News from the Woman Behind the Curtain

I know that it's been awhile. No, I didn't skid off of that high road and crash over the precipice. In addition to the usual chaos of the holiday season, I've been involved in a professional reinvention. Back in October, I talked about the restart of my career as a novelist. I figured it was about time to update everyone on the progress.

The cover artist has redesigned the covers for my books All Keyed Up and Key of Sea. We've agreed on the concepts and now he needs to finalize the designs. I'm really pleased with the new looks for the books and am looking forward to revealing them soon.

Likewise, I'm thrilled with the progress made by the company I contracted with to redesign my website. Again, we've settled on the design concept. Now I need to let them know what content to migrate from the current site, freshen up some material, and make some additional decisions.

So far, it sounds like other people are doing all the work for the restart. To some extent that's true. Now, I'm in the midst of my major responsibilities -- going through the books to fix a few things. Then I need to do the actual reformatting of the manuscripts to prepare them for electronic publishing.

Unlike some authors who do this when the books first come out, the last time I read them was when I did the final revisions for the original publisher. Frankly, the process of rereading them now feels a little weird. I bounce from pleased surprise, as in, "Wow. I actually wrote this? It's pretty good" to fretting whether the stories are truly good enough.

It's not unusual for writers to suffer from this fear and insecurity. I've read blog posts by fabulously successful, award-winning, New York Times bestselling authors where they proclaim that they suck. They don't, of course, they just sometimes think that they do, or are afraid that they do and they will soon be revealed as frauds.

Imagine for a second that the Wizard of Oz is a metaphor for a novelist's career. We'd be the guy concealed behind the curtain. The creative process would be Dorothy's journey to the Emerald City - sometimes the path is beautiful and filled with bright colors and interesting characters. Sometimes we creep through the dark forest, dodging apples thrown by scary trees, trying not to be captured by flying monkeys. Other times, it just gets so overwhelming that all we really want is to lie down among the flowers for a nap.

Well, I can't sleep my way through the process of checking my books. I've set goals and want these books to enjoy new life in e-publishing. To help the effort, I have already invested a good chunk of money in the covers and website. I want to, and will, push on and get the books ready to launch. I've gone through the poppy fields, gained entry to the Emerald City, and am putting my books through the buffing and polishing.

I've discovered a certain magic energy to preparing to release my books myself in the electronic publishing forums. Remember in the Wizard, Dorothy thought she had to do a whole bunch of stuff and rely on many others to achieve her goal.

Like her, I've discovered I have the power to get where I want to be all on my own.

Stay tuned . . .

Veering Off the High Road

When I was a kid and other kids picked on me or teased me (or were downright mean) to me about being overweight, my parents always told me to take the high road. That's a credo that I've attempted to follow all of my life, no matter how difficult it is to do sometimes.

The high road is not the easy path. For one thing, you have to trudge uphill to reach it. Once you're there, you have to slog your way through mud, rock slides, pot holes and other less savory things that are all intent on tripping you up during the journey so that you and your good intentions fall flat on your face.

It was particularly difficult when I was younger and, like most adolescents and teens, possessed less impulse control. I also had a temper, so every side trip to the high road was a lesson in not letting anger get away from me. There's good points and bad to that approach. Lashing out every time someone pisses us off isn't a constructive way to interact with others. Holding in the anger and trekking up that hill to the high road doesn't always achieve the best results.

Case in point, when I was 10, my family and I lived in France. My older brother and I went to a private school for American kids. There were a couple of girls in my home room who had been there for a few years. Since they were also on the far side of chubby, they were overjoyed to have a "new girl" to pick on. Smartly, they realized it was a glass classroom, so they didn't throw stones about my weight. Instead, they tried to make me feel bad because their fathers worked in the diplomatic corps and my father was, wait for it, only a doctor. Can you cross the t and dot the i in bitches along with me? I was incensed at the disrespect shown to my father. He only laughed when I relayed the tale of the grievous insult and told me to ignore them and, yes, take the high road.

I put more miles on that damned high road that year than a coast-to-coast trucker. Then February rolled around and the entire school closed for vacation, with most students going on school-sponsored ski trips. My best friend and I were on the same trip as my nemeses and the Fates had a good laugh when the four of us somehow ended up sharing a room. My high road taking must have frustrated them but, smelling fresh vulnerable meat, they turned on my friend. She was a quiet, timid girl who'd never gone on an away trip from her family before and was homesick. I warned them and warned them to stop teasing her, but they persisted until she began to cry great, heartbroken tears. When I ordered them to back off, they told me they could say and do anything they wanted -- including splitting us up because my father was only a doctor.

I snapped, saying something close to, "Your diplomatic fathers can't help you now." Then I picked up my heavy wooden hairbrush and went after the one girl. No, I didn't seriously beat her, but I got in several smacks before reason returned and I stopped. They never bullied me or my friend again.

Do I advocate violence as a solution? No. Do I think I would have been better served if I'd learned more effective techniques for conflict resolution other than relying on the power of taking the high road? Yes.

The thing with the high road is that it just removes you from the conflict. It doesn't take you to any definitive destination. You just keep walking until the conflict passes and then you resume your regularly plotted route -- until the next time something happens and you detour again.

I'm a long way away from that 10 year old. Most of the time these days, I can both take the high road and find an effective way to resolve a situation that doesn't involve beating someone with a hair brush. There are even times when I can shrug and release the annoyance.

Then there are times like today. Someone made some, I think, petty critiques of a volunteer project in which I was involved. Instead of immediately responding, I sprinted for the high road. Good thing because my initial thought, upon hearing the critique was, "Then you effing take on the project next time."

Securely perched up here on the hill, I'm giving myself 24 hours before I craft a written response. It will be diplomatic and calm and I will make my points without being angry, mean or bitchy. I promise.

Until then, I give myself permission to think of the road not traveled; the one littered with responses like, "Kiss my ass".

Returning to Blog

I'm on day four of my four day weekend. It's been years since I took the day after Thanksgiving off and I'm so glad that I did. Had a great Thanksgiving. I joined friends at Bahia Honda State Park where they host the holiday dinner for park staff and volunteers. I usually meet some interesting people at those gatherings and thoroughly enjoy myself.

This year I tried something new for my food contribution to the feast. I roasted rutabagas, carrots and red onions in a yummy mixture of balsamic vinegar, honey, and olive oil. Everyone seemed to enjoy them and I thought the dish was delicious so I know I'll make it again during the year.

I spent several hours over the last few days setting up my new laptop. It even has new laptop smell. Frankly, it could have stunk like three day old fish and I wouldn't have cared. I'd been pushed to the edge of sanity by the e-obsessed antics of my old laptop. Some nights I could barely short circuit the machine long enough to type in my password and log on. I survived by checking email mostly on my iPhone and then using the netbook.

I love my little netbook. It's so convenient for travel. However, I don't find it comfortable to type on for long hours, so I wasn't as prone to blogging for awhile. Now I'm back.

I also spent a good chunk of time on the de-cluttering of the room that's supposed to be my office. It is amazing to me that no matter how often I tell myself that I will not let that room get out of control, it always defeats my best intentions. This might be because I often employ the Scarlet O'Hara approach to neatening and filing as in, "I'll do it tomorrow because tomorrow is another day." Do that often enough and the room quickly qualifies for an episode of Clean Sweep. I'm happy to say that I can now see a good amount of acreage on the floor and the mountains of paper have all been sorted into file folders or shredded. The "15 Minutes" approach really works. Telling myself that I only had to work on it for 15 minutes at a time made the process less overwhelming. Usually I worked far longer but clearly the idea gave me a mental boost.

Now that I've decluttered the office, I can declutter the section of kitchen counter that is a catch-all for miscellaneous stuff. Do you sense a trend?

When you aren't a natural neatnik, nothing provides greater motivation for putting things in order than a deadline. In two weeks, my house is the host location for a baby shower for good friends. Two other friends and I are arranging the party with guys and gals invited. I needed to have everything straightened by this weekend so that I can put up some holiday decorations next weekend. The week before the shower I'll break out the heavy-duty cleaning weapons and accomplish a big task each night.

The last of those big tasks will be the floors and rugs. Cleaning them before the day of the party would be the equivalent of Martha Stewart meets Sisyphus. You see, in addition to everything else, construction began last week for my swimming pool. It is physically impossible for me to walk into the house without tracking dust or traces of dirt with me on my sandals. Some the morning of the shower, I will sweep away any dirt or sand in the driveway and then sweep, vacuum and mop the floors. My house is going to sparkle like a star on top of a Christmas tree. I'm determined!

Admid everything else, work progresses on the revitalization of my writing career. A cover artist is working on new covers for my two books. I had a phone consult with a new web designer. I'm going through the books themselves and getting them ready for conversion to e-format. This is an exciting time for me as an author. No matter how much we know that publishing is a business, we put our heart, sweat, time, energy and talent into our books and want them to do well. To be able to give my work another chance is a big time boost and motivates me to write new material, too.

Particularly now that I have a new laptop and can actually type. :-)