My son said this to me a couple of months ago and I’ve been guilting over it ever since.

Well, it’s because I’m stressed. My work life kind of exploded some time last summer when I decided to escape the (dying) industry I’d been in for the previous seven years in favor of the formatting work that was falling on top of me. I kept thinking I could do less work for more money and spend time with my kids, but… That’s not the way it worked out.

Is it ever?

In January, my career took a sharp upward turn when I was presented with an offer it’s taken me four months to stop resisting. (Details later, when it’s all finalized.) The deciding factor was time, because, in a totally unrelated twist, I was suddenly presented with a project I won’t be able to resist at all.

On the formatting front, I’ve got a backlog of work and I’m behind. I’m stressed. My house, until two days ago, was a complete wreck (thank you GroupBuy for that cheap house deep-clean). I have to do my taxes. My kids are after me for attention (as is their right), but they’re somehow easier to put off. I was sick most of December and February. Dude’s been sick for the last two months. I have a book coming out on Easter (in case you hadn’t heard). I’m publishing a book for someone else this month. I have another huge project for another client. I’m in charge of producing an important work from Peculiar Pages coming out June 30 and working on edits for the Monsters & Mormons anthology coming out in October. And we come around again to people who come to me for formatting their ebooks.

It’s exciting and nerve-wracking and stress-inducing and I haven’t been able to sleep without some serious medication, which happens to give me a hangover. I like it. I like helping people self-publish. I feel…important. Like I’m accomplishing something with my meager little life. I love it.

But…

“Mommy, why don’t you smile anymore?”

So today I went to get the final item for the Magdalene Easter swag basket (spirit gum, if you must know) and it’s just down the street from Crown Center, across from which is a fountain.

(Well, in Kansas City, you can’t take two steps without falling into a fountain, so that’s not saying anything.) It’s 88F today, but the trees are still bare, which should give you an idea about how bizarre our weather has been.

I decided that, in spite of my backlog of late projects, I’d take the kids to lunch at Crown Center and then let them play in the fountain with about 40 other children. They didn’t have bathing suits on, but who cares? This is an issue of being spawntaneous.

They were happy. I was happy.

And I smiled.

We’re gonna do stuff like this more often.

If I hear/see that one more time, I’ll puke in my wastebasket.

What bullshit is this? Who came up with this? Who thought this was a good idea? Oh, Churchill? Right, him. The guy who was leading the charge in World War II before Pearl Harbor was a glimmer in our tears. He gets a pass.

You could come back at me and say:

“Changing your tactic isn’t giving up.” That’s true.

“Retreating now to fight another day isn’t giving up.” That’s true, too.

But maybe, if you are stacking up too many “nevers” to modify your “give up,” you should probably rethink your goal or at least think about it in realistic terms. Without context, platitudes and proverbs mean less than nothing.

Sometimes, giving up is simply breaking out of a jail you built for yourself.

For me, “I can’t” is the most freeing phrase in the English language. Because I’m backward like that.

Not a week ago, I despaired of an emergent situation that had a deadline of 3 weeks, and wailed at Dude, “I can’t!” Yet here it is, less than a week from when I said that, and…the crisis is almost resolved. (Dude doesn’t really know this yet. Shhh.)

I got to thinking about how I felt a week ago versus how I feel today, spurred by Mike Cane’s post “The Universe is Made of No” and a following comment by Bob Mayer:

The world is full of no outside of us. If we believe it. The key is if someone internalizes no. Then the NO becomes real. Most no’s start from within. Then we hear it echoed around us. So YES starts from within.

That’s nice. If you’re normal.

I’ve never been able to resist a dare (and I shall not bore you with my more embarrassing successes). To me, “I can’t” is a dare, a catalyst, something my twisted mind takes and uses as fuel.

I have to be feeling pretty desperate to use it. The last psychological stop for me is usually “failure is not an option.” It’s useful, but it’s more to meet a long-term objective. The first time I ever felt desperate enough to use “failure is not an option” I succeeded—wildly and for many years. The second time… Well, I’m still rolling on that wave of success, which continues to grow.

“I can’t” is the last resort—a barrel of gasoline thrown on a spark of will.

If you want some droll (adult) humor, go buy this. Seriously. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read this year, and I’m not sure, but it may be the funniest thing I’ve ever read, period.

Amazon (print or Kindle)
Smashwords

“Everyone gets fired at least once in their life. And if not, well, they’re just not trying very hard. And we all think of brilliant and immature ‘shoulda saids’ and ‘shoulda dones’ for weeks after. (Okay, years.) In this collection of loosely related stories, Brett shows again and again that getting fired is really quite easy.”

(…who would know this blog existed if you ever bothered to come talk to us…)

We are not obligated to go ’round the neighborhood introducing ourselves and presenting ourselves for your approval as The Right Kind of People. Not when we moved in five years ago. Not now.

It’s yours. Your obligation to come to us to find out who we are. Until you do that, your judgments about us are your problem, not ours.

If you had come to our door, you might have realized we are quiet, well-educated and well-traveled people who live our lives with honor and dignity. The county government and police department have, fortunately, already realized this, thanks to your meddling.

You will not take that dignity and quiet away from us because you hate that your 40-year neighbor died and we bought her house. You will not take that dignity and quiet away from us because you hate that the neighborhood demographic changed nearly overnight from the nearly dead to the newly hatched. You will not take that dignity and quiet away from us because we don’t spend 24/7 working on our lawns because we’re too busy working on improving the whole of our lives.

We pay the same taxes you do, even though we don’t make as much money as you made when you were working, and you are now retired on the Social Security we are paying. You can judge us and co-opt our children when you start paying our mortgage, for the infrastructure repairs you can’t see on this 45-year-old house, and for someone to keep our lawn for us.

If our biggest sins are that we keep to ourselves, we’re quiet, and we let our tax deductions have a bit more physical freedom than you deem is proper, and we don’t have as much money or free time as you do, we can live with that.

No, we aren’t The Right Kind of People. And if you are, then we don’t want to be.

And oh, P.S. We don’t need to be friends with you. We need you to mind your own business.

This is my office right now:

It doesn’t look organized, but it is. It’s organized two ways, and one is more effective than the other.

You see, the (1) clutter demands attention and for good reason: It’s important. Stuff I have to do. Stuff that, if I file it neatly away in the (2) three-ring to-do binder buried underneath all that mess, I will forget about and never do and screw up my life.

The goal is to not screw up my life.

But what about filing? you ask. Eh. Filing is for stuff you have to keep but rarely use: tax returns, vendor catalogs, vehicle and health and vet information. Stuff like that. If I had my ’druthers, I’d be able to stick it all in a file box like the one I keep my year’s tax receipts in after I’ve entered the bucket full of receipts into Quicken.

What about tossing? you ask. Yeah, what you’re looking at is after having ruthlessly tossed and shredded. Trust me, I get rid of whatever I can the minute I lay hands on it and determine it’s worthless to me.

So after ruthlessly tossing-and-shredding, and piling things on my desk in a way that will remind me of its importance, the best way I’ve discovered to not screw up my life and still stay clutter-free is to hang all the important stuff up on the wall.

This demands cork. Or steel/whiteboards magnets. Something. Just get it off my effing desk! I want elbow room and work space. Throw in some effective cord management.

Stylishly.

I want style.

Because there is no style here. I can stick pins in the sheetrock all day long and it’ll do the trick, but I want some style. Martha Stewart Living style. Only more realistic. And cheaper.

So what I’m working on in my organizational efforts is to find a stylish way to hang all my stuff on the walls where I can see it at a glance without boxing myself into a stylish but useless and expensive space.

But I can’t even decide on a paint color.

Please see The Rules.

Sospiro (Franz Liszt)

Go!

Please see The Rules.

Asking Us To Dance (Kathy Mattea)

Go!

Week 2 of the group creative experiment is over. Didn’t have a lot of participation this week, probably because I wasn’t very handy on the Twitter throttle and, well, choosing this song was an experiment unto itself.

You see, this song (to me) is already about as explicit as a story can get. It spins, it’s glittery, it’s Skittle-colored, it tells the story for you. So what I was going for was to see how you would interpret a story already told in speed-shot liquid neon. (And no, I hadn’t seen the video for it until Astrid linked it.)

So here’s the week’s wrapup for Week 2 of the music-prompt group creativity experiment.

Astrid Cruz aka @artistikem “Fairground”: I could feel the man’s thoughts spinning like a carousel in turbocharge, all the colored lights blurring—and then that last line that brings you down with a sweet thump of “Oh yeah. She said that.”

Babette James, a scene from work-in-progress As Clear As Day:  You took the story of the song and appliqued yours over the top of it, leaving little bits of the song peeping out here and there. Very clever! And better! You’re getting your word count in.

So then here’s Lenox Parker aka @LenoxParker formerly known as—shit, she’ll kill me if I say before she’s ready to out herself—with “Like Every Day in Paris, It Was Raining”: OMG you’ve got a theme going with this guy! (This is where I figured it out: “I was totally in love with this man and would have done anything for him at that moment, and in the days, weeks, and months that followed.”)

And so here’s what it did for me: a portion of untitled chapter 11, Magdalene, “Warm*Dark*Sugar*Laugh.”

Excellent! Thank you, all, and the next track will post at 9:00 a.m. Central, and it may really surprise you. Follow on Twitter with #mojogce

The “end of the week” means Wednesday evening, 7 days hence.

Please see The Rules.

Fairground (Simply Red)

Go!

Week 1 of the group creative experiment is over and oh, MY! Y’all are awesome, and thank you for playing! So here’s the week’s wrapup for Week 1 of the music-prompt group creativity experiment.

Peach’s haiku: Heartbeat in a tango gave me shivers.

Baby’s Black Balloon “The Collector”: OMG the detail! dark-haired gypsy queen who never did understand the difference between herself and real royalty and black-velvet spider lashes and Virginia Slim Menthol Lights and the old Lafitte’s instead of Café Lafitte’s. I am in lurve with this piece.

Danielle Yockman, a scene from work-in-progress Seducing the Assassin: So we’re three pieces in and I’m already seeing a trend: detail, visceral, sensual. Feeling the night and sucking in jasmine air.

Astrid Cruz aka @artistikem “Yerba Buena”: The juxtaposition of music that comes from an extraordinarily humid climate and walking into a story that takes place in what seems to be a very arid heat was jolting—in a good way!

Babette James, a scene from work-in-progress As Clear As Day: I’ve been reading snippets of this in Romance Divas chat, so I was unprepared for a long snip and great progress, lady. Looks like you really made some headway. Congratulations.

Galendara, artist, with a variation on Pieta, The Mother and the Wounded Daughter: Genius. Genius.

Jenn Topper, “Jean-Baptiste Foulon is a Brilliant Liar”: A beautiful assistant with her Series 7. The ending? Love! I adore the conversational first person (as opposed to the distanced first person), when the storyteller talks directly to the reader. It may be my favorite point of view. The man’s name even feels significant. I think I’m missing a joke.

Guy LeCharles Gonzales, “Thinking About New Orleans”:  You gave me melancholy. *sniffle*

And so here’s what it did for me: Chapter 15, The Proviso. NSFW (but you probably knew that).

Excellent! Thank you, all, and the next track will post at 9:00 a.m. Central. Follow on Twitter with #mojogce

NOTE: “End of the week” means Wednesday evening, April 7.

Please see The Rules.

Litanie des Saints (Dr. John)

Go!

UPDATE: “End of the week” means Wednesday evening, April 7.

On the Ides of March, Mind on Fire blogger John Remy (@johnremy) orchestrated a project wherein artistic types were given a prompt to create something based on the prompt (in this case a randomly drawn Tarot card). It could be anything.

I couldn’t participate, as it was short notice and I didn’t have time, but I’ve been building the playlists for my books and it got me thinking about how much I depend on music to inspire my writing, keep me enthusiastic, pump me with adrenaline, and pretty much feed my subconscious what it needs to do my job for me.

So now I’m totally ripping him off and putting a different spin on it: music. I’ll post one track every week for the next three or four weeks (as long as people are interested), and see what you come up with. With John’s permission, I’m going to copy and paste his rules:

1) Each week, starting Thursday, April 1 (April Fool’s Day!), I will post a track that played a significant role in my books.

2) Use the track as a spark for some kind of creative activity. It can be a sketch, a paragraph from your novel, a tweet, a photo, an interpretive dance, a poem, a political blog post, a video. The activity can even change from week to week. The only requirements are that:

a) you leave some element of the project undetermined until you hear the track, and

b) the final creation has to be done by the end of the week, and

c) it has to be linkable.

3) I will then post links to everything everyone created by the time I post the next track the next week.

4) The Twitter hashtag will be #mojogce if you care to keep track that way.

I have a cross-section of readers from the Mormon lit crowd, genre romance, and independent authors of all variables. I’m curious what that intersection can produce and anyone can play, even if you don’t think you’re creative (and you would be wrong anyway).

I’ll be drawing from these playlists: The Proviso, Stay, and Magdalene.

Have fun!

Dude DVRs all the series dramas (and a few sitcoms) he can pack into the box, and he watches them in chronological order (natch).

About two years ago, we started noticing something very odd: Across all the dramas, across all the networks, there would be a theme of the week. It’s as if The Great Producer in the Sky (aka James Cameron) said to all the writers in television, “Okay. This week’s writing prompt is underground BDSM sex parties, a murder, and collector’s wine. GO!”

Amongst a good dozen dramas, this writing prompt will show up at least three times, sometimes four, all in different permutations. Now it’s just a running joke. Dude says, “The theme of the week is…”

While it’s interesting and curious to see how each writing team interpreted the prompt to fit their characters and canon, it’s super annoying and gets very old very fast.

And it’s one reason I’ve pretty much stopped watching TV dramas. Homogeneity pretty much sucks the fun out of…well, everything.

The DDJ has been a little slow lately, and I’m mostly caught up on B10 Mediaworx business (repeat: mostly), and I need to work on my other creative business. However…

…I also need to do some things to my house, keep it clean (because it’s driving me nucking futs and I can’t work in this mess anymore), and not feel so lost on days my DDJ is slow.

So I’m going to need to implement a routine. I could use the one my hyperregimented mother used while I was growing up. I could do Flylady (and I haven’t seen a more horribly organized website since Geocities). I’ve hung out at Organized Home and I like it. But in the end, I’m going to have to establish my own routine and lemme tell you. I am the least regimented person in the world, especially when my to-do list and the ideas flowing through my head start to overwhelm me.

I usually cope by throwing stuff out. STUFF MUST GO!!!

For some reason I don’t know, I always start these projects in the refrigerator to tackle those nasty glass shelves.

I’m going in. Pray for me.