The Creative Courage List

After a couple of days away, back to my list of rediscovered treasures. Number Three (not in order of importance) is Julia Cameron's seminal, world-changing, now-classic The Artist's Way.

The book is inspiring and encouraging in ways all its own. And at the same time it delivers two ideas that are bold in both their simplicity and their effectiveness.

Morning Pages

Every morning on awakening dash off three pages in handwriting at top speed not for publication. The idea is to clear the pipes and get to the good stuff. It has worked well for me, when I've gotten myself to do it.

The Artist's Date

An artist's date is when we each go alone out into the world--at least once a week for two hours--on a refreshing excursion to see or do something new. This is to refill the pipes. This one works too. Though I don't have to be encouraged to go out exploring.

Personal update: I was back in my hometown of Wilmington, NC, for the last couple of days, visiting my mom and the ocean and by chance seeing 4 people from my high school class (1966!) who all happened to be eating Sunday lunch at the same place. The others were visiting from Virginia and Philadelphia. Such trips seem to stir an ever-deeper pot of memories and connections. It all added up to a sort of artist's date.

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One Simple Principle for Better and Easier Decision Making

Wonderful wisdom today from the Daily Om on making decisions:


"Before making your choice, release your fear of wrong decisions. Perceived mistakes can lead you down wonderful and unexpected paths that expose you to life-changing insights. If you can let go of the notion that certain choices are utterly right while others are entirely wrong, you will be less tempted to invite others to take the reigns of your destiny.

When your choices are your own, you will be more likely to accept and be satisfied with the outcome of those choices. Your decisions will be a pure reflection of your desires, your creativity, your awareness, and your power."


This reminds me of a book I read in my twenties. If I'd been able to fully put it into practice then, I'd likely have needed about 62% less psychotherapy. The book is The Psychology of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden. It essentially argues that self-respect comes from making your own choices based on your own highest values and accepting responsibility for the consequences. Not entirely easy. But a lot more attainable, satisfying, and worthwhile than trying to make decisions perceived as perfect, right, or normal in the "eyes of the world."

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How to Stay Creative

Women Who Run with the Wolves is Book 2 in my series of rediscovered treasures.

I remember well when it came out because I was then in the editing process of the book I co-authored, The Healing Power of Doing Good, and working with the same publisher. And so on the phone one day, I got to tell then-editor Joelle Delbourgo at Ballantine: I stayed up late last night reading the Clarissa Pinkola Estes book and was so excited by it I couldn't sleep. She was pretty excited about that book too.

The conversation somehow made me feel closer to the message of the book. Which is: Women! renew and guard and rely on your instinctive, intuitive capabilities. Use them to do what's important to you.

Estes writes about excitement, passion, courage and how to stay vividly alive and creative.

Number One Principle of Creativity: Keep Coming Back

"Protect your creative life," she says, "Practice your work every day. Then, let no thought, no man, no woman, no mate, no friend, no religion, no job, and no crabbed voice force you into a famine. If necessary, show your incisors."

Typing that quote made me ask myself: Do I have to show "incisors" to protect my work time? I did interrupt 2 social conversations so far today, each time saying: I have to get back to it.

But both chats were with writers, and knew what "it" meant. So no incisors were needed. Which has usually been my experience. Still, it's good to be able to trust one's guardian wolf as needed, to know that she's there.

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Saying No at All the Wrong Times

The Jonah Complex is what Abraham Maslow calls the business of turning down our most profound callings:

"The evasion of one's own growth,
the setting of low levels of aspiration,
the fear of doing what one is capable of doing,
voluntary self-crippling,
pseudo-stupidity,
mock humility."

Personal Confessions: My Own Whale Tale

Ten or so years into freelance writing--finally reasonably well-established-- I got an inconvenient urge toward the ministry. I resisted. (I still think I was right to do so)

Then a few years later came the more compelling need to write a story about a minister who hears the voice of God and would prefer not to. I said to myself: is this what I want to do? And then I said to myself: if I turn this one down, the next one is likely to be even worse: opera singing or some such. So I wrote my first novel Revelation.

No regrets. But I also know for sure that some callings keep coming back, one way or another. Might as well figure out the best way to say yes.

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Callings

A lot of books arrived at my house last week after psychologist husband Bob's office reorganization. Picking through the boxes, I discovered a few selections that I'd recommended to him because I'd found them outstandingly useful, actually practical and effective in improving my life navigation skills.

So I decided to glance at these books again and bring here a few pithy items from each.

Today, from the splendid Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy, some quotes and, of course, my comments.


*"Calls are essentially questions....What question were you put here to understand?"

My question is: What is God? This is the subject of all my books.



* "If you were to retell your own life story as a myth....you would become the hero or the heroine, and your earthly struggles, rather than being taken so personally, would become mythic in scope, recast as plot twists in an epic adventure. The calling you seek becomes the treasure, the obstacles to your path become the tests of initiation you must endure, and friends become the hero's guardians. You would see the Big Picture...."

I find this helpful--when I remember to think of it--particularly in dealing with annoyances, setbacks, losses and damages. In fiction, it's the obstacles that make the story.



* Quoting Deena Metzger, "Keep away from saying 'I will do X so that Y will happen,...So that I'll be happy, or make money, or be recognized. Cause-and-effect is the narrowest way of seeing the world....Don't negotiate with the gods. Just offer yourself, 'Thy will be done,' without knowing the outcome."

This is pretty much my approach to writing novels.



* From Bharati Mukherjee, whom I once had the delight of introducing to writing classes at Duke, "Let me treat every moment with reverence...because I don't know what the mission of any of my moments in life is."

I tend to have a clear idea of what I mean to do in a given moment, but Mukherjee reminds me here, via Levoy, that there may be another and grander project I'm working on unwittingly at the same time. For example, I sometimes wonder if the real point of the writing group I've been in for 26 years is the books or the connections between the band of us.

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Setting a Good Example of Cheeky Ambition

Hear me, world: I am ready!

This is my announcement that, if offered, I will accept the post of American Idol judge recently vacated by Ms. Paula Abdul.

Job Qualifications

I bring many assets to the position. At 60, I am of a demographic not currently represented on the panel. Having no musical ability, I will be in no way competitive with the performers. I am not cowed by Cowell, in fact, think he's kinda cute (note: viewers love chemistry!!)

My Southern accent is a plus for any television job. Am able to be sarcastic as needed. Can roll eyes. Can well up with tears. Can make bold pronouncements. Am surprisingly open to make-over advice. Can raise eyebrows (and how!)

I am equipped with live on-camera experience. On public TV.

Availability

Can start now. Producers, I am awaiting your ring-a-ding.

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Seize the Scissors, Seize the Day

We don't have to stick with whatever comes out of a package. Often, we can change it. I love using things in ways they weren't intended, or altering them to make them work for my circumstances.

Case in point:

Husband Bob didn't like the blue sheets because they "didn't breathe." I didn't like the black ones because they were itchy. Here you see the compromise: slicing them down the middle. Now we have two sets of sheets that we both like.

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Death Anxiety Finale

I was preaching and theorizing here two days ago about how the health care anger and uproar was coming in part out of the fear of death.

Turns out I was projecting: it was me. (And maybe those raging demonstrators as well)

The day after that post (yesterday), I worried here about the recession and money.

The Underlying Fear

So then last night, as I watched a raw and astonishingly moving funeral of I-won't-say-who on Six Feet Under on DVD, money fear dissolved into a serious case of: Oh shit, I'm aging, time is going faster and faster, and all the people I love are going to die. (Not me, of course, my thinking is not that advanced.)

The recognition was very relieving.

Hitting a Wall

I'd had the same experience more wrenchingly 31 years ago, a couple of weeks after my father died. For no apparent reason, I panicked over money, though I was a self-supporting adult by then. I also managed that day to let my car battery die twice and to then drive that car over a small wall that I'd thought was a speed bump. A wrecker had to lift me off.

So maybe I should have known to look deeper. And maybe there's something else under death anxiety. What that might be I don't know. I'll be watching to see what else erupts.

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When Fear Likes to Strike

Curiously, courage is often needed most when a threat starts to recede. That's true for me, and true theoretically. The recession starts to show signs of abating and I start to feel the full emotional impact for the first time: anger, fear, fatigue, etc.

Why Be Scared of the Recession Now?

When the first frenzy of a crisis is over and things begin to look better, then I/we have the luxury of being tired and of resting, and of wasting time on worrying and second-guessing. Also, the adrenaline fades out a bit. And the initial overdoing starts to take its toll.

Decision-Making Principle

What I keep in mind is that the inevitable moment of wobble is not a good time for changing plans, backing off from earlier choices, throwing anything over, or rethinking anything important. Unless radically new circumstances occur, it's a good time for getting more sleep and sticking with the wisdom of an earlier fresher day.

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Tired? Terrified?

If job/economy worries are starting to wear on your courage and your imagination, your basic health and good humor, then take a playground break. Or you might even stand up and stretch, or try a little desk yoga. Not only bold, but refreshing.

Confront The Beast

Which reminds me that I regularly drive past Silver Lake Waterpark with a waterslide called The Beast and yet have never stopped and slid. This needs my attention before the weather gets cold once again.

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Fury and Fears About Healthcare

At tea this afternoon after my regular weekly writing group meeting, I suddenly understood why rage has been breaking out at meetings to talk about health care.

The Anger

I'm sure you've read about people showing up at these discussions packing heat, and seen the pictures of snarling and pushing participants.

This afternoon at our cafe table, four close friends--all well-educated, well-informed, and fairly temperate--got pretty hot on the subject and the thing is: we AGREE about healthcare reform. But we had slight variations on what must be included, or what model should be allowed or not allowed to become a new system. But safe to say: we were thinking about 96% the same.

So if we could get as stirred up as we did, then I can understand how people with radical disagreements can get very upset. And how people can let themselves be inflamed by bizarre rumors. And manipulated into bug-eyed fury.

It's because basic safety is involved.

Death Anxiety, The Fear of Death

What we're talking about isn't mere financial corruption or tax increases or better schools. It's staying alive. And staying whole. And protecting our young and our old.

Some of the rumors going about are simply insane, and I'm not even going to further spread them by repeating them. But people worried about basic safety for themselves and their families can get crazy pretty quickly. Especially if helped along by political forces that stand to gain by their anger.

When I was living in Varanasi doing my research for Sister India, rioting and terrorist bombing broke out there and shut the city down for two weeks of curfew. The sides there were Hindu vs. Muslim. Never mind that Hindus and Muslims were living together in harmony most of the time through much of the city. But political agitation stirred up violence over symbolic acts, over what an outsider might see as a trifle. Each outbreak then set up a chain reaction of retribution.

(When I set out for India, I didn't expect such fights and living under curfew to become part of my novel, but inevitably they did.)

It's easy to say: go easy, listen to all sides, remember that this is your neighbor who also wants reliable healthcare.

Such restraint is very hard in practice. I do know that inflammatory rumors help no one and can do extraordinary harm.

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Taking a Break from Strong?

A courage conundrum: Can a strong person have a weak stomach?

I won't burden you with details, but I came down with food poisoning last night. A rough six hours, but it was the cleanup that was most vexing.

Willpower alone does little to restrain a stomach in rebellion. I do know that hypnosis can get amazing results; my psychologist husband helps people prepare for chemo, etc., using clinical hypnosis. He mentioned this morning that this episode was an opportunity to "work on" my sensitivities. I did not press him for details. Wasn't feeling bold.

I do know that it's possible to desensitize to a smell. Living in Varanasi, India, doing research for Sister India, I found that I "forgot" the smell of the riverbank funeral pyres.

And yet a bad smell is an astonishingly tough adversary. Even rioters can be dispersed by the truly potent stink bomb.

I may just decide to be a wuss in this particular aspect of life, unless I hit a persistent need to do otherwise.

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Pump It Up

Here's one of my favorite pump-up songs of all time, performed by one of the great pop artists. Perfect for shaking off any August lethargy.

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Boldness Highlights of the Week

Bold this week:

...our new Justice Sotomayor. It takes courage to be the first of any group to climb into a highly visible position.

...the rescue of the two reporters from North Korea, not with force but with strategy and charm.

...Paul McCartney riding city buses (from "Paul McCartney Keeps It Real", The Week magazine)

My own boldest move this week was pretty small: I rewrote my intro copy for my blog in a more revealing and pointed way. (soon to come)

What was your own boldest move in the last seven days? What's it going to be for the coming week?

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Weakness or Strength?

Peeling a car isn't everyone's idea of fun. But my car needed it. It's an artcar, as I've mentioned here before. And my most recent attempt at a white background for the morning glories used housepaint. Bad idea.

It started to blister. Then ragged tatters of paint flapped in the breeze as I drove. Something had to be done.

So in late morning I started ripping off bits and strips of paint. It was so much fun. I kept thinking I would quit and go move the laundry from washer to dryer. But then I'd pull one more dirty bit of paint off and another.

And then I discovered that four hours had passed. Unbelievable! I would have believed maybe an hour and a quarter.

Which brings me to my point. I'm good at focusing, losing track of time, and staying with a project literally for decades. My point: our weaknesses are our strengths inappropriately applied. I could have quit earlier and borrowed a sander. Or settled for a less-peeled car. (It's no prize as it is, I'll tell you.) Or at least made a conscious choice. That's the key thing: to pause for a second to make a choice.

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Cheeky Advertising

My hip, imaginative dentist (take that, stereotype!) has interesting ways of getting the word out. Note this give-away toothbrush. In case the writing on my portrait of it is hard to read, the inscription says:

Rebecca Schmorr, DOS, 834-4450
Directions: Use the Fuzzy End

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Boldly Grateful

A wise friend recently told me he feels gratitude is the key to success in life.

I already knew that genuinely feeling grateful does a lot for one's health and happiness. But as I thought about it, I realized how effective a focus on gratitude could be for making alliances, working with people, recognizing opportunities, and so on.

And it does feel better than griping about what's not right.

Probably it cuts down on self-consciousness, fear, and irritability as well. Anyone who is in the midst of reveling in the wonders of what she has been given probably isn't simultaneously in a swivet about the oppressive to-do list, money pressure, how the meeting this morning should have gone, and so forth. Anyone feeling that kind of ease is likely nice to be around.

Even my computer is more cooperative when I don't swear at it for taking 8 seconds to do something.

It's pretty easy to feel genuine gratitude (nothing's more annoying than the fake pious lying kind) Feeling grateful happens simply by remembering what's good: an 8-second delay in getting into a website is miraculously easy research compared to the old days of driving somewhere to pore over microfiche archives. And so forth.

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Grab a Green Kleenex

It's hard to do the right thing when someone is pressing you to do it. At least I, immaturely, find that so.

So congratulations are due today to two organizations:
1. The world's largest tissue-maker Kimberly-Clark
2. Environmental organization Greenpeace (as well as other eco-activists)

Kimberly-Clark, after almost five years of urging from Greenpeace, will no longer use wood pulp from Endangered Forests, such as Canada's Kenogami. And KC is a company that requires a lot of raw materials; they make Depends, Kleenex, Scott paper towels, Huggies, Kotex, and Poise, among other items. Now they're a giant not only in paper products, but in green paper practices.

So-- Yay, Kimberly-Clark! Yay, Greenpeace! Yay, ancient forests!

If it brings tears to your eyes, go buy yourself a case of Kleenex. The right move deserves a reward.

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On Time or Way Behind?

The feeling of running behind is one that I find hard to shake. Here, from The Daily Om, is a good way to think of it. Important, because nothing is actually gained from going around feeling pressed. The hurried state of mind makes me clumsy and leads me to try too hard and actually slows me down.


"...The delays that disappoint you may be laying the foundation for future accomplishments that you have not yet conceived....What you deem a postponement of progress may actually represent an auspicious opportunity to prepare for what is yet to come."

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Daily Uncertainty, Daily Strength

"Creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the lack of structure, the lack of future, the lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity, for planlessness." Maslow on Management, Abraham Maslow


In about my second year of freelancing (1973), I would walk from my parking place to my office in the mornings, often amazed that the buildings were already there and weren't something I had to fling up one either side of me as I walked. That's how unstructured self-employment felt a lot of the time then.

I often still feel that writing a novel is sketching the first step of a flight of stairs, stepping up onto it, then drawing another step that's supposed to hold my weight. And so on.

I'm not a great fan of ambiguity, though I do find an uncertain future (professionally) to be exciting. Most of us like some wobble room, and get nervous about other aspects of facing the great void. But getting used to that is part of the job; it goes with the turf.

The work is both conscious and unconscious. In addition to the discipline of writing, it requires some trust that the path you're on, with all its detours, is worth taking. Practically, that means staying willing to proceed even when you don't know what's up ahead.

E.L. Doctorow said that writing is like driving at night, you can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

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Who Is the Bold and Savvy Blue Hair Lady?

Those unnerving little ads that show up at the top of email somehow always seem to know what I'm interested in. I don't know the technology by which they read over my shoulder, but yesterday I was actually enticed into clicking on one.

The phrase that caught my eye was: Radical Writing. How could anyone resist that?

It took me to The Blue Hair Lady. And what a find! Not only does Laura Cerwinske put "Blue Envy" on her hair every couple of weeks, she's a highly accomplished writer on design and visual art, publishing with such outfits as Rizzoli International, Thames and Hudson, Bantam, Dell, Doubleday, Simon and Schuster.

And she's an artist.

And a small publisher (Blue Hair Lady Publishing..."The company’s publications are excursions through the secrets of transformation, weaving quantum thought and healing, metaphysics and art, memoir and mythology.".

And a student of Santeria and similar body/mind/spirit subjects.

Also she teaches a 12-week on-line Radical Writing course aimed at wild disinhibition-- for $25.

I do admire the combination of free-wheeling and commercially-and-artistically-successful.

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A Good Sign

A long-time biker bar (Hogs not ten-speeds) is on my route between home and office. I've never stopped there, though it has often crossed my mind.

Recently a sign went up outside the place that I thought pretty bold, and delightful as well. The sign: "It's A Boy." And the little marquee was festooned with appropriate decorations.

It takes a bold biker to make a tender announcement.

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Obsessive-Compulsive Haircuts

My hairdresser, like me, has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder. So we tend to compare notes on meds and how we're doing.

Once she noted that we'd gone a whole haircut without touching the subject, and didn't that speak well of how we were both doing.

Today: haircut at 11:15. Forty-five minutes from now.

I'm doing fine with this OC stuff. And one small part of the reason is getting to talk about it as she and I do. Having a comrade-in-arms helps build all kinds of courage. And gets my bangs out of my eyes.

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The Courage to Face Death

Yesterday I was finishing an edit on a nonfiction book proposal from my three months in Varanasi, India. (I was there doing research for my novel, Sister India.)

In the proposal is a scene from the first time I visited "the burning place," the riverbank pyres where corpses are burned and ashes placed in the Ganges. Watching a human body catch fire is disturbing, even if it's a stranger, and seen briefly and from a little distance.

Hours after that experience, I felt as if the ballast in my interior was rolling around. I felt all atilt. I've read that material a number of times since. But yesterday it got to me again, as if I were seeing it for the first time.

The fact that we die and are physically destroyed is shocking. I find it incomprehensible.

We are all very brave to put up with it.

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The Encouraging Largeness of the World

Foreign accents filter through the door from the office next to mine. My friend and colleague Carrie is taking part in a conference call/meeting. I think she's talking with Australians about some joint arts project.

I like hearing this murmur from the other side of the world. It reminds me that the world is large and the possibilities nearly infinite.

For a while when I was in my twenties, pre-Internet, whenever I felt low I went to a newsstand and bought a New York Times. It reminded me that the world was larger than whatever--

No, wait! The voices in the next room are from South Africa, I just heard a reference to Johannesburg.

Anyway, having a look at The Times reminded me that my options were larger than whatever limited set I was focused on that day. It inevitably worked, if only a little.

Yesterday I was posting about the power of following our particular passions where they lead, into deeper knowledge and engagement. Today, I remember that a wide view can also be greatly inspiring and exciting and en-couraging.

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Follow Your Bliss

Follow an interest with passion and energy and it becomes very particular. Not just interest in dogs, but deepening interest in particular breeds or particular aspects of dog training or some such. Husband Bob is fascinated by big exotic breeds. Here's a Boerboel (a South African mastiff type) that we drove several hours to meet, never mind that we already have one at home.

I consider following an interest where it leads to be a bold and enriching exploration.

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A Ten-Adventure Weekend

Just back from a 3-day weekend to the NC mountains and then to the Charlotte area with husband Bob. The itinerary was determined by two things he had in mind to do: go to a black-belt testing in Blowing Rock and then see some dogs at the home of a breeder who raises the same kind of exotic mastiffs he now has. (8 month old Aura is a Boerboel, which is a South African breed.)

My agenda was to hike in the mountains (that was Saturday) and to paddle my kayak in Lake Norman, the largest lake in the state, near Charlotte (that was Sunday). Today we had a spontaneous retail adventure in an Ikea, the bold Swedish business innovator that sells home and office stuff like nobody else in the world. I'd been to one once, Bob never had.

That worked out to three adventures for me, and four for Bob, and one more for each of us, if you count the rather intense conversation we had for an hour while waiting for check-in time at the Lake Norman Motel, Restaurant, and Marina to be ready. And possibly one more, if you count skidding in with minutes to spare in time for Bob to run his 5:30 psychotherapy group.

The number of adventures is my test of an excellent vacation. And it occurred to me this weekend that I could start looking at regular days that way as well.

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Adapt or Revolt?

"What shall we think of a well-adjusted slave?"

--Abraham Maslow

The answer to that question is not simple. In some situations, coping and making-the-best-of is all that can be done. And what's important is to avoid lingering shame at having done no more.

Other times, adapting is copping out.

How to tell the difference? I think we know in our guts which is which.

One exception: things that kids do to cope get a pass. As kids we simply don't have the resources to do everything we think we should have done back then.

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Starting the Day Stupid

Overslept. By two hours! Then forgot I'd had a morning appointment at Autologic about a car problem. Then stumbled around trying to make sense of things. Finally, rolled out toward car shop and the rest of the day.

Now it's just past noon. People at AutoLogic quickly did the necessary check, and I was out of there and on to the next thing, as if I'd started the day in a smart and organized and capable way.

It's tempting (for me at least) in the case of a screwup, to say: the hell with it, today's shot, or at least the car repair venture is. I try to rememember at such moments, large or small, that order may be reclaimable: do what I can as fast as I can.

Sometimes when I've dropped something valuable and fragile, I have a quarter-second thought: that's lost; and I'm already starting to grieve before it hits the floor. And then the next quarter-second thought kicks in and I grab it and sometimes "save the day".

Important to remember: first do what can be done, on matters large and small.

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Degrees of Anxiety

"Most people believe only in degrees of jeopardy and live in degrees of greater and lesser anxiety, but never in true relaxation."

quoted on Gaiam
from Paul Richards, co-author with Patricia Richards of Wild Attraction, a Ruthlessly Practical Guide to Extraordinary Relationship- a book about the effects of subtle energy on relationships.


Note from Peggy: It never occurred to me that what I think of as relaxation might be merely a reduction in tension. Maybe this relaxation is a place I've never visited. Will explore further.

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Risk Analysis

Going to the moon probably requires some boldness.

The 40th anniversary of the first moon landing was yesterday. I was twenty when it happened and it still seems unbelievable to me that anyone has done that. I like the idea that something can be permanently amazing. And that anyone has the nerve to visit another celestial body. Or to put up with a loved one making the trip.

I doubt if I'm going to the moon. Not my brand of gumption. Not what I'd risk everything for.

It's not that we have a finite quantity of courage and if we use it up it's gone. Quite the reverse. Bravery, even in small daily things, engenders more of the same.

But risk is another matter altogether. Lots of things that require some nerve--making a difficult phone call, perhaps--don't have any real risk. I once knew a fellow travel writer who waited as late as possible to head out to the airport for a flight; so there was always a mad rush on the road. She did it on purpose, saying she was "a risk-taker." I thought that was pretty stupid.

She was risking missing the flight. The gain was a few more minutes at home. Not a good trade-off.

When faced with something that scares me, the real risk involved is one thing I think about. That, and the potential gain.

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Media Trend: Tough Women Who Triumph

"Getting By With Brassiness" was the headline of the story in my local News and Observer yesterday.

It pointed out a change that I'm surprised I haven't noticed: the string of new female lead characters who are gutsy and tough, yet still star. They're not fallen women, or drugged-out, or whores with hearts of whatever. They're clear-eyed and outspoken, see the emperor's new clothes, and yet they don't get punished for it. They're attractive women.

Edie Falco as Jackie is one. I always thought she was sturdy and attractive as Carmella Soprano; I even named my 1992 flower-painted gotta-keep-on-ticking automobile Car-mella Camry.

But as Nurse Jackie, Mon Dieu! What a force! And yet still feminine and a healer.

This is delightful progress, both on TV and in books: "The new breed of brash, audacious woman has pushed into literature as well. Lisbeth Salander, heroine of the best-selling mystery novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is 'prickly and irksome' but somehow still alluring: 'She was like a nagging itch, repellent and at the same time tempting,' the narrator notes in the book by the late Stieg Larsson, published last month in paperback by Vintage."

Not that I wish to be a nettlesome person myself. Or brusque or brassy or even no-nonsense.

But I like the fact that I have that choice, and that the freedom doesn't have to come at such a devastating cost as one's femininity or a happy ending.

Here's to Julia Keller of The Chicago Tribune who noticed and wrote the syndicated article.

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Sports and Lipstick...at Any Age

My elderly husband (67) and I (60) had dinner in a sports bar Friday night, the Salem Street Pub. I never did that before--though I once edited a story that importantly took place in one--and didn't do it this time on purpose. It looked like a cafe sort of place, and the patty melt had been reviewed as the best in my local three-city area.

It was very, very loud. There were many large TV screens showing different kinds of games.

And it was kinda cool, though I've never been much for spectator sports. Women's fastpitch softball was an inspiration. I was pleased to see that one excellent batter was wearing make-up. I love the idea that you have don't have to give up lipstick to play ball. That we can combine whatever elements suit us individually, which makes the terrain more interesting for everyone.

The patty melt was excellent, too.

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In a Maslow Mood

The famous "growth psychologist": Abraham Maslow is someone who is in huge agreement with me (but he got there first.) He's the guy who went global with the idea of "self-actualization." Another guy, Kurt Goldstein, actually came up with the idea.

It's not a very sexy term, but it's a dazzling goal. Essentially, it's making the choices and doing the things that will best lead us each toward full potential, in mind, body, and spirit, in work and in love. Who could argue with that?

On the other hand, who consistently lives by it? Maybe two percent of us do it most of the time, Maslow said at one point. And that's partly because much of the world's population is occupied with trying to be safe and well-fed, which has to come first.

But even on a full stomach, it's not so easy. I find that some of his bits of wisdom remind me of my self-actualizing intentions. Here are a couple of my favored Maslow quotes:

“We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.”

“The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.”

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Brass

Browsing the magazine-swap corner at my local library, I ran across a small treasure that I, a magazine junkie, had never heard of: Brass Magazine. Publishing for five years, it appears to be a financial/inspirational magazine for young people. Mantra: "young today * rich tomorrow."

If it were just about money in conventional numerical terms, an old English major like me would be bored. But I started freelancing full-time when I was 22 (that's 38years ago now), and I could have used this info and encouragement about running my one-person business. (My best help on this was my entrepreneur mom, but at that age I wasn't greatly inclined to seek too much help from a parent.)

In the Feb. 2007 issue I picked up, the point seemed to be helping people get started at "doing their thing" and doing good as well as well. And the cover story was about, of all things, a poet, Carlos Andres Gomez!

The column "I'm Young, Not Dumb" by CEO Bryan Sims showed some of the ironic difficulties the young entrepreneur faces. When he applied as a student for "independent" study credit for running his own business, he was asked to call the work an internship and have one of his "more experienced" employees to sign off as his supervisor.

The advice he gives: "...We all find ourselves in frustrating situations that seem unfair. Keep going. And along the way, make sure you don't make the same mistakes. Don't judge people by their appearance or age...And if someone tells you your dreams are impossible, go do something about it. Go prove them wrong."

I need to be reminded myself not to discriminate based on age; I very often make negative assumptions about people under twelve who are not my nephews.

Probably most of us can use some encouragement to keep on paddling toward our dreams. Might be some help also to people of any age who are still novices at the financial part of dream-realization.

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Split Personality

Overtly being oneself is a great thing and necessary, I think, for a happy life and having any kind of satisfying success in the world.

At the same time, I'd like to think it was possible for all of me to fit in at one place sometimes. With my most high-serious chums, the flip, brash part of my nature kicks in; I'm all McDonald's and bubblegum music. On the other hand, with my most unhesitating, just-do-it, no-nonsense friends, I'm more likely to become Ms. Brooding Artist.

Probably just a playing out of my own conflict about having such disparate halves. I'm actually pleased that it's so, serves me well in a lot of ways. But it creates a sort of friction too; I'm ever pulling the wrong club out of my golf bag. And, curiously, doing it on purpose.

Decades ago, I told my therapist Nick Stratas as we walked out his office door that I had a strong identification with two people: 1) his famous-opera-singer sister Teresa Stratas and 2) the then-governor of North Carolina, Jim Hunt. Different jobs. And it would appear, very different temperaments. Therapist's response in short: "inner conflict."

I had the same conversation around that time with my brother Franc Payne; I told him that my problem was that I had our father's tumultuous interior and our mother's stoic exterior. He said, "you've got your daddy's hormones and your mama's Methodism." Neither of those descriptions do justice to either of our parents. But they do make a fair sketch of me. I'm assuming something of this sort of mixed-bag-ness is true for everyone. Which is one of the challenges of "being one's self."

How about you? How many people do you embody? Or do you feel yourself to be all-of-a-piece?

(In any event, thanks for listening. This has been a great relief.)

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A Writer's Platform

I've just discovered a book I'm wildly excited about: Get Known Before the Book Deal: Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform.

This addresses what seems to be a Catch-22 for a lot of writers at various career stages: the current need to be semi-famous in your field to help an agent sell the book. The author has to bring ever more to the table in the way of a waiting audience.

This book is the best thinking I've seen on the subject of how to do it. And it's aimed at both fiction and nonfiction, extrovert and introvert. You don't have to be techie to understand it. And it doesn't make me feel bad, as some experts do, that I haven't done all the suggested things already.

Author Christina Katz, also known as Writer Mama, has been "Empowering Writers Since 1998."

You'll likely be hearing more about this book from me. Or maybe you'll just see the dazzling results.

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"...There Are Always Difficulties..."

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."
Ralph Waldo Emerson discovered at Wisdom for the Soul

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She Writes

For women writers: a brand-new info, networking, and promotion resource, SheWrites.com has gathered 5 short of 2,000 members in its first two weeks. I joined. I think you might find it inspiring, useful, and one more place to "show your stuff."

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Frost's Freedom

Today's inspiration:

Freedom lies in being bold. ~ Robert Frost

from: Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching

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Climb Every Mountain?

"When a door opens, walk through it. Trust that the door has opened for a reason and you have been guided to it....Every time we walk through an open door, we create a sense memory that encourages us to move into the new fearlessly. When we enter the new space, we almost always feel a thrill and a new feeling of confidence, in ourselves and in the universe."

From Friday's Daily Om

I'm not so sure about this one. I made a vow years ago to refrain from taking dares; they tend to lead me in the wrong direction.

On the other hand, when a door opens and I feel I might not go through it because of fear, then I force myself. I had some hesitation about taking on co-authorship of The Healing Power of Doing Good. A buddy of mine said to me as we stood in the line at the K&W Cafeteria: "Don't weird out on this." I'm glad I didn't.

What do you think about this walk-through-every-door idea? Am I just taking this too literally? If I pay attention, I can see that doors are opening every day and it's impossible to go through all of them.

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Hot Pink

Hanging over my office building's door this morning.


Even the gentlest pastel can go bold.

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The Courage To Hand Out Hamburgers

I've long thought that the people who work the fast-food drive-through windows are superheroes. They have to take an order at the same time they're delivering another order and making change. If I hadn't seen it a thousand times, I'd swear it was humanly impossible. I think it takes a lot of gumption to take up that kind of juggling at all.

There are a examples everywhere of such everyday courage. Flipping through an old Sun magazine last night, I ran across an essay about the kind of emotional fuel such work requires.

From "They Always Call You 'Miss'" by Alison Clement:

"There's more to waiting tables than you might think. It takes courage, for one thing. You walk up to a table, and everyone turns to look at you, as if you're about to deliver the opening line of a play....You have to act as if you know what you're doing and everything is going according to a plan....You have to remember: Gin and tonic to table 8; man at 12 is late for a meeting; nut allergy on 5. You have to remember it all and not get overwhelmed."

If I start to feel down on human nature, I think about the ordinary things that people muster the courage to do every day.

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Courage Quote

Offered by Mamie, the Quote Queen:

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.
- John Lancaster Spalding, First Bishop of Peoria, 1840-1916.

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The Many Brands of Courage

What's bold for one person is routine for another. We all know that, but I find it so easy to forget--until once again I see someone confidently run a multi-team project that would make me want to retire to a quiet room like a rock singer with exhaustion. Or until I see someone quaking over something I don't blink at--like flying or public speaking.

I find it very hard to wrap my mind around being worried about flying. No effort is necessary, no getting-it-right. One need only sit there and flip through a magazine. To understand that kind of fear, I need the sharp memory of some of my own kinds of nervousness: about entertaining, or being a house guest, or steering someone wrong somehow. Those are stupid fears, the first two anyway.

We all manage to do and finally enjoy things we're scared of. It's a triumph we ought to give ourselves credit for. And it's a marvel and a delight how differently we're each put together.

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Gavriel Lipkind, Carrie Knowles, and the B.C.O.

I don't know how to say this properly, because I know so little about classical music. I'm a fan of hip-hop and old rock and roll. I play the serious stuff mainly as background while I'm reading, and go to classical concerts mainly to get dressed up and go out on the town with friends and sit under nice chandeliers and listen to pretty music that I don't usually recognize.

But last night I went to a concert that was extraordinary. Even for a clunk like me.

Israeli cellist Gavriel Lipkind played with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra (of Belgium) in Raleigh in the official opening night of the Cross Currents Chamber Music Arts Festival, an international chamber music festival created and put on single-handedly by my friend and office partner Carrie Knowles whose son Neil Leiter plays viola in the Brussels group.

For most of the last year, Carrie has sat in the office next to mine and raised money and gotten visas and such and made this ten-day festival happen. What she has done is an amazing demonstration of what one person can accomplish (in spite of my telling her repeatedly and unhelpfully that she was mad to attempt such a thing. Just watching the process from next door was like having an office next to a heliport)

Well, the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, a conductor-free group of a dozen or so young musicians from half a dozen countries, played beautifully and were intriguing to watch. Then they brought out their soloist, Lipkind, whom I'd had no special interest in because I was mainly listening for Neil whom I've known since he was a wee fellow. The Belgium-based musicians had met the Israeli cellist in Norway.

Lipkind and the BCO together were an astonishing treat. And at intermission, I caught sight of Mamie, a regular here, who called out: I'm looking forward to reading about how bold he is.

I hadn't even thought about writing of the experience. Sitting on the second row, I was too overwhelmed. Lipkind, in a black "bat" shirt and long gold curls, is the most physically expressive, playful, and joyous musician I've ever seen. It's not reaching for a metaphor to say that he was making love to the music.

I can't tell you a thing about his or anyone's pizzicati (and I'm not sure if that's a word or if it's a word meaning little pasta), but it was thrilling music to watch and to listen to. And the interaction between him and the other musicians was like watching a celestial drama.

Seriously bold. Nobody holding back.

And this group of musicians and Carrie did their job well, at least in my case, since it's part of their mission to bring chamber music to new audiences.

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An Annual Celebration of Courage

The Fourth of July is a celebration of boldness. From one year to the next, I forget that it’s more than a day that the mail doesn’t come, more than a day of vacation. (Though I’m self-employed, I generally loaf on the same days the rest of my world does.)

But yesterday both Prairie Home Companion and the celebration on the Mall in D.C. stirred once again my pride in the best of the U.S., and that includes having shaken loose to become an independent nation. It took some serious and costly shaking to make that happen. Some of my scrappy old relatives were in on it—all but one on the side of Independence (and that one Royalist had to have had a bold streak as well).

This legacy isn’t all good; one of the same relatives led a company of soldiers that destroyed several Native American villages.

I’ll probably never pick up a musket myself—or a handgun. I’m lucky never to have been faced with the decision. A big piece of that “luck” is that others have insured my independence. My responsibility is merely to have the courage to fully—and wisely—use it. Once again, the fireworks and the music remind me.

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Ropes Courses and Such

I have a friend who, with her husband, has raised three exceptional children. One of her philosophies is, instead of giving children toys, to give them "real things." They didn't do skateboards or TV (except for the World Series). But if a kid wanted a banjo, he got a real one, not a baby version. And instead of playing board games of risk, he competed by volunteering in a real political campaign.

I thought of this again when I saw last week in my local paper a story on mountain climbing as a way to develop the goal orientation and other qualities needed to start a business. My philosophy is: skip the mountain challenge (unless you're in it for the fun) and go straight to starting the business.

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"The Man on The Radio in the Red Shoes"

A stirring way to celebrate the bold occasion of Independence Day: Prairie Home Companion's live show tomorrow at 5:00 Central Time in the Wobegon-like town of Avon, Minnesota. The program also celebrates the 35th anniversary of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home creation, as well as "the birth of freedom," as GK says on the promo on the website. For those who can make their way to Avon, the show is free, as it also is on its regular NPR stations.

And if you're a GK fan, as I am, make sure to see the new documentary on his life: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes. It aired two night ago on PBS' American Masters series, and you can order the DVD. This portrait shows a bold imagination at work and will at the same time make you feel happy to be American and human.

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