Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
bees aren't this busy.
The house is dirtier than it used to be. While I was a stay-at-home mother I felt unappreciated and resentful about all the housework I had to do. I never felt like I got enough done. Now I'm amazed at how much I was able to accomplish. The soap-making, the knitting, the cooking, the fridge cleaning... It takes less time to hold my breath when I have to get milk out of the fridge than it does to clean it. I'd like to have the time to finish this website. I wish I could read a book. I'd love to help my friends promote their books.
When I started taking classes toward my long-postponed bachelor's degree, I truly had no idea the work load would be so heavy. I don't remember doing this much when I was in college full time. Like, maybe one assignment per week per class, with the larger chapters broken up over a couple of weeks. In each of these classes I have a chapter per week with a related lecture, quiz, and discussion, plus several short papers over the semester. It says a lot that I feel more pressed for time now than when I was taking 18 hours and working full time with time to party left over.
But I have kids now--a full time job in itself, running them around. And in online classes they can only track us by our online work, and that means writing and assessments.
It's just the nature of the beast (which apparently lives in my fridge).
hiding flaws
This was my diary entry from 2 1/2 years ago. It resonates with me today.
Feeling today...like I need to find a way to release my fear that everyone's out to get me. Like holding back to protect myself doesn't really protect me. How would it feel to go through my day feeling like everyone I interact with has no agenda, no expectations, only a pure desire to connect and share? How would that feel? Everyone has an agenda, of course, because that's how we go through life. But what if I had faith that those agendas contained no secret need that I had to fulfill? What if I stopped looking for the punchline? The irony? The trip wire? What if I went through my day open to possibility, open to helping others when they need it? I'd like to be able to instantly assess when people need my help, even when they don't ask, my real help and not my propping up of their ego. If I get out of the mental fetal position and look people in the eye, what then? I think I'm afraid they WILL need me. I fear looking like a fool--too excited, too enthusiastic, too dumb, too womanly. I fear being myself, because that self has been criticized so much. Today I will stop working on my faults and start finding my strengths, and start working on those.
How about this: Today I will stop trying to hide my flaws. By trying to hide my flaws I'm hiding the good parts of me, too.
I had let the daily practice of this fall away, but I can see how I benefited from it. Maybe I didn’t exactly let it fall away as I simply let it fall inside. It’s been stewing and now it’s ready to come back out. Back then it was a what-if. Now that last sentence feels like a fact. Also, I’ve learned since then that flaws are subjective and forgivable.
The very long story of possibly changing a title, maybe
(Aside: KDP Select has been a waste of time for me. None of my three publications has ever been borrowed, so basically I'm giving Amazon exclusivity for free. Great racket they have going there. I won't use it again.)
A couple of months ago I read ICF through for the first time in a long time. I downloaded my two shorts to test on different apps, and on the Kindle app I encountered the problem, which was the damn ending! And yes, I'm really mad about it!
I hate writing endings. I struggle with the ending every time and never feel satisfied. If I have an ending in mind when I start, I'm not light on my feet enough to switch it up when the story takes me in a different direction. If I don't have the ending, that keeps me from finishing at all.
I guess that's why I got the closure with MPA. It couldn't be published until I got the ending right. It finally came around, mostly satisfying, published and BOOM, closure. "Oooh, must have been because I published it! It's out of my hair and out of my mind, because I put it out there. This is a sure-fire way to get rid of those nagging stories I can't stop editing!"
Ahem. No.
With ICF, I did fix the ending, but the pacing was bad. And this is why they say let your stories sit a while before you read them again, and to print them out. The different format--a Kindle reader app--and a few weeks gave me the separation I needed to see why I couldn't stop thinking about it.
But so once I was to that point, Skin & Scales was racing down the track. I thought, that's fine because I Can Fly is in KDP Select. It's exclusively on Amazon and at 99 cents. Nobody's borrowing, and it's highly doubtful anyone would pay a dollar for a story of only 2,000 words. ICF could wait while I focused on S&S.
So that's what I did. And then two days after I received my first real copies of Skin & Scales somebody paid a dollar for I Can Fly! Huzzah! Finally, a sale for this little story. Then I felt guilty as I realized I hadn't fixed the ending yet. Bummer. I hope they don't hold it against me.
Anyway, this lit a fire under me. If people were going to be paying, it better darn well be the best I can make it. I took the laptop to the park with us so the kids could play and I could plug in at the pavilion. I reshaped the ending to I Can Fly with little trouble, much to my relief. Only thing is, now it's pretty obvious that the title for this new story should be "The Girl for Me." Not pretty obvious, really obvious. But I already have a cover I'm satisfied with! People already know it by its old title! What do I do, what do I do??
I already changed Black Veil Angel to Skin & Scales pretty abruptly, but that was before publication. I'm glad I changed it. But I Can Fly is an established title. I guess it can be transitioned a couple of ways--maybe a subtitle, or in the description I can say "formerly I Can Fly"--so as not to confuse those who've already downloaded it.
Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of it.
