Social Media: My Drill Sergeant

I've always been uncomfortably aware that I am not a very good self-taskmaster. If I'm accountable only to myself, nothing gets done. How many gym memberships have I purchased? How many craft projects have I taken on? How often have I joined Creative Writing classes? How much weight have I lost, how much hot glue do I have in my closet, unopened? How much written material do I have in my portfolio? Let's not go there. I'm just too forgiving of myself. 

Well, possibly, 'forgiving' is the wrong word. ;)

When I asked my BF to start yoga with me, we did it, for the entire duration of two programs! (And we're doing it again when I move back into town) When I asked her to make me email her my food diary every week, I lost weight! And now, it's Twitter and this blog, S&S. In the week since I first started Scribbles & Strikethroughs, (and started tweeting) I've written many thousands of words in a book that hasn't seen any productivity since Autumn.

It puts me in mind of a debate that took over my ethics philosophy course in college. What prevents a person from doing bad? What makes a person do good? The majority of the time, a person will decide against doing something he knows is wrong only when he fears getting caught. So too the person doing right; he will prefer to do so when he knows it will be acknowledged.  

We are each others' checks and balances. This is, of course, old news to anyone who's ever thought about it (sociologists). But social media is new. It's a wider pool of finger-pointers and back-clappers. And let me say, I intend to take advantage of your attention (I'm pretending you're out there reading this!). I hope you will give credit when I do good (write), and take me to task when I do bad (not writing). 

So thank you tweeters, and bloggers, and facebook frienders. Is it so bad to allow oneself to be held accountable to another, at least, until a new habit is firmly established?

No, really, I'm asking....

Twitter, I'm here!

I've been deeply resistant to using Twitter. First of all, to be embarrassingly honest, I'm not all that social of a person and the idea of maintaining such a social site exhausts me (I'm also easily exhausted!). Second, my inner demon is rather convincing when it tells me I have nothing interesting to 'tweet' (is that the right usage?). That being said, I am forced to acknowledge that Twitter is a valuable tool for networking and that if I'm serious about being an author, Twitter can only help me accomplish that goal. Sigh. So, Twitter, here I am! Follow me! ;)

The whole issue illuminates an interesting duality to writing. In my mind, writing is an art. Marketing/networking is a business. I am no business mogul. However, to be a writer, I must become one. It's an old-world (extinct) sensibility crashing into a modern world reality. It becomes very clear that one's success lies with oneself. This is both empowering and terrifying. Hmph, time to grow up, eh? 

Ah, the Internet

I spent most of the weekend online researching place names for my book. It was exhausting but totally gratifying. I stumbled across a Haida-English dictionary from the 1800's (how accurate it is may be questionable, but still a really cool read, and what a beautiful language) and I got so jazzed reading through it that I developed an entire creation myth for my story world. And, from that, came the ultimate resolution of my plot! I was so excited I wrote the whole thing down in one sitting; it is so perfect that the end is a direct result of the very beginning, events that happened even before my story starts! (My poor son will probably develop carpel tunnel syndrome from spending too much time playing video games as a result of my distraction, hopefully he'll forgive me when he grows up obese and socially inept.) 

So it just goes to show, that if you're feeling lost and don't know what to do next, pull yourself out of your own head and look around, inspiration will strike, if you give it a place to aim!

Cheers!

A.J.

Reminiscing

This morning I was sitting on my sofa watching one of my favourite tv shows, Fashion TV, and I was assailed by a sense of nostalgia, sad for my lost youth, lost opportunity. When I was in high school, I was addicted to fashion magazines, Mirabella (anyone remember that one?), Vogue, and Elle were my favourites. I used to pour over the fashion spreads. I knew that this was art at its finest. Yes, I said 'finest'. Because this was art that was accessible. With $4, I could run down to the Pharmasave and buy a mag that inspired me; to take photos, to dream of distant exotic places, to wear exciting statement-making clothes, to build my idea of what kind of life I wanted to live. I am so envious of these people, photographers and journalists, designers and models, who had decided what they wanted to do with their lives and did it, with success. What would my life be if I'd approached my adulthood with an assumption of success rather than one of failure?

I marvel at my ‘niece’, who graduated high school and decided to become a hairstylist. Now, less than 2 years later, she’s got her own apartment in the downtown core and has a chair in one of the most prestigious salons in the city (kudos to her aunt who raised her!). I left high school and became a shiftless waitress. Here I am now, pushing 40, still wondering how to be the me I was always supposed to be. It's so trite to say it's all in your attitude, but holy shit, it really is.

So, I'm hoping that if "it's all in your attitude" is true, so will "it's never too late" also be true.

Every day, is a new day. A chance to try again, with new wisdom, knowledge of the stakes, and hopefully, a better attitude. An assumption of success.

Cheers!

A.J.

Please Bear with Me

So, way back in the spring of 2009 I was feeding my toddler and staring out of our glass doors watching a bunch of crows dive bombing something in the back alley. They were utterly silent which is what caught my attention, it seemed so unusual. I wondered what it would be like to be them, flying around the trees; no worries about a stalled career, or gaining weight, or being a bare-minimum mom and less-than-bare-minimum spouse. Not for them any worries about addictions, mis-managed money, or dilapidated transmissions. 

I wanted to be a crow.

This is how my book was born.

It's almost three years later, and I'm totally stoked because last night I finished writing chapter two.

When I was 8 years old, I read the Little House on the Prairie series. It wasn't until after I'd finished it that I learned that the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was dead. Long dead. I was gobsmacked. HOW could a person who was DEAD make my laugh, make me cry? It's some kind of magic. Then I realized that I could write words that people a hundred years from today could read! (Insert angels singing here.) That was it, I was going to be a writer when I grew up. Unfortunately, something happened along the way, or rather, nothing happened. I stopped writing in my late teens. And I never picked it up again; until that afternoon sitting at my dining table trying not to watch my son paint his highchair tabletop with spaghetti sauce while digging chewed up noodles out of his eyelashes.

What happened that derailed my going-to-be-a-famous-writer train? Well....doesn't matter. It got derailed, like, right off the tracks. So now, I'm on a whole new train, it's an old steam engine (slow) with a lot of cars (can you say, 'baggage'?), but I'm the engineer and I'm knocking down all the bloated cows and fallen trees that get in my way.

Let my keystrokes be true, my plotting be timely, and my voice be worth reading.

Cheers,

A.J.