MoxieLife

Talking a Creative off the Ledge: Part 2 of 3

Helping creative entrepreneurs is part of my LinkedIn profile. It is something that I do for my business and my friends. Sometimes I get paid, but mostly it is just part of who I am. I started this little series thinking I would just talk about the obvious creative issues that I have helped people through. Dividing it into three segments seemed like enough information, really though I think I could fill a book.

Let's talk about my friend Lana. She was starting a creative project, or should have been starting a project that had a hard deadline. She complained about it constantly. She talked about it, moaned about it, whined about it until all of her friends and her husband had heard enough. She was doing everything but the project.

She called to tell me, again, why she couldn't get started. I finally just told her to stop complaining. Stop talking about the project at all. All of the energy that she was using to talk or worry about it was using up her creative energy. Shut up and start working. Granted, these are harsh words and my friends know that I am going to be abrupt at times... someone has to say it like it is!

I know in Part 1 I said that all that time not doing the project was part of the process and it is, but we get stuck complaining and whining and that stops us from working. The place that keeps us complaining isn't the creative place in our minds and it becomes a bad pattern.

So, the next time that you find yourself complaining about your project or your creative life take a moment to shut up. Move that complaining energy into DOING energy and see how far that takes you.

Highlighting My Fear of Being Shot in Public

I am so sad to hear about the church in Tennessee. After moving to the South from San Francisco to the south I took a long look at the divisive community that is so common in our towns. There are those who are on the left and those that are on the right, black and white, gay and straight. Those divisions become harsh realities of violence too often in Southern towns. I would say that fear and loathing live large in the American spirit. A sad testimony to our founding fathers dreams for a United States.

What really bothers me is that my (some would say irrational) fear of being shot in public places now has a new place to be afraid of: church. I never even thought that kind of hatred and pointed violence could happen at a UU church. How wrong and naive I am. So, now I am officially a bit frightened by the DMV, Post Office, Mc Donalds, Office Buildings, Hospitals... and church. Great!

It all started when I was young and there was a shooting at a Mc Donalds in San Diego. I was living in Orange County and I remember thinking that it was so wrong to be in a public place and have someone just start shooting. I don't understand that kind of anger or fear.

It doesn't stop me from going to these places, but it adds to my low level of anxiety. Great... now I can feel that on Sunday too.

Talking a Creative off the Ledge: Part 1 of 3

One of the things that I do as a professional is work with creative people. I am an idea person who manages marketing projects. In that role I work with many creative people including myself. In the last week I have had the opportunity to talk through issues with two separate creative people... talk them off the ledge so to speak.

The first conversation was with a curriculum developer who was having a block. She just couldn't get started. It didn't matter how much she thought about it, didn't sleep, or procrastinated she couldn't bring herself around to start her project. The deadline is looming above her like a dark cloud. She was terrified to start. She was convinced that she had a block.

I don't believe in blocks. I believe that the time you spend NOT DOING the creative project you are actually doing the creative project. You are thinking about it. It is churning around in your mind, your dreams, and your conversations. You are pulling it out of the air as you toil with it... even when you are not working on it. It is hard for non creative people to think of this as work, but I believe what is perceived as a block is actually the work. Important work to the creative process.

She couldn't believe her ears. She had never heard that... but yes, she felt like she had been pulling it together in her mind as she was worried, talking about, or ignoring it. She felt that the non work that she had been doing was really a lot of work. Hard work.

I told her when she was ready she would get started and it would flow.

Happy to report that she is writing away and feels very in sync with the project.

All that non working work is the hard work of being creative.. it just doesn't look like work to normal people. That is OK. Amazing things happen during that time.

Going Right or Left

Turn Signals. I know that they are an amazing invention that only the brave are going to use, but I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone.

They can make your life or at least those in the car following you so much easier. I am not really picky about how soon you use them, although before you turn is advisable. I also don't really care if you use the left signal to turn right. People change their mind and that this fine. Goodness knows that the Dollar General on the left looks much more interesting then the Antique Mall on the right. Those kinds of decisions are made quickly and just using your turn signal is fantastic, revolutionary really.

So, the next time you get behind your death machine, I mean car, take a moment to familiarize yourself with that stick next to the wheel. It goes up and down and you are free to use it anytime you turn yourself around.

Dear David, Laurie & Chelsea

One week, three memoirs, lots of laughs. Well, some laughs and some cringing. It isn't fair to judge Laurie and Chelsea with David because I have loved David since I first heard him on Ira. Yes, I feel as if I am on a first name basis with these folks because I have invited them and their crazy lives into my home. They took over my entire weekend and they caused complete lethargy. (Yes, I can be lazy by nature, but with a good book I am a complete sloth!)

First David Sedaris: When you are Engulfed in Flames is his latest look into his odd yet familiar life. He takes the sad and really awful moments of life and brings both humor and truth to them. His depiction of both his family and neighbors feels as if he is seeing them without clothes... or a least in really bright lights. There is nothing to hide when he is in the room. I can't imagine being a friend of his because he fixates on flaws like they are the cherry on the cake! Even with that he is lovable. I think because he sees his life as if he really were the center of the universe that you find even his most horrible moments as ones filled with the cuteness of an awkward six year old. Granted a six year old shouldn't be identifying the taste of a Japanese cracker as tasting like penis, but that is David.

Next Laurie Notaro: I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) is a relatively old book (2004) that I interlibrary loaned because I saw it on someones site. First of all I was reading it on the couch when my husband said, "why are you reading that. You don't love everybody." So, that goes to show that the book was made for me. Also, I should note that I read the essay on Disneyland and her rant about Winnie the Pooh and his lack of appropriate clothing AFTER I had just played Winnie the Pooh at a library function. What kind of coincidence is that? What I liked about her writing was that although it seemed completely crazy at times it seemed real. She seemed like a real person, with real parents, and with real problems. Funny problems, but real ones. Who doesn't have that moment when you reach for a pen in your purse and a tampon comes flying out instead? Really!

The talk of the town right now is Chelsea Handler and Are you there Vodka, it's me Chelsea. It has been on the best seller list for weeks. I wanted to like this. Perhaps I was burnt out from reading David and Laurie. Personal drama or crazy drunken episodes can only get me so far. I want reality... odd reality, but reality. Her writing, except for the trip to Costa Rica with her dad, seemed to far steeped in forced funny. She reminded me of Sarah Silverman, who I WANT to like, but I can't. They both are so over the top in their depictions of what is funny (racist, crude, gross) that I end up feeling disgust rather then laughter. I don't think that is where she wanted to go, but for me it wasn't a good fit. Granted, she is wildly popular, on TV, a successful writer and maybe I'm just jealous. I do give her extra bonus points for the nod to Judy Blume... very nice.

On the whole it was a great weekend spent with some lovely, yet crazy, friends. Thanks David, Laurie & Chelsea. Hope to see you soon!

Do you remember having bad friends?

Confession, I was a bad friend when I was younger. There is this one girl who lived on my street that I would love to make an apology too. I was mean and she was so nice. That is for another time though, granted I can't find her and my apology here would be useless.

So, back to bad friends. My daughter has a bad friend.

It is actually her ex-boyfriend. They were dating all through high school and broke up somewhere in the Senior year. They have tried to remain friends. I hear her on the phone act super cheery when he calls only to have him give some lame excuse for not following through on some plan with her. She tries so hard to be a good friend despite the fact that he has broken her heart repeatedly.

As mom, I give advice she, of course, does not want to hear. Things like, dump him, hang out with friends you do like, or you will have TONS of friends when you go to college. She doesn't like any of these ideas. She thinks that you are supposed to try to be a good friend in all circumstances despite the reality.

But when is enough enough.

I think if someone lies, is mean, hangs up on you... that is enough. Granted I am just a mom and I, obviously, don't understand.

Walk of Shame

Zeppelin Sad
Originally uploaded by goodwolve.

Poor Zeppelin.

He was found inside while My Sparkly Girl and I were at the gym. He was caught eating vast amounts of chicken bones. He knows he isn't supposed to go through the garbage or eat chicken bones, but the smell of the trash was just calling him.

We came home from the gym to find him greet our car wearing this sign, "I'm a Bad Dog Who Got In The Trash and Ate Chicken... etc."

My sweetie came home to find trash everywhere inside! Everywhere and made this little sign out of the demolished pizza box that Zeppelin had chewed. (pizza, meat packaging, chicken bones, garbage... you get the idea.)

Some people yell at their dogs, we humiliate them.

Not Claritin Clear: Foggy Brains

I don't know if it is the heat or something else, but I feel like I am in a fog. Just tired and not really awake. Terrible feeling.

Are you measured by what you have or what you don't?

This is the question that I have been pondering for the last day or so. My husband says that you are measured by what you have, but I think you are also labeled by what you don't have. You don't have children, a new car, a vacation home, a trust fund. Not that people say those things to you, but they put you in a category.

This all came up because I was reading (and finished) Ann Hood's "The Knitting Circle". It was well crafted and the characters were believable. Those are the things that I look for in a novel. I am always looking for good writing but it is more important to me that I am hooked in and that I care. When an author can do that, I am thrilled. The story follows a woman (a couple, but mostly the woman) who loses her 5 year old daughter to meningitis. It is both heartbreaking and real. We don't all bounce back after loss. We are defined by that loss for a long time. You become the "mom who lost her child".

Hence the title question. I don't have a lot of material things. My life is somewhat on the fringe of basic American wants. I do, though, to some, live a dream life. It is all perspective. Am I who I am because of what I don't have. Yes. That defines my values, my choices, and the path that I have led. I am also defined by what I do have, these seem either things I can't help (white, woman, 38)  or decisions I have made (mother, liberal, Unitarian). I am not, I think, defined by my toys (not a big believer in brands, toys, or extra stuff.)

So, why does any of this matter. It doesn't really. I am just interested in how we categorize people, experiences, places, everything. How we box things up in our minds. We are always defining people in relation to us, so to take an evaluation of what we have and what we don't is an interesting experience.

How do you think people define you?

Our 2008 Garden

Our 2008 Garden
Originally uploaded by goodwolve.

It has taken us years to get the hang of gardening. We tried to do it unfenced (most of it got eaten), in our rocky soil, ignoring it (that never works), and so on.

Until this year! We bought dirt from our nursery (in Northwest Arkansas much of the land is rocks... very little top soil... just rocks. We but up light fencing to keep the chickens out of the garden. I also learned how to install drip line... the greatest thing in gardening heaven!

So, this year we have tomato plants as tall as me, squash that is expanding daily, cucumbers, peppers, basil, zinnias, and more. Not everything worked, of course. Parsley plant number one was sucked under ground by a mole. Really, the whole thing. Something broke through the fence and ate the tops of all the carrots and the peas were put in too late, but other then that I am thrilled.

Next year I plan to do 3 rows of tomatoes including heirloom varieties, more cucumbers, peas earlier and lettuces.... oh and get a pig, but that is for another story.