Executive Prerogative

Switching gears, changing lanes, executive decisions.

A woman’s prerogative.

There is a lot of work for a writer to do that isn’t writing. Building a platform before novel publication seems an impossible task.

WRITER: I’m a writer. Come read my blog!

READER: A  writer with a blog? How totally bizarre, unusual, and original. What do you write?

WRITER: My novels feature strong heroines with suspenseful, romantic and sometimes paranormal elements.

READER: Wow, that’s exactly the kind of books I like to read. How many books have you written?

WRITER: Three.

READER: Three? Oh, goody. Where can I get them?

(Insert sound of air deflating from balloon. P-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-t.)

WRITER: I’ll let you know as soon as I’m published.

Marketing takes time, and though one may be a writer, they may not be a natural marketer. Harder still, a writer may enjoy marketing their book, but marketing oneself is a little different, and can make some authors cringe. Me? I cry in a corner, then put my author hat on and come out smiling. The knee-knocking isn’t nearly so noticeable when I’m sitting down.

Yet we must have a platform. Agents want to know we have a network. Get on Facebook, Tweet until your thumbs fall off, join a writing association, build a readership.

The same stuff every other writer is doing.

What else, what else… Think-think-think.

Present a workshop. Neato! Except, teaching fellow emerging writers means you know something they don’t yet know. You want them to listen to you, you want them to lick the sharpened tip of their lead pencil and set it to paper, taking note of every ounce of wisdom that drips from your tongue. You want them to absorb each nugget of information on every slide in your presentation.

You have to be credible.

Credibility comes with sales. Credibility comes with publication.

Hark! I have a published book. Storyteller, my collection of short stories. SQUEE!

And one of my shorts won an award. An award named for an author synonymous with short stories: Alice Munro.

Yippee and yahoo! Now that’s impressive!

And so I drafted a presentation on short story structure, using my shortest short, Sweet Dreams, as the basis. Item # 3 on my Life List reads:

Workshop presentations

• Short Story Structure, spit & polish
• Platform before Publication, write
• Seek out venues to present

And now, end of May, I look at this item and realize, this is not going to happen. At least not this year.

Sunny day, shade of an umbrella, glass of wine with a long-time, non-writing friend. Friend shares this innocent observation:

“I see your Facebook updates, but they’re about blogs and other writers. When do you write?”

The question stings, as valid questions do.

I work on my writing career a minimum of five days per week. I write an impressive word count everyday. And yet, I am four months behind my writing schedule.

Why?

I’m not working on my work-in-progress. I am not editing, I am not producing new words, I am not revising nor am I drafting an outline for the next book in the queue.  And y’all know I haven’t been exercising. Snort.

Image uploaded from Wikipedia

I’m writing blog posts. Necessary. I’m networking. Necessary. But let’s face it,

Something’s Got to Give.

Interesting that this phrase is also the title of Monroe’s unfinished film.

And so, the time has come to make decisions. Weeding out my Life List closet, I hold the hanger beneath my chin, press the fabric to my waistline, and twirl before the mirror.

The goal’s a little snug, but it still fits. If I pair it with a funky pair of sandals, I can get some use out of it this summer. A BBQ, perhaps? A day at the races?

Ah, but what shall I miss at home when I’m out exercising this workshop presentation goal? Progress on my work-in-progress?

Damn straight.

I have a decision to make, and so I make it. For the good of all else on my list, I shall sacrifice presentations. At least for this year.

First, I paraphrase Bobby Brown: I made this list, you didn’t. Right, Gloria? And then, I quote Bobby Brown, It’s My Prerogative. 

When is Wasting Time Not a Waste of Time?

Meme me, baby!

We all know how it starts. One innocent little Google search leads to another and then another. Pretty soon we’re on  I Can Has Cheezburger, staring at page after page of cute/silly/stupid/funny animals doing whatever until our butts are numb. Or that one game of solitaire or Bejeweled turns into fifty (give or take a few dozen). Or, that search through the pantry for the candy bar we hid results in a complete reorganization of our food storage system which naturally leads us to finally alphabetize those DVDs and sort the clothes in our closet by color and season.

When we come to our senses, the guilt sets in. We’ve just wasted time.

*gasp* Oh the horror!

We all know how evil it is to waste time. After all, time is precious, time is money and wasting time means we’re throwing away valuable minutes and hours we can never recover. Whatever project we were supposed to be working on will take that much longer. There can be nothing redeeming about wasting time.

Or can there?

According to author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, wasting time well is key to a happy, creative and productive life. It gives us a chance to relax and experiment, to work on a project just for the joy of it. Time well wastes replenishes our creativity and is a boon to our productivity.

But what exactly is time well wasted?

That would be time that we spend freely playing, letting ourselves decompress and explore. When we are done wasting time well, we should feel refreshed, ready to tackle new projects and see challenges in a new light.

Clearly not all wasted time is well wasted, as many last-minute college papers and haphazardly thrown together projects can testify, but neither is all wasted time another form of procrastination.

The trick is to know the difference and to only waste as much time as we need to replenish ourselves.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to waste time (well, I hope):

• StumbleUpon: Flipping through web pages based on a particular interest is incredibly relaxing and inspires my biweekly Friday Stumbles.
• Games on the iPhone or iPad: Currently, I’m playing The Tribez but I’ve also enjoyed many well-wasted hours with Plants vs Zombies. I do have to watch myself with games like these as it’s very easy to go from time well wasted to just plain old wasted time.
• Rearranging stuff: Yeah, I know. Probably a weird way to waste time. But I sometimes get the urge to overhaul the bookshelves or rearrange the living room furniture.
• Browsing bookstores and libraries with no real intention of buying/checking out anything.

What do you think about wasted time? Is there a way to waste it well? What are your favorite ways to waste time?

If you haven’t had the chance to check out last week’s posts, you’re really missing out. On Wednesday, Sherry Isaac talked about setting goals that make us strive and, on Friday, Marcia Richards talked about her ten commandments for living well.

Stay tuned, Gary Gauthier will be here Friday.

Photo Credit
Surprise! Another Cat Photo! by Michael Scialdone, on Flickr | CC By 2.0

Weigh the Method, Relish the Outcome

If  you visit my Life List, you’ll find a simple goal: Lose ten pounds.

If you don’t visit, you’ll miss all the thrills and sizzle and eye-popping pink on my website, but still be able to keep up with this post.

Moving right along…

I won’t divulge my actual weight except to say I am ten pounds over my ideal healthy weight for my height and age.

I’m fortunate.

No, I don’t expect to look like I did when I was twenty, and I don’t expect to wear the clothes my daughters wear. I’m 47, and a grandmother to boot. This isn’t about ego (much). This is about health: physical and emotional health.

Will I feel good emotionally when my clothes fit well? When I don’t have to undo the top button of my jeans so I don’t cut off my circulation when I sit down? When people stop asking when my baby is due?

You betcha.

But more, this is about health. May marks my sixth year of glorious remission. I know what it means to be without health. I know what it feels like to lack the strength to get out of bed. And, I know how good it feels to know that, sad and difficult as that time in my life was, that time is now a memory.

Ten pounds is not a lot of weight to lose. I repeat, I am fortunate.

And if it weren’t for fear of this little bug called complacency, I’d be, well, complacent.

Complacency means ten pounds would turn to twelve would turn to fifteen would turn to twenty-five would turn to fifty and soon, what had once seemed doable will become an anxiety-ridden nightmare.

I choose to take action now. Hence the entry on my Life List: Lose ten pounds.

First, I must clarify. I officially joined Life List Club in April, but this life list goal went live in January. Ten pounds in one year? Why, that’s less than a pound a month!

Totally doable.

So doable, in fact, that I hardly had to lift a finger. So I didn’t.

In January, I was ten pounds away from my target weight. In February, I was twelve pounds from my target weight. In March, thirteen pounds.

See a trend here?

End of April, I am ten pounds away.

Before you haul out the bazooka and honk me a victory tune, remember, this is exactly where I was four months ago. Conceivably, I could have been seven or even six pounds away from my target. Instead, I’d accomplished nothing. Instead, I stood still, literally, and stood still in the march toward my target.

Such a simple goal, an easy, attainable target, and yet, my train was chugging in the opposite direction. Why?

The explanation is simple. It was too easy. It was too ‘doable’. As life coach and guru Tony Robbins would say, I wasn’t ‘disturbed’ enough to effect the change I needed to make to meet my target.

Time to raise my standards and up the ante. Which leads me to wonder, if you want to be a champion limbo dancer, do you have to ‘lower’ your standards?

I digress.

What does this epiphany mean? First, ten pounds in four months, roughly, half a pound a week.  No, that little red needle on the bathroom scale still ain’t moving at super sonic speed, but I want healthy weight loss.

Diet is not the problem. Nutritionally, I’ve been good. I don’t eat processed foods. I am aware of my carbohydrate intake, but not fanatical–I do not advocate slashing any nutrient from my diet willy nilly. I eat good fats like avocados and cashews, but tempted as I am, I do not eat a full can of cashews at one sitting. A quarter cup of mixed nuts are a treat I am allowed to indulge in every second or third day. I eat between meals to keep my energy up so I do not binge later, but I measure my snacks. Eight corn tortilla chips with tomato salsa fills the void, yet eight chips measured on a plate means I do not fill my face. Dr. Oz advocates colour in our food choices, so dinner is protein on one side of my plate and colourful veggies on the other.

Now, it’s time to exercise. It’s time to reverse bad habits. It’s time to haul my keister out of bed when the alarm goes off and put on my running shoes. I sit all day in front of a computer, so when I switch to the television screen, it’s time to get busy and use that exercise ball and lift those weights and do those squats.

If blog-hopping were an actual physical activity, I’d lose those ten pounds today. With a click of your mouse you can explore the sixties in my Wildflower post, A Woman’s Place, or read a review of Eloisa James’ A Kiss at Midnight at Romance & Beyond.

Thanks for listening, thanks for keeping me honest, thanks for sharing your exercise challenges and successes in a comment, or just say ‘hello’.

Twentysomethings: The Defining Decade?

So I was driving home from work the other night listening to my guilty pleasure, Wisconsin Public Radio, and the topic for the evening really stunned me.  The radio host, Joy Cardin, was speaking with Dr. Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development especially twentysomethings.

Dr. Meg Jay (photo courtesy drmegjay.com)

Dr. Jay is the author of The Defining Decade:  Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now.  Dr. Jay works as an assistant clinical professor at the University of Virginia and keeps a private practice as well.  Interacting with so many college students and recent graduates, she noticed the hits and misses my generation was making time and time again.

When asked why she wrote the book, Dr. Jay said she’s trying to make an impact on the 50 million twentysomethings who are looking for guidance in their lives while still being treated like an adult.

So why are the twenties so defining? 

• 80% of life’s most defining moments take place before the age of 35.
• 70% of lifetime wage growth happens in the first 10 years of a career.
• More than half of us are married or living with our longterm partners.
• Our fertility rates peak in our twenties.
• And our brains do their last growth spurt in our twenties.

If you had the same reaction I did, you’re probably thinking, “Sweet God, it’s all over!  I may as well dig myself a hole and drop my unwritten manuscript, my birth control pills, my skinny jeans, and my passport in it and then cover it with my aging, unaccomplished, infertile, decrepit self!” 

*****

Fear not!  Dr. Jay says Never Give Up. 

But she does emphasize that my generation is in the midst of some crucial crossroads and the decisions we make now CAN AND DO impact the rest of our lives.

(image courtesy drmegjay.com)

She talks about “identity capital” which she defines as the collateral you build up so when you go in for an interview the person looks at your resume and says “Oh that’s interesting, tell me more about that!” We know we’re in an economic crisis right now.  The job market is not ideal.  The Veteran Generation is staying employed longer in need of more stability, and yet year after year more college graduates are flooding the market.  We’ve got all four generations competing and cohabiting the workforce.  Ages 20 – 70+.

Many of us twenty year olds opted for an alternative route.  I’m sure all of you know someone who decided to take time off, travel the world, date around, etc.  Dr. Jay’s concern with some of these routes is that for those individuals they’re having a harder time trying to get back on track whether it’s the job field or family planning.  Employers start to look at your resume and think “hmm, you really haven’t done too much” and the person that stands out is the twentysomething who jumped right in and planned their career path just like an adult, setting goals or achieving higher degrees, whatever it might be.

And in regards to family planning, she does want twentysomethings to be aware of fertility information.  Women’s fertility peaks at 28.  What she tends to hear from the twentysomethings she counsels, is so many of them spend time in cohabitation with a partner or spouse for 4-5 years before they realize that maybe that relationship should have only lasted a year.

Now, I for one, will totally say that family planning is a personal choice!  And Dr. Jay agreed.  What she wants is for us to have the facts about fertility so we are thoughtful in planning who our partners are as well as when we want to start having children because the health risks are increased the later into the 30’s you are.

You were saying something about hope?

Yes!  Our generation is also at it’s peak for adaptation.  If there is something you are unhappy about in your life, or you’re wanting to make some changes, then do it!  We have the capability to transform and to rise to the occasion.  Our habits can change as well as our personalities.

When I graduated from college, I started to have anxiety attacks.  I panicked about “what I wanted to do with the rest of my life!”  I fell in suit and took the first full time job that came my way.  I worked all the time, and barely got together with my friends.  You know what, I got really sad and really bored real fast!  It’s been an ongoing process to change.  While I’ve done well for myself career wise (Note: I work as a sales manager for commission areas of a large department store.) I also quickly learned that what made me happy was writing and travel, and if I was going to get that back in my life that meant change!

So, a year and a half ago, I started blogging!  And I met amazing writers and readers online!  And through them, got involved with some writing contests and critique groups.  Next, I saved up my money and used my vacation time to attend writing conferences and travel around the world.  I just blogged all about my recent trip to South Korea:  favorite spots, food, and hiking.

See, there is hope!  And it’s never too late!  My dear friend Marcia Richards and I started up the Life List Club several months ago, and I think I came into it with this exact idea.  That all of us can define the decade we’re living in!  If we want to, and we make changes, and we risk things and we TRY!

So what are you waiting for?!  What’s on your life list?

What do you think about Dr. Jay’s theory and your 20’s being the Defining Decade?  Are you currently in your 20’s?  Would you do differently if you could back?  What advice do you have for parents raising a 20-somthing?

Jess Witkins claims the title Perseverance Expert.  She grew up in a small Wisconsin town as the much younger youngest sibling of four, she’s witnessed the paranormal, jumped out of a plane, worked in retail, traveled to exotic locations like Italy, Ireland, and Shipshewana, Indiana, and she’s eaten bologna and lived to tell about it!  She deals with it all and writes about it!  Come along on her midwest adventures; Witkins promises to keep it honest and entertaining.  She blogs regularly at Jess Witkins’ Happiness Project.  Go ahead, SUBSCRIBE, you know you want to.

Follow on Twitter:  @jesswitkins

Life Really is Too Short (Even When it’s Long)

Recently, my grandmother passed away. And, as is so often the case with the death of a family member, the regrets came along with the sadness. Why didn’t I write and visit anywhere near as often as I should have? Why didn’t I know her better? Why? Why? Why?

I realized that life is really too short not to make sure our friends and family know we love them. It’s too short to put off that visit, call, letter or email. It’s too short not to tell them we love them as much as we can.

Life is too short to create regrets.

It’s too short to put off our dreams. Whatever it is we wish for, no matter how seemingly unreachable, we must strive for it even if it’s only a bit at a time. Whether we succeed or fail or change our minds, we must persevere because life is too short to do otherwise.

And, if life is too short to miss the smallest opportunity to show our loved ones we love them and too short not to seek our dreams, then it is also too short to kick ourselves endlessly in the behind for what we did or didn’t do, should have done, messed up or put off. Each moment is an opportunity to change, to stop taking for granted that there will be time tomorrow. We can seize the here and now.

Life is too short for a lot of things. It’s up to us to decide what and start living it.

I invite you to finish the sentence: Life is too short to…

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Come visit me on my blog or find me on Facebook or Twitter.

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In honor of my grandmother. Daughter, sister, friend, artist, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.  April 15, 1935 – March 28, 2012.

Life. List. Club.

It’s cool to be part of a club. Membership means acceptance. Belonging means we’re not the social pariah we feared we were. The common interests that bind members, and often turn members into friends, assures us that we are not weird alone.

International Oddball Awards--Collecting the Prize

Ahem.

Club members may be weird. But being part of a club means we have found kindred weirdos. Kindred weirdos means we’re less likely to get beat up.

While it is true I am nothing if not odd, Life List Club is not.

Life List Club members are are writing professionals with vision. They looked like they were having fun.

So I approached the playground, asked if I could play, too. I even brought my own ball.

Marcia, Jess, Gary, Jenny, Sonia, David and Lara said yes.

(Look right, and links to my club mates’ sites can be found on the sidebar. Scroll up, and you can see their sun-shiny faces and read their profiles.)

As a writer, with a flitty-flighty muse on my shoulder and a fragile ego (yeah, right), acceptance in the Life List Club meant more than a simple yes.

It is hard to establish a reputation as a writer. So many new to the craft feel unjustified. They could be turning out a thousand words per day, but without that coveted publication label, they don’t fully embrace their craft.

I’m aspiring, they say.

I say, PHLPHLPHL!

Published or not, we must provide and proclaim our own validation. We write, therefore we are writers. In doing, we become. In doing, we are.

But there is more than simply doing. We must determine our target, set out a path, mark milestones along the journey. We must set goals, and measure our progress.

And that is where my Life List comes in.

My Life List is recorded, but not written in stone. Heck, it isn’t even written on paper! My Life List can be found here.

*Pause for shameless self-promotion: You can sign up to follow my blog, Wildflower, here.*

I’ve laid out my Life List with care, have committed its contents to this club and to cyberspace, and yet, I know it is fluid. Some goals I will meet, others will take more time. Even now, a month after I set the goal, recent events have made me reconsider workshop presentations. This goal is still worthwhile, but is this the direction I want to take this year?

I’ll let you know next March.

What targets are in your sight this year, or this month? Any milestones to celebrate? Let us know.

Next up in the club, Marcia Richards on Friday, March 6. Don’t miss out!