A Passion-Driven Career Move

The founder of Felony & Mayhem press, Maggie Topkis, likes mysteries--yet found that a lot of the kind she most admires were out of print. So, according to The Week magazine (summarizing a story originally in Forbes), she read about a machine that could print out a paperback in seventeen minutes.

She got the rights to a British mystery Death in the Garden that had come out in '95 and started printing copies. That was the beginning. She has since gone on to publish more than forty titles--"bringing the best in bygone mysteries back to life."

Necessary Uncertainty

From an old (last winter's)More Magazine, a story on re-creating one's life by Susan Crandell:

"Most great ventures arise in uncertainty. Did Louis and Clark know they would make it to the Pacific? ... The hallmark of an adventure is not knowing the outcome, trusting in the flow of events....The least successful reinventers were the ones who'd figured everything out, down to the last decimal point....You're smart. You can make some of it up as you go along."

More, by the way, did not choose me as one of their winning women in their over-forty model search. More's the pity. But wasn't it wonderfully cheeky of me to enter the contest?

How to Reduce Fear: A Strategy

The idea is to take small steps in each beginning of the work on the project. And there's neurological reasoning behind this.

The approach is called the Kaizen Way, developed by Dr. Robert Maurer. Japanese business people used that word to describe the way they went about rebuilding their businesses after the devastation of World War II.

I found a description of this technique in Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bernard Golden:

"Maurer suggests that the human brain, motivated to maintain stability and security, is wired to resist change....The fear center of the brain, the amygdala, can lead us to react to situations without first checking in with the cortex, the more objective administrative part. Thus, new challenges can arouse fear in the amygdala, the center of the brain that is involved in the "fight or flight" response. However, small steps toward change or creativity do not trigger such a response. In effect, taking small steps toward change allows you to sidestep the fight-or-flight response...."

The Anxiety of Completion

I'm almost through with a revision and ready to send it to my agent. This makes me alternately want: to procrastinate and drag the process out...or to ship it off hastily with barely a proof-reading.

Anybody had that experience?

I'm managing to keep steadily working on it without following either rash course. In between bouts of writing, I plunge into a frenzy of gardening or crossword puzzles, both of which are somehow relieving. I'm open to other strategies, if anyone else is familiar with this state. I

I'm also excited about this project, which is a great feeling.

A Bit of Pagan Encouragement from Emerson

"The maker of a sentence, like the other artist, launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of a wild, creative delight."

Art Car: Going Bold on the Road

Some time back, I confided to you here that I've for years longed to have large cobalt-blue morning glories painted all over my 1992 pine-sap-speckled, beach-corroded Camry. (My novel-long-in-progress is titled Cobalt Blue.)

Well, I have just now ordered a stencil of morning glory blossoms and leaves, had the size of it doubled to 16 inches, and am commencing on research on car paint.

I meant to have an artist do this job; guess I'm getting gutsier: I'm going to do it myself.

And, for better or worse, you will see the finished product here. Note car in its current state (with a hint of my previous novel's title on the license plate.)

I always used to worry about seeming eccentric, and have reacted against that so much that I think I come off as rather buttoned-down. But once you have an art car, it's official, you're eccentric. It's the ultimate credential.

Saying Just Enough

Yesterday I got feedback from my writing group on fifty pages. Mostly they liked it a lot, which is always nice.

However, the parts they felt needed more work had problems of two kinds, directly opposite to each other. Or, you could argue, two sides of the same nickel. In some places, I'd hit people over the head with what I was saying, and in others I'd left too much to the imagination.

For me, getting this balance right is and has always been the hardest part of writing. If someone has discovered a guideline that works (other than getting feedback), I'd love to know.

What I'd really like is a clarity meter, a little gizmo like a photographer's light meter that can be held close to the page and that will then register the exact degree of balancing needed.

Rebelliousness

A lot of us like to think we're rebellious--as if there were something innately valuable in opposing whatever somebody else comes up with.

Intellectually, I know that's just as reflexive as slavishly following instructions.

But my gut has never gotten the message.

And in the last 24 hours, I've staged one of my frequent rebellions against myself. Having declared my ideal best life ruling principle at this site yesterday, I went home and was seized by all of my soft addictions nearly simultaneously: steady snacking all evening while turning through trashy magazines and then working crossword puzzles into the wee hours--I simply could not get myself to stop earlier and go to bed. Then of course I overslept hugely. And, worst of all, I indulged in beating up on myself.

Now none of this is so bad, obviously. Still. I'd like to feel I can stop. And an hour or two of those activities would have been plenty.

What happened is: the part of me that doesn't want anybody--including myself--telling me what to do got really fired up by my new ambitions.

The trick now is: to stay focused on my larger aim and outlast the rebellious part (I've been through this sort of thing a time or two before.) Will keep you posted.

More on Soft Addiction

A few weeks ago I wrote here about a book I was reading, The Soft Addiction Solution, on the idea that lots of us zone out much of the time doing the same habitual stuff: the TV and chips, or any repetitive escapist activity.

What I like about the philosophy of this author, Judith Wright, is that she doesn't preach discipline, self-restraint, character, deprivation, etc.

Instead the idea is to make a more satisfying choice, at least some of the time. I'm all the way to step one of this process, which is to make one overall decision about how I want my life to be, so that I at least have the option of making my daily decisions in support of that big one.

For example, like Lance Armstrong's Live Strong mantra.

I had to think about it for a while before I came up with mine. In fact, as recommended, I "test-drove" it for a few weeks. I'm happy with my selection, which is: I am living my life as my best self. I'm sorry to say I'm not bold enough to put this in boldface. I take that back. I'm putting it in boldface AND ALL CAPS: I AM LIVING MY LIFE AS MY BEST SELF.

It's a pretty clarifying idea. And I pay attention to it some of the time. I'd say it has steered me away from a lot of fried food and to a couple of yoga classes--and made clear a few times that it was time to knock off work for the day and go home.

I'm excited about this. It works. Will keep you posted on the next step in this process.

Discernment

What's the bold action for this moment? By bold, I don't necessarily mean flamboyant or loud. I mean taking the most direct road to where I want to be--and doing it without obsessing over it or second-guessing myself.

Here's the moment in question: I'm suddenly depressed (since Friday morning), mysteriously losing too much hair, and have also lost a surprising amount of weight (7 lbs in a week and a half.) I expected to lose some weight because I was teaching writing at a fitness spa, Rancho La Puerta, for a week of that time. So I ate healthy and worked out a lot. But I didn't expect to lose that much.

At first I thought I was just having back-to-the-desk letdown. But that doesn't cause weight loss.

What I've done so far: checked with my hairdresser yesterday morning and found that she too noted some missing hairs, called my doctor, went in and got a thyroid blood test in the afternoon, am now waiting to hear from test in a couple of days. So far so good, on the boldness front.

Now it's Wednesday morning and my impulse is to lie down on the floor and close my eyes.

Is that the boldly effective move? Will it help? Or is it better to keep working?

Sometimes making the bold move isn't the hard part. Instead the trick is to figure out what that move is.

Buddhism teaches sticking to right thought, right speech, right action, etc. I'd like to have a sort of pocket calculator that tells in any given moment what the right move (or lack of move) is. But I haven't yet seen one in any of the gadget catalogs.

Easy Does It

A useful bit of wisdom at a turn in the path.