Passion and Success

It’s delightful when the same message is repeated, like the universe wants to make sure you get it.  Today’s theme is passion and success.

Check out:  Mike’s How to Have Whatever Success We Want and Polly’s Pursuing your Passion:  What fuels your life? Then Bill’s Measurable Value and Don’s Elements of Success offer more advice.  There were other posts on blogs I follow that spoke directly to my career plans and activities.  It made for a very enjoyable breakfast.

Then I ran some errands.  I turned on the radio in the car and the words of the song were direct answers to my thoughts.  I had to laugh and sing along.

Outside the post office, I stopped to chat with a man I’d  known in the past during the one year I coached my daughter’s softball team.  I’m wearing an old t-shirt sporting the statement:  “Baseball? I’m for any sport that involves a major league diamond.”  This shirt was in the bottom of my drawer, and it’s not my color, but for some reason I pulled it on today.  That synchronicity is even more fun because the message relates to my marketing plans which will include teamwork and potential “wins” for many of my friends.

I’ve also had computer issues today and I know I will need to upgrade soon.  It was funny that the computer reset the time, then the date.  The time reset to the past, then the date reset to the future.  This was fascinating because both the time and date were specific numbers that are personally significant to me, and I had to take actions so there was no way I would miss these numerical sequences.

A few minutes ago, I chatted with a neighbor at the mailbox.  He stated he had just returned from a six week trip through a bunch of states and saw a lot of places he had long wanted to visit.  I mentioned he was the third person I know who took a long journey like that this summer.  I never went more than three hours from home this summer because friends and family visited Oregon.  As a result, I toured many close to home sights, twice in a six weeks, that I haven’t visited in recent years because they are right here and when we plan an adventure we usually look beyond our own backyard.

So the message to me today is:  passion and success are journeys and success in the past fuels new passions in the future.   The key to passion is paying attention to what makes you feel good, the key to success is the actions taken, and both expand when you connect with people close to home and around the world.

The universe has acknowledged that all is good with my world, and my goals, and I intend to sing along.

real characters

I’ve been reading a lot of beginning chapters of potential novels, as a contest judge.  I found myself duplicating comments I got in the past from editors, as to why they passed on publishing my story.   Everyone is too nice, the characters make efforts to get along.  None of my fictional characters had a reason to grow or transform.  No ego issues, ergo, no story.

Even stellar writers who have mastered craft; style, voice, tension, pacing, etc. failed to engage me because of the characters on the page.  I didn’t care about the story because the character goals lacked depth, motivations were not believable, and there was no substantial conflict to overcome.

Yesterday I chatted with a former neighbor, Nancy.  Nancy sold her house on our street after becoming a widow.  The current owner bought this house when she became a widow.   I told Nancy I haven’t made an effort to befriend this younger woman because the widow stories are bit big for me.   Nancy and another friend of mine became widows in 2005 the same year my parents died.  Both of these women were four years older than me.  Both of their husbands were named, Dave.

I’ve dedicated a lot of energy learning to write nonfiction and feel this awareness of real life will enhance the conflicts I bring to my fiction.  Death creates a transformation for those of us still alive and this is why I don’t care about characters who “could die,” unless they have a dream to live.

While disappointed with the fictional characters I met this past week, I enjoyed these stories about real people:  Magnetic Personalities – Sport Fanatics – Courageous Moms – Road Warriors and the review of a “Lactating Detective”.  Real people are interesting!

Here’s the motto of a friend who is thriving years after breast cancer – if you’re a writer, please bring this motto to your fictional world:

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

wanna be dancing

Daddy was the most amazing waltz partner.  When he and Mom were dating, they waltzed on roller skates.   Think of “Dancing with the Stars” in roller rinks.  Instead of dancing shoes, the couples wore skates that had the same laced boot as ice skates, and in-line roller blades, but had four wooden wheels.  It’s hard to imagine this type of ballroom waltzing could be graceful and romantic, but I have seen it done so can imagine my parents were awesome.

I recently had a chance meeting with someone I’ve known, sort-of,  for years.  This woman is best described as an acquaintance, someone known to me through the web of friends I’ve encountered because of my passion for books and love stories.   In a random passing moment it was confirmed, she’s an editor and I’m an author still in search of a home for my memoir of my parents love story.

I pulled my memoir off the shelf and plowed into the edits because the small press, where this friend is a sr. editor, has a nice website and the banner page is not full of erotic and vampire book covers.  This is good.  My parents wouldn’t be offended to have their story added to this list.  This has been an issue for me as I’ve researched potential publishers for my memoir.

So I dug into the edits already scrawled in red across pages, that I had delayed doing for months,  and I was suddenly aware of the dates on the calendar.  I had to hurry.  There was no way I could still be reading/editing those final chapters today.  Today, 8/26, my daddy died in a car accident five years ago.  Mom had preceded him by three months and one of the things we talked about at Dad’s funeral was that he and Mom were again ballroom dancing on roller skates.

Yesterday and today the delight in my life has been music.  Music flavored my childhood, as did awesome pies, savory meals, and hand-dipped chocolate candy.   But while the others tantalize my palate, it is music that nourishes my soul.  Whether classical on a piano, polkas on an accordion, or rock guitar music blasting in a school gym, music meant for dancing is what makes me feel full of life.   Yes, I am partial to string instruments though I do love a good band of wind and percussion instruments.  But when it comes to a piano or harp I’m suddenly in the clouds.  The harp, oh, the harp.

Today it was 60′s music.  The Beetles, Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys, and a whole pile of soul, performed by a local band at a concert in the park.  I was on my feet doing The Twist, the Mashed Potato, The Swim and a lot of body gyrations from that musical era when there were only four guitar chords and a lot of beat.

It was the perfect way to spend my evening.

I may pull on roller skates again some day, I was pretty good though not to ballroom levels.  It doesn’t matter, dancing is dancing no matter what the venue or where the music begins.

pause, rethink, redo

I’ve had multiple techno challenges recently and just realized, Mercury is retrograde.  This explains a lot of the extra tasks I’ve been required to complete.  Lots of do-overs. I’ve taken a step back in technology time and am aware that what’s available to me today was the best available less than a decade ago.  I’ve been tasked to remaster skills forgotten.  I won’t say it’s been fun but I do like a challenge.

I read an email today where the intent proposed was to wipe the slate clean, and return to the original intent of 13 years ago.  What is “now” shows dynamic potential for the future, what was – was wimpy, rocky and raw.  Go back?  Disregard the personal investment of sweat, cash, time and effort – of many – to create what is?  What is “now” is why I even know anything about it.  Will I promote going back?  Not!

I’ve also been revising my manuscript because of a request to review it for publication that arrived before Mercury turned retrograde.  No, I won’t make excuses to delay submitting until Mercury turns direct in mid-September.   The request was to review and that’s what a retrograde is all about, the “re”.  I’ll finish my edits and send it off.  I’ll continue to work on my contest duties and make time to study photos of UFO shaped clouds.  Do I believe in UFO’s and aliens?  Yes.  Am I afraid?  No.

I feel assured I’m taking the right steps forward on a new journey. One sign is this blog post “Stop harping on what we can’t do and start thinking about who we are.”  There’s cool stuff to read in the comments too!  That’s one bonus to blogs, the immediacy and expansion of reader comments.  Maybe this interaction with readers is the next step in journalism.

We watched The Green Zone this weekend and this movie did make me pause and decide to rethink some of my own ideas on journalism, and the authors of terrorism, and where I get my information, and what ideas I form from what is presented by the news media.  This is a good activity for the mind under a Mercury retrograde!

Don’t stress the small stuff and treat yourself nice, that’s all you can do when the trickster is at play!

reading, reading

I’m currently working as a coordinator in a writer contest. This means I am often scanning and adding data to a large spreadsheet; all kinds of text, numbers and email links.  I also have lots of folders in my email account, suddenly full of emails with numerous attached files received and sent.

I’m duplicating a lot of tasks – resending lots of emails and files – probably because one of the cyberspace big brothers has noticed increased activity on a rather quiet email account.  Could it be spam?  A virus?  Some automated porno files from a country no one can find on a globe?  (The e-world is very ethereal and there are lots of auto-code police on the job!)

Nope, no porno pics or text, no requests for large sums of money, just me, trying to get a bunch of files created by wanna-be romance authors to a lot of category judges, who will read them.  Judges then fill out and complete automated score sheets and filter the whole process back through me.  It’s a challenge – but I’m just doing a small part, one category, not the whole contest.  I’m only dealing with 20 entries and 60 score sheets from contest judges.  It’s really too much to explain – unless you’re a writer who enters contests and even then you don’t get the bigger picture until you’ve entered many contests, or been a judge, or coordinated, or…  I’ve done it for seven years now…

I’m explaining things, many times, to different people.  I’m shuffling all kinds of data and text from file to post, changing formats, filling electronic forms.

For me, it’s fun!  I’m also reading pages upon pages of stories, only the beginnings, sometimes with an attached synopsis.

This is where the bonus is for me.  The payback for the weeks of volunteer work.

I love reading stories others are trying to create and hearing new voices in my head through words on a page – is awesome!  I’m deep enough into what was my hobby – where it is now a passion.  Decades of delight in story, combined with thousands of hours researching my craft, and millions of words typed on a page, have made me a psychic judge for wanna-be novelists.  Some will thrive with my advice and others will crumble into a ditch.

I can see/feel/read where these authors are on their journey.  I can advise where the author could enhance the story by a dedication to certain areas of the craft of storytelling, or the mechanics of writing.  Then I can close the file and move on to the next story.

Every story matters, what it becomes depends on the dedication of the author.

home improv

Improv – of, relating to, or being improvisation and especially an improvised comedy routine

Home improvements these past 13 years have been retold for laughs many times.   This past weekend we watched the video of when we bought this home.  Oh my, the memories!  The naivete!  Some planned improvements never happened, others are finally in the works.

Today the exterior of our home is being painted by the two who will be our newlyweds next year.  I just heard, “When we have a house to paint we are definitely doing it like this.”

This young couple will choose quality supplies, professional equipment, and take their time with a plan.  They’ll probably never paint themselves into a corner and need to shimmy down a tree, hear the clatter as tools slide off the roof, break a deck step with a branch cut from the tree, dump a pile of dirt through the cab of a rented Bobcat, make store runs mid-project for supplies or tools.  Then there was the time a crew arrived to pave our gravel drive.  All they needed was water near, and the well pump stopped working that moment.

I’m glad to turn our home improv projects over to the younger generation.  They are into rock climbing, snowboarding and have two dogs so will build the stories of their life from adventures.

I’m happy to begin new stories that don’t involve bent nails, extensive bandages, and paint splatters in my hair.

Welcome to the Jungle

My life is currently a jumble of many things.  If I was writing the events of the past few weeks as fiction, I would continue writing until I finally got to a point where I could take a breather and figure it all out, then choose what really matters in relation to the characters and their story.  Instead, it is my life and I’m holding on for the ride, having fun, making notes and trusting that I will figure it out someday before I die, and write about it.   For a writer, even the bad stuff life tosses our way is “research”.

Hilary Smith gets this.  In her book Welcome to the Jungle; everything you ever wanted to know about Bipolar but were too freaked out to ask, Ms. Smith takes the jumble out of living in the jungle of Bipolar and entertains the reader with refreshing wisdom that should blow the stigma of mental illness to smithereens.  This book goes beyond Bipolar and enters the realm of personal health & happiness management.

This book is funny and insightful while the author explains the steps of self discovery she experienced on her personal journey from horror to happiness. Ms. Smith is also very clear and direct that she could have an attack with no warning and then immediately contact her doctor or therapist.

Ms. Smith is aware her own brain could deceive her.  This is true for all of us depending on our diet, sleep patterns, stress, heredity, ingrained attitudes, etc.  – but how many of us are aware of our own self-deception?  This is the beauty of Welcome to the Jungle.   Hilary had to accept that her own brain could be deceiving her and the best she can do is personal self management of her health and trust her friends and family to be attentive to her happiness.  She also knows she must return the same level of respect and affection from her heart.   This one message (among many) makes this a book stand out beyond self-help and improvement advice.

What I learned – Bipolar is in the genes.  Some genes stay dormant, others spark to life with no warning generations apart.  This is important.  I read this book because of my interest in Hilary Smith as a writer yet there are many people in my life whose hereditary traits are secret to me so the potential for genetic issues is personally relevant.

I recommend this book for everyone but especially high school and college teachers and students.  I also posted a review on Amazon.com. 

automatic updates

I am very thankful for this laptop.  It’s a workhorse even if it only has one USB port (it’s that old!).

I am very thankful this laptop was sitting in Ed’s office and he knows how to do techno geek magic.

I am very thankful the operating system is the one with the least issues in the history of MS Win products.

I am very thankful for high speed internet even if I am connected by cable for the first time in many years.  I won’t carry this laptop anywhere – it weighs a ton.

I am very thankful for automatic updates that require nothing from me but occasionally hitting OK or RESTART during the hours this laptop struggles through upgrades to operate with the latest Yahoo!

My sister called to let me know we finally have a New Moon!

Yes, we have one every month but this one follows a significant astrological event.  This means we’ve all been hit with stellar automatic updates (that have taken a long time to download) and now we have a cosmic restart with the New Moon.  (yahoo?)  It may take a few months for the cosmic dust to settle.

I’ve had lots of time chatting with writers and being involved in writer/book/story events so am feeling happy I’m initiating lots of storytelling energy.  I’m also feeling content that the drama is going to flow out of my life and onto the page where it belongs.

I am currently reading:  Welcome to the Jungle by Hilary Smith [Everything you ever wanted to know about BIPOLAR but were too freaked out to ask] I’m sure I’ll have lots more to say about this book soon, when I’ve read it all, and am confident it is a book I will recommend on many levels!

a memorial fly-in

One aspect of my life, that people find most curious, is the world of airparks and my affiliation to experimental and vintage airplanes.  I think, when I mention we have property and a hangar on an airpark, most people visualize a commercial airport with international hubs and extensive security lines.  (I would include a picture but I’m technologically challenged at this moment.)  In reality this property is an empty field (on the edge of the high plains desert) with a big metal building and not much else.  On a busy day there may be five small airplanes that take-off and land within a few hours and it is less noisy than a construction zone.

About 5 decades ago, a few people in Oregon City were so into the airplanes of the time they bought a big plot of land and mowed a long grass field to land their planes.  They built small houses to live in and wide, short barns, with no internal beams, to park these airplanes.   In the decades since, in Oregon City, homes and neighborhoods have been built up around this airpark.   High tension power-lines were installed near the flight path at one end, and what were short trees have become tall ones at the other end.  The original airpark owners have died, gotten old and ill, or sold their homes and hangars to non-aviators.  The terminology of liability has also taken shape over this little oasis for barn-storming.  There is now only one active airplane at this airpark.

One of those originating people of this small airpark – Dave – died, in December.  Dave’s wish was for no funeral or memorial service.  All he wanted as a tribute to his life was for airplanes to fly-in when the weather was good.  That was yesterday.

This memorial also included lots of family and friends.  There were pictures and stories of Dave’s eight-plus decades on this earth.  He had many children.  He did many things.  He was a veteran, a fisherman, a hunter, a husband, a dad, uncle, cousin, grandfather…  The list goes on and there were about a hundred people at his memorial.   I only knew him for about four years, and maybe a dozen visits.   Ed is the pilot, Ed is the one who talked his language.  I was the one who made the brownies Dave adored. 

For Dave’s memorial, 15 airplanes arrived and were parked on this airstrip Dave created.  The airplanes were varied, from the old and slow to the new and innovative.  There was a barbecue/pot-luck and the food selection was extensive.  Laughter flowed.  I chatted with friends I hadn’t seen in years and had to verify their names then remember who they are (were) and the spouses they’ve lost, the changes they’ve endured.

I met new friends and reconnected with others I may see again.

Today I bought and planted a selection of annual flowers around my home.  Many are small plants of the chrysanthemum variety that will become awesome in the months ahead.   Vibrant splashes of color for the autumn season.

Shifting routines

Our daughter caught Rainier’s spirit with this post on FaceBook. 

A day in dog heaven: Wake up to chasing geese off the yard
exercise to playing fetch with a softball
a car ride with the head out a window
a nap under a tree.
Wake up to do some swimming (even if it is in circles)
…get a brush down afterward just for fun (no fleas or shedding in heaven).
Dinner is an unsupervised kitchen counter full of food (no raw meat tho)
Then off to sleep on a bed next to a loved one

It is weird entering a quiet house and leaving fresh baked brownies to cool on the counter without blocking them with the toaster and coffeemaker.  On Monday, Rainier got the left over cookie remains during the 30 seconds he was left alone in the house.  Only now do we see evidence of his progressing illness was probably overlooked for months.

Our grandsons brought flowers to put on the grave and we shared peanut butter cookies in Rainier’s honor.  The boys also tossed doggy treats into the trees in the back yard and plan to dream about Rainier sleeping in their bed.

I’m setting up this laptop, which may be temporary or could work great for months.  It’s another physical shift in my daily routine, no dog in the house, new keyboard and screen, new place to sit.  Today also begins my work on the Golden Rose Contest and I went to a meeting to plan a marketing workshop I’ll be co-presenting next Saturday.

There’s strong star energy right now and I know it aspects my natal chart.  I’m sure there will be interesting days ahead.  The glaze I always make to frost my brownies didn’t seem to cook right, but it looks and tastes fine.  These brownies are for a memorial, for a pilot friend.  This pilot was an old man when he died last December but he wanted his life to be celebrated when the weather was good and his friends could arrive by air.  As will happen tomorrow.

This past week also heralds the final stages of my daughter’s custody issues and both of her boys are again where they belong, together, with mom.   This custody story has been a bad-movie-plot for months but it’s a horror story I may write because it has a happy ending.

Yesterday was a good day because we spent it with family at the Oregon Garden but both Ed and I felt sad to know we didn’t have to be home to feed Rainier his dinner.  Shifts in routine, and the planets, and in the life of a child, take time.

There may be no geese in the yard when I get up in the morning but if there is the opportunity to take a nap under a tree, I intend to savor the experience.

Tribute to Rainier

Rainier- 8/27/1998 – 8/4/2010

Thanks for the memories of 12 years of family fun.

catching up

Lots of cool stuff from my author friends!

Elizabeth Boyle is now a MANGA author!  Her historical romances are appearing as Japanese comic books. 

Jessa Slade got an upgraded hotel room at the RWA national conference in Disneyland and she played in the sand for her birthday.

Polly is promoting yawning, Kaylin has a new joke on her blog, and wow, Mike Perry mentioned my blog in his.  Obviously his blog was one of my priorities. 

Along the same theme, at the synchronicity blog there is a new intent to search for positive stories in the global news.   I’m all for that since my blog is about my journey to create happy endings in fun romance novels.

a vacation?

I’ve got a touch of sunburn, had great water fun, and did lots of kayaking.  I think I was on vacation but the events that rolled over me this week were not entirely restful.  Fun times at the lake were interspersed with solving family dramas, meeting new friends, and planning future excursions.  It was a wild break in routine and has my energy fired up about new writing projects.

My NEO is loaded with tons of files to sort through!  This is still my favorite writing tool and has been for years but I think I’m only on my 3rd or 4th set of batteries.  Three AA batteries give me 750 hours and the 8 files hold tons of text.  Aside from my NEO, I’m now technically challenged because my primary laptop died and I’m juggling between an old laptop with no internet and the home computer that won’t download my email.

Within hours of being home, I’ve scheduled a family gathering, a cranial sacral session, a strategy meeting for a marketing workshop, and a day trip with visiting family – all this week.  We’re attending a memorial on Saturday and I’m receiving entries for the Golden Rose Contest.  Fortunately I’m only coordinating one category – not the whole contest. 

Sans internet for the week, I arrived home to about 130 emails and 140 posts to blogs I follow but I’m really good at prioritizing so have already weeded that down to manageable levels.   I read four books this week but the best one I can’t recommend because it’s not published yet – I was a beta reader.  But it is by Minnette Meador who I highly recommend- especially her StarSight books.

If a vacation is to recharge our inner batteries, I think this week really did that for me.  As a writer, I must refill the creative well with good books, and restful days, and taking the time to study my craft.  But there is nothing I love more than getting that bolt of passion for a story.  It means, it is time, this is the story…

Brainstorming days ahead!