Questing for 2017

Last year I participated in goal setting and writing prompts to set goals for 2016, and 2016 was a great year of change. I quit my job, sold my home, and moved from Texas to South Carolina. Now I’m trying not to be stressed out while building a new work-at-home and less ambitious and less well-paid lifestyle. It’s almost 2017, and I’m doing the writing prompts to help me find goals for 2017 again, thru http://quest2017.com.

Today’s writing prompt:

What is your vocation, your sense of callings as a human being at this point in your life, both in and beyond job and title?

Practice internalizing a more spacious, generous sense of what animates you and why you are here (e.g. as a human being, partner, child, neighbor, friend, citizen, maker, yogi, volunteer, as well as a professional). Honor the creative value of “how” you are present as much as in “what” you are doing in the everyday at work and in the world. #yourtruecalling #quest2017

My days are simple, walk the dog, fix dinner. I sew for an Etsy shopowner, and am trying to sew more of my own post-apocalyptic renaissance fantasy functional couture, and I work freelance jobs online (Leapforce, Wonder). I worked the Carolina Renaissance Festival for the first time this year, selling for Pepi. I’ve never worked Carolina, I’ve never sold Pepi’s pendants and puzzle rings, but working renaissance festivals is getting back to what I used to do. Sewing, doing piecework, is what I used to do. From 1985 thru to about 1998, those were my main jobs.

Then as we entered this new century, I decided I needed to make bank. I got a degree and a good job and I enjoyed it. Adding technology to make manufacturing run more smoothly is the right thing to do. It was creative and I was building things and making the world run smoother and products safer for consumers. Truly, getting brake assemblies built correctly for 18-wheelers is important. And getting it done right and efficiently here in the U.S. is good for jobs, good for the people and the companies who used the software, good for consumers.

After 15 years and three jobs, I leveled up to a different area, working for a manufacturer using a third-party software system. And I found that for so many people on my team, what we did was all about earning the money. I was there because it earned better money and had insurance and retirement benefits, true. But creating things, creating good things, that was my main joy.

But that’s OK, I never planned to work with software for factories forever. When I started the straight-job path, I told myself I’d do it until I turned 50. And I’d save and invest and be ready to get back to renaissance festivals. That’s where I find a lot of joyous people, a lot of creative people, musicians and artisans. Over my 15 years away, I spent time with my friends at the festivals and never entirely left.

What should I do next? I’m still experimenting. I toyed around with writing, and I might still find that the right thing to be doing. Sometimes I have grand ideas for a novel, but the seeds dry out before they get fully germinated. Pirates and Irish slave girls in early New Orleans, and on to Texas? A young woman who has trouble staying in the timeline of 2010s and falls into the 1840s? And then nothing.

[Strangely, years after the time travel idea first cropped up, I’m reading a novel from the 1970s which is remarkably similar and very different from the one I thought up. I would stay in the same place, but bop back years to a slightly alternative history timeline … but that is a different story.]

My best sewing idea is a road warrior post-apocalyptic patchwork denim line, with leather gauntlets and fantasy stylings. A friend for whom I made a “bearskin rug” out of fake fur with a big teddy bear head thinks I should try that again. Another friend knows that clothing for people in wheelchairs is hard-to-find. Walk the dogs, make dinner, make this home as sustainable and low-cost to run as possible, and have fun.

That’s what I need to make sure I do, have fun every day. The rest of it will fall into place. One thing I know after 50 years on this planet is that if it isn’t fun, I don’t stick around.

Questing for 2016

I joined an online community with writing prompts for 2016. I’m not sure what the whole marketing spin is, but it seemed like a worthwhile project.

First observation – questing and question share a lot of letters. Questing is a basic form of a plot. People go on a quest, and that forms the core of a book.

I signed up for this group because I feel I have unfulfilled dreams that have been back burnered, out there but not committed to achieving, for 2015. And probably for 201x. I have been kinda loafing, quietly underachieving, coasting, for five years. Why? Dunno, just being takes so much energy, there isn’t a whole lot left for playing a starring role in the life I spin around myself. Just keeping the bills paid, laundry done, grocery shopping, and commuting to work each day has been as much as I can handle. I’ve lost touch with friends, rarely go out and see music, have tons of people I haven’t seen in over a year, stopped hosting parties, haven’t had anyone over for dinner or gone out to others homes in forever. Now that I say all this, it’s a light depression, a pall over my normally cheerful energetic life.

First writing prompt – “What I need to tell myself most about 2016 is ….”

“Keep breathing.”

Twice in the past year I’ve had to go to the hospital for an asthma attack with a strong underpinning of panic. I cannot catch my breath. I’m angry, I’m upset, I’m unable to fucking fill my lungs with air, until I nearly collapse.

“Loosen up.”

The urgent care center listened to my lungs and said “You’re very tight.” Yes. My muscles, my bones, my joints, my tendons, my ligaments, have been in this adrenal-fueled panic for 49 years. If just one thing goes wrong, it will all collapse and I’ll be hungry, cold, homeless. I’m drowning. I can’t catch a breath, I can’t catch a break, I can’t do anything right, I’m in this constant panic for all that I practice a fun-loving easy-going exterior.

“Let it go.”

Shame and guilt from past wrongs done and received continues to haunt my self talk anytime I’m quiet for just a moment.

“Sell this mortgaged home and get into a paid-off home.”

I hate debt, I can’t tolerate a high load of monthly bills, and trying to do it since 2007 just isn’t me.

And that, my friends, is what I need to tell myself in 2016.

Hobbesian logic

Recently watched a  movie about the reclusive Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist, Dear Mr. Watterson.

Now, for contrast here, think about Snoopy. Snoopy was on my first lunchbox in 1971. Snoopy has been here through my parents’ childhood, through my childhood. He’s more commonly found selling life insurance than kid’s toys nowadays, but he’s been celebrating every holiday with his pal Charlie Brown for 50 years.

At my parents and grandparents and almost any house I ever visited, I could read books of Peanuts comic strips. Snoopy was ever present. Similarly, many many kids of today’s generations started to read using Calvin and Hobbes. Imaginative books with the rich ink drawings of today’s large format  books.

Hobbes, in contrast to Snoopy, was never ever licensed. There is no official Hobbes doll. Hobbes doesn’t appear outside his comic strips. The comic strips are the only way to see his real-world facing stuffed toy skin, the only way to see the skin he wears dancing with Calvin and his overactive imagination.  Calvin and Hobbes live only in the collected books of comic strips.

How many millions were left on the table by not licensing a stuffed toy Hobbes? The film seeks to answer – Why?

One of the people arguing for licensing asked the viewers to consider how much comfort a Hobbes doll would bring children.

I argue the opposite. By refusing to license one Hobbes, everyone has Hobbes. Any plush toy at arm’s reach can dance in your imagination. And they all look as different as the people holding them.

 

 

Looking forward: Peace and Prosperity

Right after I finished up writing about Wonder and Whimsey, a group of thoughts bubbled up into “what do earthlings want?” Peace and Prosperity.

Peace. Prosperity. Freedom from strife, worry. Less panic gripping your heart and making your blood race and ears ring. Oh, yeah. I get panic attacks. Crippling bouts of anxiety. Night terrors. But anxieity won’t really help me recognize what it is about peace and prosperity that might just drive the ideas tumbling around in my brain into a coherent plot with well-formed characters stumbling through it.

Recognizing that the characters are each working towards the ultimate goal of peace and prosperity just might.

So where’s the conflict? I can’t write about starlight and unicorns. When people’s ideas of what is peace collide, when the means of reaching prosperity are at odds instead of collective. How do our characters reach a place of peace and prosperity? By walking through the fires of hell. By facing their panic, their anxiety, their demons, and fighting the good fight.

At writing camp, another student strongly recommended the Hero’s Journey, and I think it is a good model for the stories wandering around in my head. I recognize the model very quickly in animated movies — Rango, in particular.

Things this story needs: A world. Characters. For each character: how do they seem themselves? how do they see each other? How do they see the world? Action, conflict. A goal. A beginning, a middle, an end. A swordfight. A spaceship. And humor. And an author.

 

ArmadilloCon wrapup: Wonder and whimsey

Another takeaway from ArmadilloCon: Bella, our heroine in Twilight, and Harry Potter have a baby. You do that, you’ll be a published author! Most sessions discussed one or the other or both books as if they are the gold standard of published fantasy books, the holy grail of residuals and royalties.

And the market is odd; published authors whose paperback series were very popular in the 80s have finished books that may or not be picked up. And oddly enough, I can’t find a link to the story he read; a story of a secret society that does good for mankind.

At the same time, another acquaintance is a first-time author with a reasonably good deal on his first book, Those Across the River. His secret group of evil dark folk tortures people who fall into their clutches.

Dang. So I gotta conclude: there’s money in boring books for Young Adults I can’t bring myself to finish. There’s money in blood, torture, monsters. Dark secrets from our past threading through to the present. Those Across the River is very very good, poetic, literary, stunningly good, enjoyed it, and I’m happy there’s a second book.

Still, Doom and Gloom reign. Happy hopeful stories? Not so much.

We live in scary times, times where the US soldiers come home and drink and explain how they were trained to fight wars and ended up feeling horrible about their mission and actions, breaking into people’s homes in the middle of the night and taking people from their beds. These same soldiers come home and serve as our police. Suspected insurgents? Civil rights? How can we keep it all separate when, in reality, time and space overlap?

Talking with my chief, my superhero, the Denis. News, the very nature of what is News, has changed dramatically in 25 years. And topics on the TV for entertainment. Remember In Search Of?  We grew up in a time when Leonard Nimoy occupied a space somewhere between the Twilight Zone and Walter Cronkite, told us spectacular tales from the edge of physics and fantasy.   But the nearly real supernatural psychic possibilities aren’t spoken of any more. They’ve been supplanted by the endless news of the stock market and nonsensical political debates months before the first primary.

So instead, I’m going to look for ways to promote Wonder and Whimsey. It’s true to my nature, it’s my purpose in life. I want to write a story that opens your heart to wonder. Shows how along the central texas creeks, or anywhere, time and space overlap, and they’re crowded with whimsical possibilities.

Lightning strikes …

Photo from: http://www.duskyswondersite.com/tag/lightening/

… but in a controlled manner

“Anyone can write one book, and perhaps even sell it, and in the rarest of circumstances,
become famous from it—because lightning does strike. To make a career of writing, though,
you must take up the burden of making lightning strike regularly, where and when you want
it.”

http://www.catnip4writers.com/tools/Lisle-Create-A-Plot-Clinic.pdf

Practice practice practice

Ira Glass points out the beautiful conundrum that faces creative work. At first, we’re not that good. We know what is good, we know what we want to achieve, but our first efforts fall short. Our choices? Quit, or practice.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners …”