It’s Monday, and you’ve probably noticed there was no podcaturday on Saturday. Anyone who checks out my site on a regular basis probably noticed there haven’t been a lot of other things going on here lately either. No Tesla Tuesdays, no commitment reports, no squeenage wisdom, no me pushing the world to buy buy buy my fiction so I can live live live off the profits. Jack in the Green was supposed to start up last month and that didn’t happen either. Acadia will probably laugh maniacally when he reads this because he always says i try to do too much. Now I don’t do anything… or so it feels.

I want to say I’m sorry, but like Pee Wee Herman in Cheech in Chong’s Nice Dreams, I’m not sorry I took the money, nyah! I’m not sorry about a lot of things lately, and that sort of scares me. My attitude has gone to pot, and I’m not sure if there is anything that can pull me up out of this dark place right now.

My only shred of happiness is my family, and all the stress surrounding applying for our K1 visa and knowing I am coming up on spending almost a month apart from james is making me feel so drained. The expense in a time when I have no idea if I will even get my job back is more than I can take sometimes. I just want to get married, have my job back, have one place where we live instead of two, write fiction again… feel sane.

And the truth is, I do not feel the least bit sane right now. I feel like all the marbles fell out when I tipped my head to the side and then they got accidentally flushed down the toilet.

The worst part is, I’m on an anti-anxiety med because of all this stress from the last 18 months of my life. Over the weekend, I ran out and have been taking a mirror molecule drug that makes me feel like crap. I went to pick up a handful of my prescription today (because god only knows when I’ll get my last paycheck,) and the stupid pharmacy was out of my stupid drug. Come back tomorrow, she said. Then James asked how much it was going to cost for 5 pills, cos that’s what I’m getting to tie me over, and she said, “$27.95.” Dude, that’s like more than $5 a pill. I could puke.

I want to be happy and smiley and smartass and all that good stuff that makes me me, but it’s not working right now. I keep breaking down and in the beginning I always felt better after a good cry. Now whenever I lose it, I just feel less able to get up and brush myself off again.

I did watch True Blood and that made me happy for 49 minutes, so there’s always that. I’ll be back with a mid-week true blood rambling later in the week.

For now, thanks for reading this through, if you managed to get to the end without wanting to punch me for being such a whiny baby. If you do want to punch me, maybe that would help me stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to my regularly scheduled life.

It’s Sunday. You probably already knew that, but to tell you the truth, I forgot. It’s been such a ridiculous and stupid week, the only reason I know it’s Sunday is because True Blood is on tonight and it’s all I’ve been looking forward to since last Sunday.

I’m sorry. I’m down this week. Like super down.
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So the old saying goes, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” but I’m not thirsty right now. What else should I do?

For those who haven’t been following the situation, my fiance James and I were dealt a pretty cruddy blow yesterday. James was let go from his job and may get called back in 2-3 months, but the operative word in question there is “MAY.” There are no guarantees. While I didn’t lose my job completely, I took a 3/4 pay cut and currently have about 15 more hours per week on my hands than usual.

I want to shake my fist at the world and scream, “WTF?” but I won’t because I’ve been through worse and I have custom-fitted big girl panties to prove it.
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Today has been a rather cruddy day. So cruddy, I don’t even feel like going into it in any detail. I just want to go to bed and turn off the alarm. Sleep late tomorrow and wake up with a new perspective.

I think I will.

Before I do, I want you to tell me your day was good. Tell me something wonderful that happened to you today. Even if it was just that you got three extra fries in your McDonald’s Extra Value Meal, or you found an unexpected pickle in a jar at the back of the fridge.

Your happy makes me happy. So get to the happymaking, please.

Summer has always been my season. My favorite time of the year… It’s a time for family get-togethers, picnics, the lake, hiking in the State Park, lazing by the pool with a good book, daydreaming on a blanket under the stars and waiting for one to fall so I could make a wish…fireworks, the county fair, the smell of Banana Boat soothing aloe gel and the cool sensation of it on my skin.

Even as an adult, I still find time to soak up the sun and enjoy the wonder that is the most wonderful time of year. Since I had my daughter, summer has gotten even better because I have someone fun to share the things I love about the season with.
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Tao
Pronunciation: \ˈdau̇, ˈtau̇\
Function: noun
Etymology: Chinese (Beijing) dào, literally, way
Date: 1736

1 a : the unconditional and unknowable source and guiding principle of all reality as conceived by Taoists b : the process of nature by which all things change and which is to be followed for a life of harmony
2 often not capitalized : the path of virtuous conduct as conceived by Confucians
3 often not capitalized : the art or skill of doing something in harmony with the essential nature of the thing—Merriam Webster

Something else I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is expectation. As a person, I’m sort of conflicted about expectation, as I once had a friend long ago who told me, “If you have no expectations, you’ll never be disappointed.”

As I roll that thought around inside my head, I see truth in it, but it can also be interpreted in an incredibly negative light. Expectation is what drives many of us to do the things that matter to us, but when they don’t turn out the way we hope, we wind up disappointed.
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Tao
Pronunciation: \ˈdau̇, ˈtau̇\
Function: noun
Etymology: Chinese (Beijing) dào, literally, way
Date: 1736

1 a : the unconditional and unknowable source and guiding principle of all reality as conceived by Taoists b : the process of nature by which all things change and which is to be followed for a life of harmony
2 often not capitalized : the path of virtuous conduct as conceived by Confucians
3 often not capitalized : the art or skill of doing something in harmony with the essential nature of the thing—Merriam Webster

All my life, I have been swimming in the stream of my own conscious and subconscious, trying to maintain a sense of balance and harmony with myself. I decided if maybe I wrote about it from time to time here, I might get some thoughts and philosophies from others who swim in the stream… either Battlestar Galactica Cylon 2 style, or just in general.

I wrote about my nature of control the other day, how I feel unproductive, even after a long day in which I spent the majority of my time producing, ie., via work or in my own creative vein. My tendency to spend an hour or more in bed at night before falling asleep hashing through my entire day and looking for ways I could have done more has really been weighing on me lately.
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It’s been awhile since I put out a commitment report, but woke up this morning realizing it was high time I get back on the ball with it. Perhaps I will turn it into a weekly thing, publishing it regularly on Sunday for my own reference of the things I managed to get done the week before.

I realized that I have serious issues. Yes, we all do. Don’t lie, you have them too. I grew up in a place where I was constantly referred to as lazy, and for a long time I believed I really was lazy. I was also told that I was a quitter who started things (ahem… basketball for example,) and never finished them. Believing that about yourself is kind of tough on the brain. You approach everything you do from an “I expect I’ll quit this and give up on it before I’m done because I’m lazy,” point of view. Not good…
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Last week, I wrote about taking the path not taken, and one of the biggest things I noted in the comments and on Twitter was that though many of us pursue our creative endeavors with vigor, even more of us aren’t quite sure exactly what we want in the long run.

Maybe we have some vague semblance of what we want formulated in the back of our minds, but unless we have a clear cut picture of exactly what it is want and expect, how can we go after it?

Not knowing what you want, but trying to reach for it is literally the equivalent of shooting zombies in the dark. You may hit a few if you’re lucky, but your lack of vision combined with the commotion of gunshot will only draw them shuffling toward you. You may not see them coming, and before you have a chance to reload and start shooting again, they’ll be eating your brains. Not a pretty picture. I know.

So, how do you figure out what you want? Chances are, you have some ideas. Maybe you think about publishing a novel or your short stories, selling enough of your art work to be able to quit your day job. Maybe you want to see your name on the NYT best-seller list, winning prestigious writers awards and beings asked by conferences all over the world to come and speak.

As a creative-type, you probably wrap your mind around things differently than most people. List-making is too simple a task to help you really figure out what you want, so why not brainstorm over a period of a week, to help you pinpoint. Sit down for ten or fifteen minutes every day and just free-write about what you want. After a week, read back over your free-writes and see what you can pull from them. Chances are, because you let your mind go on that topic, you wrote more openly than you would if you were putting stress on yourself to figure it all out.

Once you’ve got a week’s worth of free writes to refer to, then start working on a fine-tuned list of what you want. After that, get to work going for it. Figure out how you can get on the right path, and start setting goals that will take you where you want and need to be.

I get a little flack from people when I go all optimist. Optimism is often labeled “unrealistic,” especially for people who have every day responsibilities they worry they’ll sacrifice if they go for what they want. There are ways to do what you want, and still be a responsible adult, but first you have to know specifically what it is you want. Otherwise, you’ll waffle along the road, and that is where difficulties crop up, interfering with your life and responsibilities.

I know I’ve said this before, but this life is the only one we get. Not finding a way to head toward the things that make your life complete is a great disservice to yourself as a person.

I read an interesting article this morning on Novel Matters called Proper Care and Feeding of Readers by Ariel Allison Lawhon. Everyone has their thoughts about social media and networking, and how to use these tools to reach a wider audience. Lawhon made a lot of good points in her article about watching what you say, seeking friends not fans and most important: writing good content to share with your readers.

One of the things that really leaped out at me was her thoughts on “Do No Harm.” Lawhon admitted she was baffled by the types of things writers posted on their Facebook, blogs and in their Twitter streams, feeling that strong political or religious views, as well as unsavory commentary had the potential to damage your relationship with your readers.

While I don’t disagree with Lawhon entirely, I do think being yourself is an important part of actually attracting readers who will not only enjoy your work, but recommend it to other like-minded readers.

The Internet is full of phonies and hacks, people pretending to be someone they’re not. Often they are LITERALLY pretending to be someone they aren’t, posting pictures in their personal profiles that aren’t really them, making up lies about their achievements… the list goes on. It is also filled with people holding themselves back for fear of creating conflict with the people they social network with.

We all have thoughts and opinions, many of which shape our creative endeavors and are obviously reflected within. The unfortunate thing is a lot of people have a hard time accepting others’ views without taking a difference of opinion as a personal attack against their values and beliefs. Enter: drama and conflict.

Of course, I don’t think we should all litter our personal streams and blogs with nothing but curse words and outrageous viewpoints, but instead enter into “real” discussions with people. Share our views, even if they conflict with the mainstream viewpoint.

As well as being authors, podcasters, artists, creators, we are also people. We’re not untouchable, even once we hit the NY Times Bestseller list. Real life things still happen to us. Our opinions are still our own, and pretending to be someone we’re not by taming our real-life personalities is something I would rather not do.

This is who I am. Every time I blog, tweet, add an article to Digg.com or spend time on Facebook, I am ME. If you met me in person at a convention or even at the supermarket, I would still be the same person with the same thoughts and views I have here.

I think when we pretend to be someone we’re not, we set others up for disappointment when they find out who we really are. I am a person who has been known to say “Shit!” from time to time. I have opinions about religion and spirituality that would probably make a few people call ahead to reserve me a seat in “Hell.” I don’t think my opinions make me right, or better, and I don’t often engage in heated, confrontational discussions about them, but I still have them.

I guess I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to pretend to be someone you aren’t as a creative-type putting their endeavors out for the world to enjoy. Mel Gibson has voiced some pretty crazy opinions over the years, but people still watch, and in some cases even enjoy his movies. Voltaire actually thrived as an author/philosopher on his controversial opinions, despite the danger those opinions and thoughts posed to his own life.

What are your thoughts? Should we be ourselves, or hide our true nature to avoid alienating potential fans/readers?