether there is something intrinsic in it or not, I am conditioned to know that in this setting my job is to slurp coffee and write things even though I am in the presence of other people (normally my kryptonite). Of course, it helps that most of these other people are also too caught up in slurping coffee to pay a single drop of attention to me. 

 This is the closest I can be to being a fly on the wall, and that is always a sure-fire way to get the creative juices flowing. 

Figure out what it takes for you to get your mind set for your own creative endeavors. Is it the lighting? The chair? The tools? The company? 

Maybe the beverage...

Set the stage and make some art!

*liver=person who lives, not disgusting meat-stuff that some people insist is food even though it is emphatically Not Food.

Dreaming Underwater

Creativity is the fuel for the rest of my personality. It is the part that powers me, that allows my arms and legs and brain to keep moving through the rest of my life. If I don't get in my time to consume and create art, then I run out of gas, plain and simple. It is like sleeping without dreaming--it leaves little point to waking.

I need time to soak in my thoughts, to hold my breath and explore the landscape on the bottom of my brain. Real Life floods in and crushes the air out of me, forcing me to the surface where the world stands waiting with their hooks and nets.

In short, I'm drowning in life.

They totally look like Fruity Pebbles.
They probably don't stay crunchy in milk, though.

What is the trick to dreaming underwater and not drowning in the process? Is there a way to crest the surface and suck in a lungful of reality without losing the mental, emotional, and spiritual nutrients that I absorb while I'm soaking in my own mind?

These fish have the right idea. I imagine that if I was one of them, I might start out a skinny, laggy, milky white blank-slate fish. I would swim around and around, learning from the other creatively colored fish, taking in everything about my surroundings and having increasingly complex thoughts until my very body began to change with the weight of them. I'd swell up and my fins would grow strong and fast so that I could see more, do more. My thoughts would grow ripe and throb for expression until my tiny sides would glow and change colors. I would be like the others, but also different. You would know me by my colors and the way I swam, and those things would be directly informed by the unique way I saw my world. I would be my own art, creator and created. It would make me a part of their aqueous society, not set apart from it.

Why can't people be more like my imaginary fish? Probably because we have bills to pay and jobs to do and people to please. I'm all about doing these things, but sometimes I just wonder if I can find myself a little reverse SCUBA suit so that I can suck in a few lungfuls of creative energy while I'm walking around like a fish on dry land.

Here's to the struggle, fellow creatives. You know we're all in this together.

The Case of the Missing Saturday

When I woke up this morning, I had no clue what day it was.

I opened my eyes at the same exact time as I do everyday for work. I stared at the clock, and it stared back. My first thought came in the voice of what could only be described as one of my ancient Cro-Magnon ancestors. "Work," my mind grunted. "Time go work."

My second thought was a little more like my normal thoughts, including the articles and infinitives that generally characterize normal speech, even in the south. "All I ever seem to do is go to work," I thought, a little sadly.

I blinked at the clock a few more times, mad at it for sitting there and counting my precious, slippery seconds when I couldn't seem to get a hold on them. "When do I get a day off?" I asked it with my glare.

When it didn't answer, it dawned on me to ask it, "Wait--what day is it and how many more until Saturday?"

For two full, agonizing minutes, I stared down that clock and neither of us seemed to have any clue as to how to answer that question. I tumbled into a vortex where time has no foothold, a world in which there are no Saturdays, even a distant future Saturday on which to hang my weary hopes. No Saturdays, no Sundays. Only alarm clocks, traffic, work, traffic, a seven-hour nap if I'm lucky, and then an opportunity to rinse and repeat until I keel over during one of those activities. 

Once I counted on my fingers and toes to realize that it was, in fact, actually already Saturday, I nearly wept into my pillow.

After my brush with a world without Saturdays, I thought I had better make the most of the one in front of me. I was determined to cherish this sweet Saturday with all of my heart.

I sat myself down and set my jaw. "I am going to write you, novel. I am going to write you today, because today is Saturday, and that means that you and I have a whole day to stare at each other until one of us blinks since you, novel, are not an alarm clock which is a rude object that never blinks back unless the power is off."

I stuck my face into the manuscript and breathed in all the leftover creative vapors, hoping beyond hope that they would creep into my brain, seize my unraveled story threads, and for Heaven's sake, start knitting them back together.

I narrowed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. I strategically placed all of my notes around me. I shooed my evil cat off of the notes and placed my fingers firmly on the keyboard.

Then I fell asleep at my desk.

Oh, you sneaky Saturday. You came without warning and escaped me just as easily. I will get you next week, and I will put you into a creativity-filled stranglehold.

You and me, Starbucks. You and me.

Unless I forget.

Is it Sunday yet? 

Strange Bookfellows

Why hello, there! Blog? Is that you? It's so good to see you! My, you've changed. Have you lost some weight? Probably, because there's been NO ONE TO POST ON YOU TO KEEP YOU PLUMP AND HEALTHY!

Consider me shamed. Now, to fatten you up with some empty calories.

I have had a full week with plenty of ups and downs. It has been a little heavier on the downs, but I persevere. I persevere, and I write. Those are my two best tricks.

On the writing front, I've been working on my novel a bit. "Working" here means "staring at the text and sorting through countless notebooks looking for that scene I just know that I already wrote that would be absolutely perfect for this transition, but apparently either evaporated or was a figment of my imagination." The latter is likely because, after all, even the stuff I have written is still nothing but written-down imagination figments. That's all fiction really is anyway, right?

Since trolling through my notebooks only affords me so much quality procrastination even on my super-limited schedule, I've also been thinking about who I'm actually writing this novel for anyway. The obvious answer is, "myself." That is the truth in many, many ways that could get all metaphysical and sappy if I was to expound on it, but it is also a limited answer. Once this beast is finished, I want to get it published with all of the want my big, bursting, wanting heart can want with all its want. That means I am really writing it for anyone and everyone and no one all at the same time.

I am under no illusion that any amount of publishing of my work will ever net me the kind of walking-around money that the Stephenie Meyers and J.K. Rowlings of the world have, and I'll probably never win a Pulitzer unless it is for something to do with rambling blog entries or government social-service grant activity sheets. I just want my book to be published because then it will exist.

Sure, it exists now. It exists on my hard drive, in countless notebooks and on napkins, in my writing buddies' inboxes, and as several reams of printed manuscript. It just doesn't exist in a way that makes it separate from me enough that it can belong to another person. It isn't final. I don't care how many times I print it or email it or read it or tap-dance on top of it, I'm going to see some little something that doesn't sit just right with me, and out comes my ruthless red pen. This phase is maddening for me because it seems never to end, but I've begun to think of it as a period of gestation. Once my novel finally grows itself a proper pair of lungs and gets its heart beating with a regular cadence, then it can join the rest of the world on the outside of my mind.

Lately, I've been thinking about what kind of market my book will be born into. The publishing world is in a state of flux. People are reading differently on a number of levels these days. The rise of e-readers and instant downloads has made it tough for bookstores to keep afloat, which hurts my story-sweetened old bookseller's heart. That said, in addition to a mountain of hard-copy books that will someday probably fall on me and kill me, I also have an e-reader.

E-readers brought with them a convenience and anonymity that have ushered in a new zeitgeist of popular novel. Self-publishing is easier than ever, and many talented authors are choosing that route only to be picked up after the fact by traditional publishers. Readers are worrying less about what their friends would say if they caught them reading that book and making their real reading interests known by what rockets up the e-book bestseller lists.

I'm noticing more and more ironic juxtapositions in book marketing:

I realize that alphabetical order was, is, and always will be the almighty dictator of shelf position, but the choice of face-out display speaks for itself. Sorry, James Joyce. Ulysses just doesn't have enough sex-appeal to catch the modern reader's eye. (No offense to Valerie Joyner. I'm sure her book is perfectly wonderful, it just struck me as a product placement which would baffle Joyce if he were to wander through a Barnes & Noble.)

It's almost like people aren't sure what they want--something to speak to their inner desires, or their outer ones. Maybe they can't tell which ones are which. Either way, Wal-Mart makes it easy to grab an inspirational paperback to take to the church retreat and a steamy Harlequin for the drive up to the location:

In this schizophrenic market, there are a lot of opportunities for writers to wedge their little fingers in the cracks and pull open a book-sized hole for themselves if they're willing to give it a shot. It's heartening in many ways, because pubs are having to look at a lot of factors they once ignored and readers are paying attention to writers they would never have had access to just a few years ago.

All any of this rambling really means is that I'm still writing my book in my own head and that it is a patriot without a country at this point. It takes me full circle and I remember that at least it has me, and I can always just write for myself.

Then someday, when I put my foot down and make the time, when I stop doubting, when I stop procrastinating, my book will exist. Here's hoping there will be someone other than myself waiting to read it.

My Life as a Toy

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a lovable plush toy representation of yourself?

No?

Well, you're missing out.

My good friend Stacey from Searching for Wonderland gave me just such an opportunity. Ladies, gents, and crochet creatures, I give you Marisa Monshter, a cheerful citizen of Monshter Town.

Stacey, the almighty creater of Monshter Town, is a master with a crochet hook...and a paintbrush...and a Wacom...and a sewing machine...and rocks, paper, scissors, and all kinds of other things. She has got to be one of the most creative and talented people ever to live, and I'm all smug and smarmy about the fact that I've known her since high school. She even made a box, complete with the little tabs and insert thingies that used to hold your Care Bear toys in their boxes like war criminals.

This is seriously one of the coolest gifts EVER, and at an absolutely perfect time. She presented my new little friend to me when I was doing my best to keep an aging stiff upper lip on my thirtieth birthday last year.

Now I'm immortal, and with adorable little fuzzy horns and fantastic blue hair. I don't actually have horns or blue hair, but the little bit of punk streak in me wonders how the blue hair would look...

The text on the back is fantastic (as is her graphic design prowess).

"Marisa Monshter's favorite color is blue! She loves making new friends and she has a lot of hobbies (that's an understatement). Some of her favorite things to do are draw, write, and go horseback riding. Marisa loves music more than just about anything else in the whole world. She even plays the trumpet! Marisa's favorite food is waffles! (A shoutout to our writing group--hi, Laura!) Won't you be Marisa's friend?"

Yes. Won't you? She enjoys long walks on the beach and staying out of the dog's reach. She's currently reading the entire David Sedaris canon and hoping to upgrade her little pink and green iPod to an iPod touch with better battery life and Angry Birds.

Seriously, I thought I'd post about this today because it inspired me. I've been moping around my house all weekend and feeling sorry for myself because I can't get into a creative groove. That pesky writer's block I posted about last week is still wrestling with me, and it doesn't fight fair. I flopped myself down in a chair and decided to stare blankly at the mocking bookshelf full of its writings and publishings and awesomeness that I can never attain, and there was my little stuffed doppelganger staring happily at me.

It just kind of reminded me that there are a million ways that a person can be creative, and that maybe my desire to get into a writing "groove" is part of my problem. Maybe I'm so far into the groove that it has become a rut.

I hauled myself up from my chair and decided that I would find something else to flex my creative muscles for a while. Dear Husband Chris and I ended up putting on our photographer hats and harassing the animals by chasing them around and taking pictures of them.

We worked on a light box and took completely useless (but really cool!) pictures of seashells.

You know what? It kind of worked. I started feeling refreshed and energized, like I was charging my batteries instead of trying to draw on a dead one. Now I feel like I could sit down and get a little bit of writing done without beating myself up over it.

So, hurray for today's Surprise Muse, Marisa Monshter, and her fabulous creator, Stacey-friend.

Vogue.

On Muses

Writers are always going on about their muses, what kind of mood their muses are in, what their muses ate for breakfast, how awesome Muse the band is (they are!), and how to get their stubborn muses to cooperate.

Oh, those stubborn muses. Technically, I have two of them. There's Black Muse and Brown Muse, otherwise known as Boo and Bella.

 

These two serve me well, and they're darn cute. When I'm having trouble writing, I try to blame them. They look at me with patient, innocent eyes...well, the cat's eyes are rarely innocent, but that's beside the point...and I realize that there's no one to blame for the words not getting onto paper but myself.
 
Wait a minute. Isn't the point of having a muse to have someone to blame when the writing doesn't work out? Someone to give credit when that magical moment happens and the words are flowing faster than you can write them? I'm not sure I'm ready for this. Besides, I'm not trying to put Boo and Bella out of a job here. They're unionized.

But what if they're right? What if it is really just my own fault for not getting the words down on paper? 

Nah.

Maybe the answer is not to give up on muses altogether--where's the romance in that?--but that I need more muses. Maybe there are already applications on file and all I need to do is pull some resumes. 

Today I found a muse in the form of a 51 year old man who has been homeless for the last 18 years. Today, for the first time in probably a very, very long time, he asked for help. Not the little kind of help like, "Will you please pass me a napkin?" or, "Can someone please make her stop reading her novel to me?" This was the real kind of help, the kind that hurts, the kind that makes you feel weak even though you know that all you're really doing is taking your hands away from a wound and hoping your insides won't fall out. His didn't, and they won't, but it doesn't mean that it won't feel like it sometimes. It's a long road for him. He'll change his mind. But, for probably the first time in his life, he'll change it back and he knows that he has the support behind him to eventually change it and keep it that way. 

I can't think of a better muse than that for today. I'm going to borrow his energy, his trepidation, his mischief, and his courage and do my very best to infuse it into my writing. I don't care if what I'm writing is a blurb for a caption contest, we can all use a little of what he demonstrated today. 

There are muses among us, as plentiful as the inspiration that can be plucked from the trees. Sometimes I wonder why everyone isn't an artist of some sort. Maybe they are and I just haven't deciphered their mediums.