Mon. Jan. 13, 2020: Intent for the Week: Creativity

image courtesy of Amber Lamoreaux viz pexels.com

Monday, January 13, 2020
Waning Moon
Uranus Direct (as of the 11th)

Can you believe it? No retrogrades for a brief, shining bit of time. Do we even know how to respond to that?

Hop on over to the Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions site, where I suggest some tools to help you reach your GDRs.

Today is my “Intent Post.” As you can see from the title, the intent for the week is “Creativity.”

What does that mean?

It means different things to different people.

For me, first and foremost, it always means the writing. I want and need to have a creative week when it comes to working on a variety of writing projects including novels and plays, both drafting and editing. It means being creative in the way I approach potential new clients. It means being creative in the way I approach the ongoing client work.

It means being creative in how I approach cleaning out the basement, which I’m trying to break down into small enough daily bits so it doesn’t overwhelm me.

To me, being “creative” means approaching each task with the focus I intended last week, and building on it by looking at it from multiple angles, and not being tied into “the way I always do it.”

It’s time to trade comfort for creativity.

What is your intent for the week?

Did you stick to your intent last week, or did it change as the week unrolled?

Thurs. June 14, 2018: Exciting Times (in a Good Way)

Thursday, June 14, 2018
Waxing Moon
Jupiter Retrograde
Saturn Retrograde
Pluto Retrograde
Sunny and pleasant

Tuesday night, I went to a Social Entrepreneurs Networking Event at the Blue Rock Golf Course in South Yarmouth. Once I found the place, the event was great. There were about 40 people there –a good turnout for the Cape. The two people who convinced me to go, however, didn’t show up! Again, pretty typical of the Cape.

But the people I met were great. Lively, funny, interesting, passionate about what they do, and interested in what everyone else did. I exchanged many cards, and came home with a stack of cards — ALL for people with whom I’ll follow up.

I think I even found a person to fix an IT issue for one of my clients.

Not ONCE did anyone deride the fact that I’m a writer. In fact, it was celebrated. NOT ONCE did anyone try to demean that I publish under multiple names. They thought it was interesting. NOT ONCE, when I said, “I don’t do photos on social media; it’s part of writing under multiple names” was it met with bullying (the way it regularly is at other events, where people try to FORCE me to be in photos on social media). The response was, “I totally get that.”

What a difference, from events that are supposedly all about supporting WRITERS, where I am regularly accused of “hiding” or “What? You’re under the witness protection program? Ha, ha, ha.” Or like the exchange I had, when I went to a talk last year, at a supposedly writer-centric event:

Old White Guy: What do you do for a living?

Me: Write.

Old White Guy: No, I mean, what do you do to make money?”

Me: Write.

Old White Guy: No, I mean how to you earn your living? What’s your job?

Me: Write.

Old White Guy: No one does that.

Me: I do. (walks away).

It disturbs me that these organizations who are supposed to support writers and artists in their careers and help them find their way through the maze of professionalism allow this kind of behavior.

Which is why I stopped attending so many of these events.

And why Tuesday night was so refreshing.

It was also nice to talk to people from all different types of businesses. That’s one of the positives about this area. Because it’s a smaller community, it’s not as insulated. It’s far too easy to only interact with your own circle and then narrow your world. We all need new people and fresh experiences to keep growing. Fresh perspectives.

It was tough to haul myself out of the house (It had been a particularly discouraging day with a client who refuses to accept that the world won’t change to meet the way this client thinks it SHOULD be, and deal with how it is, and find interesting ways to work around it). Plus, the directions weren’t correct. I got frustrated, but I found the place by accident. Now, I’m glad I did.

It was really pretty, and the site suggested I could use it to meet with clients, which is also nice. Gives me a mid-Cape option other than just Cape Space or a bar or a coffee shop. Now that I actually know where the darn place is!

Picked up Chinese food on the way home (because I sure as hell wasn’t going to cook). Decompressed.

Up early on Wednesday to write. Focused primarily on the MYTH AND INTERPRETATION revisions (cover reveal will be in the next couple of days). I have a couple of things to still work out in the middle — a scene or two to add, and I made some cuts, and massaged a timeline that was off. It was fixed with a phrase that referred to the time lapse instead of a scene, so that’s a relief.

Waiting to hear back from someone about another piece of the Jain Lazarus Adventures puzzle before making that big announcement.

Chasing down a late payment from a client from whom I will part shortly. Again, what’s going on is legal. But I question the ethics, and can’t be a part of it. I want my last payment, and then we’re done. Also didn’t like that the person I dealt with about the missing payment lied, I knew she lied, and she knew I knew she lied.

The individual I met at the networking event was able to fit my client in to his schedule yesterday and start solving the IT issues. That made yesterday a bit less stressful.

Came home, made a very dry vodka martini, read a bit. Worked on some more MYTH revisions. Had more discussions about the future of Jain Lazarus. We have a couple of contract things to work out.

We also are discussing a kind of odd promotional item for the books. I’m not sure we’d be allowed to offer it on a large platform — it may have to go directly from the publisher’s website and my websites. We have to check with our distributor. The possibilities intrigue me. It would take some work to pull off, but if it sells more books in the long run, it would be worth it. We had originally talked about it being a print giveaway, but the thought grew to why not make it available digitially as well?

I received my contract from Llewellyn. I will be in the 2020 Spell-A-Day Calendar, under the Cerridwen Iris Shea name. I’m looking forward to it. I wrote for them for 16 years, and then felt I didn’t have anything left to say, so I took a break. And now I have something to say again, and they’re interested. That makes me happy. I’m sending off the signed contract today, and getting to work on the pieces this week. They are due in October.

More yard work today. Steady, solid work on RELICS & REQUIEM, steady work on the revisions for  MYTH, which I think can go out to the editor tomorrow. And the cover reveal for MYTH will also be tomorrow.

The good busy.

 

Mon. April 16, 2018: Letting Go #UpbeatAuthors

Monday, April 16, 2018
Waxing Moon
Mercury DIRECT (as of yesterday, thank goodness)
Jupiter Retrograde
Patriots’ Day

Today is that weird day known as Patriots’ Day here in MA, about the official start of the American Revolution. However, I’m not taking the holiday this year; I’m on site with a client.

The Upbeat Authors theme today is “letting go.” The timing is interesting, because I’m in the process of doing that on many levels.

One of the hardest things I had to let go was my career working backstage on Broadway, when I moved from New York to Cape Cod. I was aging out of the work, slowing down, and didn’t have the physically or the mental stamina to keep doing what I did best. I knew I wanted to leave while I still loved it, not wait until I was in pain all the time and bitter. I also knew if I was going to make the commitment to my writing, it needed to be full-time. There’s a saying “the theatre is a jealous mistress.” That is not a myth. It is a reality. I had to choose between working backstage on Broadway and writing while exhausted, or writing (and yet, I’m still often exhausted).

I chose writing.

I let go of tech work backstage on Broadway.

Letting go of that career, writing full time, and moving to a completely different region was a lot. The stress and frustration increased when I arrived here and the expectation was that I would continue to work in technical theatre around here — for free. “For fun.”

And the attitude of “oh, we don’t pay for writers,” yet the constant stream of demands from local strangers that I should write for them without pay and be grateful for the opportunity.

And, how, exactly, am I supposed to earn a living? Oh, yeah, at a minimum wage or less job that has nothing to do with my career, because my career was never a “real job” in the first place., according to the locals.

Uh, no.

I had to let go of the fantasy that I moved to a place full of vibrant, working artists. That was the hardest, more wrenching, and most disappointing part of the move. There are plenty of vibrant, working, WONDERFUL artists here — but they’re not getting paid what they’re worth. Too few of them make their living at it, because the community does not support them as working artists. The community — and the artists — consider the art something to do ” on the side” which has never been my take on being a working artist.

I do not work in the local theatres for free, and the handful of local writing clients I have pay me. The rest of my clients are based at a distance, and we work remotely, or with infrequent in-person meetings (I do not work by phone).

I’ve “let go” of the idea that I’ll convince these entrenched individuals with their mis-spelled materials (which means they’ve lost my business) to pay writers. I’m not even talking about paying me, just, for the love all that is Oxford comma, pay SOMEONE fairly to come up with decent materials.

I get my work elsewhere.

I don’t argue with them. I say “no” and move on. When they try to argue, I add, “This is my business, not my hobby. You get paid to work. So do I.” That’s that.

I’m in the process of “letting go” of a lot of stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. When I moved up from New York, it took two moving trucks to get it all here. I still have a basement full of stuff that I haven’t gone through. I’m in the process of doing it. I’m “letting go” of what no longer works for my life.

I do NOT believe in the “if you haven’t used/worn it for a year, throw it out” or “for everything you bring into the house, throw something out.” During lean times, digging into stuff I’ve kept has sustained me through them, and given me the security to work out of them. As I’m letting go of stuff now, I trust my gut to its meaning, and whether or not I see it in the future I’m building. To me, the above “rules” are a way to get people to throw things out so they buy more things.

I’m even giving away books. I still have 250 boxes of books in my basement. I’m giving way mostly fiction, books I either don’t remember or know I won’t re-read. I’ve built my non-fiction library over the years, and I’m keeping that. With the way libraries weed out books nowadays, I often can’t find the books I need for research. So, when I buy them, I keep them. I end up using them for multiple projects.

“Letting go” of what no longer serves your life allows you time and space on both physical and emotional levels. I like to use the past to build the future, not just eradicate it to start fresh.

You have to do what works best for YOUR life. The best we can do is listen, offer our personal stories, and try to help each other navigate these choices.