So today is my birthday. I’m 45.

Forty.Five.

The “5″ years always give me more pause than the “0″ ones, for some reason. Maybe because the mark the middle of the decade and thus put me in the “Oh Crap! Heading towards [insert next decade marker here].” frame of mind.

Mid decade is always a period of reassessment for me. For good or bad.  This time around Ifind myself mulling over what hasn’t been achieved and realizing I’m still a lot further along than I was last year or the previous milemarker year. So…maybe it’s more of a “Goal Line in sight, time for the press to the end” thing. That is heartening for once.

In the past year alone, I finished a novella, started a self-publishing imprint, jumped into  mosaic art with both feet, and am contemplating the ever popular leap of faith that comes with realizing that your passions have become too demanding to compete with a day job that doesn’t satisfy anymore. (If it ever did.)

In the negative column, we’ve dealt with loss of family members, family pets, a burglary, and several minor setbacks. The truth be told though…most of that was out of our control.

I’ve been joking the past few weeks that now that I’m 45, I’m only 5 years away from actually enjoying the AARP benefits that I’ve been receiving mail about since I was 35. The reality is, I’m actually looking forward to the benefits. I’m looking forward to being retired. (Though as a writer/artist, I seriously doubt I’ll stop working until I’m 6 feet under. )

The one thing I do know is 45 is barely halfway through my potential lifespan. And I still have a good number of active years ahead of me. The question now is…do I use them to pursue my goals till I exhaust them, or do I continue to just chip away at things?

I think 45 is a good year to start grabbing the bull by the horns and seeing where that gets me. Attempts will probably outnumber successes, and I’m okay with that. I’d just like to at least have the opportunities to make the attempts. Sitting idly by and waiting for life to happen, whether through caution or fear, is no way to live. I envy people who had this kind of fire in their 20s. That’s a lot more years to make mistakes & course correct. Still, it’s never to late to reboot your life path. Nothing is written in stone for the future, no matter what the doomsayers would have you believe.  So why not try ALL THE THINGS? Well, ALL THE THINGS you’re interested in, that is.

Art & writing will always find it’s audience, if you give it enough room to find it. Weather the critics, ignore the jealous and nurture the supporters in your life. At the end, you’re on your own.  I think I’m ready to deal with that. In the scope of world history, I’ll only be a blip, but I can be a slightly shinier blip if I’m doing what makes me happy.

I guess 45 and I can be happy together. Age IS only a number, you know. The universe doesn’t really pay attention to our need to arbitrarily assign time frames.  Keeping perspective is important.

So…happy spawning day to me. Here’s to another 45 years. I only hope they’ll be as fascinating and entertaining and challenging as the previous 45.  (Without all the negative stuffs, mind you. Really tired of that crap.

I mentioned that our home was broken into and burglarized right before Christmas. We were lucky not much was taken, though there were a few things that are still making me broken hearted that they’re gone. My engagement ring for one. My grandmother’s garnet pendant for another. Money is easily fixed, technology replaceable. Sigh. The worst thing that’s come from the break in is the shredded mental state it leaves behind.

Three weeks on and I’m just now getting my sense of security reassembled. we had to replace our back door in it’s entirety. (Frame, storm door, main door. New locks, new alert system. Door brace). It’s very difficult to escape from the victim mentality. It leaves you shaky, tight-chested and constantly thinking the worst case scenarios. It’s hard to sleep when you don’t feel you’re secure. It’s hard to leave the house, when every time you come back, you’re sick to your stomach at the possibilities.

I worry about leaving the cats at home. I lug my laptop to work with me everyday. And my passport. And anything else I’m worried about getting stolen. My back is not happy about this.

So now…now I’m starting to feel less insecure. I’m feeling a little more relieved everytime we come home and everything’s fine. I’m still jittery, and I’m still a little suspicious of anyone walking down our alley. But I imagine this will also dissipate with time.

The side effect of all this paranoia and fear is that it totally derailed all the momentum Brian and I had going before the holidays. We had a fire stoked to get our art and writing done. We had plans, we had deadlines….all went up in a puff of anxiety. So now we’re regrouping. Scraping up the scattered shards of our confidence and trying to reassemble them. Gonna take time.

The one thing this incident has NOT quelled, but in fact has strengthened, is our desire to move and leave behind this area for good.

It’s funny how talking about taking big steps in one’s life and the desire to make changes in one’s life are easy to come by. Especially when time appears to be available. It sometimes takes an extreme event to throw cold water on your head and wake you up to the fact that time is, in fact, not unlimited. And sometimes the comfort zone, even if it isn’t palatable, can sometimes make it difficult to change your situation. The devil you know, etc etc.

So. Life goes on. And either you let the horrible event shape you, or you grit your teeth and keep moving forward. Life moves forward regardless.

I promise the next blog will be filled with witty comments, helpful insight and more news on developments for me & the husbeast. Or at least some fun pics & a random snark.

So the New Year is here, and as per tradition, we’re supposed to make our Resolutions for the year. Meh.

I made the decision this year to eschew that tradition, and instead make plans. Plans have a bit more concrete around the ankles and tend to require a little more commitment. Okay so maybe I’m just being prickly about things, but resolutions seem to have failed me for many years and plans seem to work out, so there you go.

So my plans for 2012 are thus:

1. Finishing Book#1 & getting it published. : Deadline: End of February
2. Write Book#2 & outline Book#3 : Deadline: August
3. Get in shape. Like a healthy weight, better blood pressure, etc. And get my flexibility back.
   GOAL: 50 lbs by New Year’s 2013 ;
   ALSO: All doctor appointments made by end of February
4.  Mosaics: First series of tiles done by end of February.
   Second Series done by end of March
5. Moving. Bri and I agreed to move before end of summer this year. It’s in concrete now. Seattle here we come.
6.  Simplifying: Started last night. Purging anything that isn’t necessary. Paring back spending to necessities & business related expenses.  Bills paid off. Savings built up.
7. Here’s the vague one. I may be changing my employment situation in the near future. This decision will be made in March. Based on several variables that will be monitored over the next couple months.
8. Online presence:  New website, new FB and more consistent with my online posting. More focused, better content.
9. Time Management: More work on art & writing. Less time suckage by TV, interwebs and general woolgathering. Create better scheduling of my time. I work better with a calendar & deadlines. Nebulous plans don’t get results. Concrete plans do.
10. In general, going to adopt a better attitude towards all things. Being negative and cynical has resulted in precisely zero accomplishment. Yes, the world as a whole is kind of a mess right now. Being depressed and angry about it doesn’t change it. So, I’m going to support causes that are trying to DO something. I’m going to vote for candidates that are trying to DO something and I’m going to do my best to promote things that will offer solutions & make at least an effort to be positive. Kicking the Drama Llama to the curb, so to speak. No more whining, more action.

So there they are, my plans for the year.

I’m going to be turning 45 in a little over a week. That realization has sort of crystallized a few things in my mind. That my time to make significant changes in my life is getting shorter. That reshaping my body and getting healthy are going to take more time and more diligence than I initially thought.  That a lot of things I thought were necessary for my comfort and happiness are no longer that important.  I’m finding a weird zen peace in having less things and more space. More time for art and less full schedules. I like being busy, I enjoy hard work. I’d just rather be exerting effort on things I find worthwhile. I’ve worked in jobs for years now where I spend 8 hours a day being insanely busy…producing NOTHING. Literally I have nothing to show for the effort or stress or time invested. I may never make the money I do now doing what I want to do, but at least I’ll have concrete results to show for my efforts.

On last thing I’m going to quit this year is punishing myself for mistakes or not meeting a goal. As we all know, the best laid plans can get derailed by life events out of your control. The important thing to do is not dwell on the failure, but course correct and get back on track as quick as you can. Bumps in the road should be expected, even if we can’t anticipate them. Also, stop waiting to do things until X event happens. I lose so much time putting things on hold until after some future event. Time is a very finite quantity. Every minute you waste waiting for other things to happen, you lose. Forever. You don’t get that time back later. So, work on things even if you don’t have time to finish them right now. Chisel away at projects in increments. Cherish the times you have big blocks of time to work, but don’t waste the smaller increments inbetween.

Ultimately, this year will be better, because I won’t allow it to be anything else. It’s gonna require some serious focus, effort and meticulous decisions to be made, but I’m willing to put in the time. Here’s to a 2012 that will be exciting, productive and ultimately, satisfying.

Lots has been happening. First off, I’m officially a small business owner! I filed a DBA for Corvusangelicus Press, which will be used to self publish some of my stories. I’ll still be pursuing trad publishing for some of my books, but this way I can get some other pieces out there that might be too hard to trad publish.

Also, I started creating glass tile mosaics. These were gifts for my family.

I’ll be splitting my time between writing and creating art. I’m going to sell some of these pieces at einini.com (Einini Glassworks) where my husband sells his stained glass art & Tiffany reproduction lamps. Ultimately, these two businesses will become my full time work. Not just yet though.

On a less pleasant note, our home got burglarized a couple days before Christmas. Someone booted in our back door and ransacked our house looking for cash and jewelry. They must have been on foot because they left behind all our tech gear and a number of items most thieves would have grabbed. We’ve been very on edge until we were able to replace the back door with something more secure, including an alarm system.

Partly I blame the weather we’ve been having. It’s been far too warm around here for this season. It’s not gotten out of the upper 30s – low 40s since Thanksgiving and we’ve seen precious little snow, which didn’t stick around at all. Sigh. Sad to be wishing for horrible weather to feel safer.

On a positive note, I made some feral cat shelters for the small feral cat colony that hangs out in our neighborhood. I put out a little food for them daily and some water. They mostly seem skittish, although a couple seem like they might be adoptable.  We may take those two into the humane society once the weather starts getting colder. They seem very healthy, so far.

Personally, this has been a roller coaster year. Brian and I have lost some relatives. We’ve both made some major strides to establish our business, but we’re still stuck here in Indiana. Our health was getting better until we both hit a major skid in October. Up and down, two steps forward, one step back. Kinda tired of the dance.

I’m gonna be an aunt come the end of February and that has just added another kick in the ass of Bri & I wanting to start a family.

But, as the turn of the year arrives on the horizon, I’m striving to begin the new year with a more even handed mindset. Take things as they come. Making more leaps of faith. Not letting anyone else dictate my limits or deciding for me what is possible or what is the best path. I need to make my own mistakes, and my own decisions. Brian and I have so much we want to do, and most of it requires us to not be in our current location to work. So…major changes & decisions in the new year. All for the better, one way or another.

Hopefully I’ll be able to blog more, and have more to blog about, come the new year. Time for the Renaissance Chick to put her big girl panties on and get to work.

There have been DEVELOPMENTS, of the good kind. My lovely friend Heather Poinsett-Dunbar  and I have finally gotten our proverbial stuffs together and are putting together an anthology of Library themed stories. Mine is serious erotica, which I dared myself to write a while back. (There will be more authors involved, but I’m keeping my lips zipped until things are more firmed up & I get a green light from all involved)  I’m finishing it as we speak, as it had been back-burnered while I went through my gazillionth revisions on “When the Lights go Down.”  (Those are almost done as well. Expect a ::cross fingers:: publishable novel by end of October.) More details on a publishing date for the anthology once the project gets a little more jelled

And yes. I’m going to self-publish. I seem to be turning into a cottage industry. Not only will I be publishing (And therefore marketing) my books, I’m also delving into mosaic glass tile artwork that I will be selling under my husband’s Einini Glassworks site.  We’re making a go at a proper company, where he will produce stained glass Tiffany reproduction lamps, sun-catchers & other items and I will be working on trivets, frames and eventually, tabletops & outdoor installations. It’s a whole big thing getting off the ground as we can.We’re hoping to make it a full time endeavor somewhere in the near future, once we move to Seattle. (Stop rolling your eyes. We’re moving in the Spring. Come hell, high water or zombie apocalypse).

Speaking of the whole DIY industry, if you haven’t visited Kickstarter or Bandcamp or even Etsy, you should. Because honestly, they are turning into the best sources of music, indie movies & other amazing unique projects that you will not find in the usual mainstream sources. With the economy tanking and thus effecting some rather egregious cuts in support from traditional sources, people in the arts are starting to make a go of it themselves. Crowd-sourcing is making it possible.

Social media, while it can be a royal pain in the ass if used incorrectly, can also be a great marketing tool. Twitter won’t make you rich, but if used right, it can build you a consumer base or community for support. We’re back to the idea of patronage. Yes, it does make it easier for everyone and therefore floods the market with a rather intimidating amount of product of varying quality, but the good stuff floats to the top. Word of mouth still works wonders. You can make an impression there without making yourself a nuisance.

Check out some of the artists featured at Bandcamp or Etsy and read the articles about self-promotion (There are some great success stories here: Quit Your Day Job.)
Learn by others’ mistakes. Check out artists’ similar to yourself & see what their path to success was.
Don’t look for a blueprint or a list of steps, because a lot of your success will be in how YOU handle your art or promote yourself. The cookie cutter business plan is no more. But what you CAN learn is how to more effectively use resources, and how to  network with other like-minded artists, and how NOT to alienate potential customers.

Don’t get me wrong. Putting yourself and your art out there, for all to see? You still need to have a thick skin and a philosophical attitude. You’re still gonna have to work for it. But you can be a success if you are willing to weather the storm and seek out YOUR audience. They’re out there. Go find them.

On one last note, I’m going to be attempting to apply WordPress to my proper website. It’s been an elephant’s age since I did proper web design of any sort, so I’m not holding my breath it will be done anytime soon. BUT! If I succeed, I’ll be consolidating my blogging there. Watch this space for more updates. Hopefully more frequently than once every season. (BTW– WELCOME TO FALL!)

So I fell off the blogging wagon hard this time. Ah well. Life happens and sometimes there’s not much to talk about.

Still finishing up my revisions on Book#1 which are turning almost into a full re-write. Twas necessary, unfortunately. It’s helping to streamline the story. Took a page from Peter Jackson’s book in which he said, referring to how he decided what to keep & what to cut from the screenplays for the Lord of the Rings, “If it didn’t focus on Frodo getting the Ring to Mordor or advance the story, it was left out.” This is what I ended up doing. If it wasn’t advancing the plot, causing a pause or just ego stroking filler, it was getting gutted. So, I’m taking a week’s vacation at the end of August to finish up the revisions. Then the MS goes off to zee editor then onto getting published.

Book #2 is finally moving once I realized who the players actually were and figured out a couple of plot points that were missing from my initial outline. Funny how that works.

On the IRL front, The Husbeast has re-started his stained glass business. The mail has been arriving with new lampshade forms and brass rings and came bending tools and a wealth of patterns. So yes. He’s serious about it. I think this weekend he’s actually gonna finish off a number of projects that have been sitting for a bit. So keep your eyes on his website (Einini Glassworks) and his Etsy Shop .

I’ve taken up, albeit tentatively, glass tile mosaics. It’s still in it’s infancy, but I probably won’t make much noise about it until I gain some semblance of proficiency. Then I’ll probably splinter off of the Husbeast’s shop and sell some stuff. I find that I need to have some sort of physical hobby as well as my mental outlet for writing.

Speaking of the physical. I’ve shed about 25 pounds since my last blog post. Still only 30% of the way to my goal, but I at least think I can make it now. Feeling better now that my clothes is starting to fit correctly again and I’ve lost the double chin. Not bad for 44. Trust me, it doesn’t get easier as you get older.

I know I don’t usually weigh in on world events, especially politics here in the States, but dammit…things are just completely bollocksed to be honest. I’ve reached the level of disgust with our elected officials that I’ve gone numb. I get apoplectic just thinking about the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. ::shakes head:: Add in the rioting in the UK and the famine in Somalia and the talking point spewing media on all these topics and I just want to become a hermit in the Cascades, staying away from the interwebs & TV until this shit settles down. I’ve contributed my opinion, my vote and my hard earned money to support the causes I feel need it. Hopefully the world will get it’s collective head out of it’s collective ass and realize that their priorities are WAAAAAAY out of whack. I’m not holding my breath.

Ultimately, in order to get my life steered back in the proper direction, there are a number of factors that need ironing out.  I also need to stop trying to find the safe path. There really is no safe path to go a non-traditional route. Sometimes you have to forge the path yourself, rather than take the well trodden trail that others have already laid out. Especially if the path is going to sidestep easy fixes & wait on others to get their shit together.  Yes, ladies & gentlemen, if you’re going to eschew the standard way of doing things, you’re gonna have to put extra time & effort in to make things happen.  Sitting and moping because things aren’t falling into place does not make things get done. Neither does procrastinating or constantly falling back on the tired excuses of “Not enough time” or “When we have more money” or “after event x or y or z”. It’s never the perfect time for ANYTHING. It’s never the right time or the right place or with the right people. You’re gonna have to leverage that stuff yourself.

So. Now that I’ve randomly spewed for 700+ words, I shall end on an equally random note and promise to start blogging more often. I think I’m well over due for a “Irons in the Fire” post. So that will be forthcoming soon.

Keep your dreams in front of you. If you let them slip behind or to the side, you may lose sight of them forever.

Well, no excuses. It’s been a couple months since I posted. More for lack of ideas than lack of effort, to be honest.

I hit a wall. Hard. Mitigated with a case of bronchitis that laid me low for a while.

It’s a panic ridden frame of mind. When you’ve been writing for almost 3 years straight and the ideas are flowing, and then….a sudden dry spell hits? Yeah. It’s more than a little bump in the road.  You start to wonder whether you have any good ideas. Or whether what you’ve written so far is even worth keeping. Self doubt creeps in, making the panic and blockage even worse.

The problem isn’t LACK of ideas, you have plenty of them. You just start over analyzing the ideas and judging them more harshly than you really should.

My second stumbling block is completely self-inflicted. I’m watching a lot of my writer friends get published, or finish projects, or bank massive word count. So my lack of progress feels even more intimidating by comparison. I start to live vicariously through their successes. While I am genuinely happy for them, there is envy. Not jealousy mind you, just envy. The entire mind frame this produces is stultifying.  You can’t move forward when you place yourself in someone else’s shadow. My friends, for their part, have been nothing but supportive and motivating. Again, this is MY self-inflicted mindset.

So after all this psychobabble, and giant bag of excuses, what do I do?

Well, I started reading outside my genre. This was intimidating, but then, starting with Michael Chabon would intimidate anyone. (I found myself marveling at his word choices and inimitable descriptions. Not a bad model to follow.) I also tried writing some short stories that fell outside of my working universe. Came up with some good and some particularly awful things.

My fiction, mostly book#2 has languished. But in taking the time away from it, something fresh started forming in my brain. I’m happy to say that I’ve re-started work on my novel.

Book#1 is getting a final shine & polish. Then I’m going to self-publish it.

I think part of my stagnation was also sourced in my hemming and hawing over what path to take to get my book published. I finally realized I was more interested in getting the book out there on my timetable and with my control, than worried about sales and marketing. Odd thing is, while I was spinning my wheels, the publishing paradigm altered. I don’t think traditional publishing is dead, but I think it’s adapting to the marketplace. The perks and upsides to taking the traditional path are waning a little, making the downsides to self-publishing a little less off-putting. It’s still very much a red-headed stepchild of the publishing industry, but I also think it is what you make of it.

Of note, but not entirely on topic, I was recently reminded that I started writing very early.  I have stories, albeit brief, that I wrote as far back as third grade. But what I’d forgotten was that in High School I was a consistent straight A student in English, mostly because of my writing. When we were given an assignment to write a story around 15 vocabulary words, we were sternly warned that the story had to be at least 2 pages long. Most of my class struggled with the assignment. When it came time to read our stories aloud in class, I felt more and more uncomfortable as my classmates offered up their stretched-to-two pages pieces of prose, most of them just sentences strung together in a way that barely had context. The reason I was uncomfortable? I’d written 15 pages. I had characters, plot and a resolution.  When it came to my turn, I got several hairy eyeballs and snickers as I pulled out the sheaf of papers.

The point of this story isn’t that woo! I wrote more than everyone else. It’s that when I finished reading what I’d written, the class was silent. And then they clapped. My teacher asked me later if I would consider writing a book with her.  Now this is all well and good, but I wasn’t ready then. I had stories leaking out of my head. I eventually dropped into Fanfic hell for a long stretch, but I think that was more a result of not having a lot of life experience to use. Still, that moment in my Freshman English class still gives me a smile. And I look back on it as the first time I had positive feedback on something I’d written.

Today, the paper I wrote looks raw and unpolished. The flaws are glaring. But I cherish it as the first step on a path that I seem to have stumbled on today.

The nice thing about stumbling though? You can always pick yourself up, and try again.

Hopefully, that’s where I am today. Dusting myself off, clearing out the cobwebs of negative thinking and getting back to what matters to me: Telling stories.

So.

Today I turned 44.  ::looks at the number. Remains unimpressed::

It’s not a milepost birthday…not even a mid-decade marker.
It’s a perfectly non-descript age. And oddly enough, that makes it all the more motivational for me.

I have a bad tendency to place unreasonable expectations on certain age milestones. So far, I have failed miserably to reach the goals I set for each. It is on these odd, non-descript age markers that I tend to accomplish the most. I graduated college at 23. Got married at 38.  And so on.

So 44 and I had an unspoken “conversation” that went something like this:

Me: Well…I got nothing. What should I expect this year?

44: [raises eyebrow] See. You’re doing it again. That “expectation” thing. I am not letting you set any this year.

Me: [Flailing] What? No Expectations? How will I manage to get anything accomplished?

44: [Shakes head] Because that’s worked out so well for you in the past. How about cleaning the slate this year? I mean REALLY cleaning the slate. No carryover plans from last year, no lingering worries & doubts?

Me: [thinks, twitches, thinks some more] Well that might work. How about creating some NEW goals? New shiny, sparkly, ACHIEVABLE goals?

44: [whaps me on the head] How about clearing out all the excess crap and see what you’re left with? Ever consider that the things that really matter to you aren’t the same as last year? Or 5 years ago? You have a trainwreck of abandoned ideas, goals, projects and “shiny new things” behind you. Very few you saw through to finish.

Me: O_O Geez, 44! You’re mean!

44:  No. I’m practical. And honest. And…

Me: Right. You’re right. This year, instead of flogging the entire herd of dead horses who are not getting any fresher, maybe I should just clear the field and see what wanders in?

44: ::Nods and fades away. ::

So, in that really clunky metaphorical conversation, you can see what my brain has been dealing with whenever I try to set some goals.

Truth be told, my writing has ground to a halt. I have moments where scenes present themselves & I dutifully write them down. But nothing is coalescing. I’ve rewritten the opening chapters for Book #2 five times now. Nothing has clicked. I’m re-editing book #1 to streamline it a bit more as I realize, upon looking it over after a couple months of locking it away, that there WAS a lot to be cleaned out.

Here’s the truth. And it’s not really what I wanted to hear, but it’s the truth. I envy my husband. Because the art he works in is concrete. It has clear steps, from beginning to end. The creativity comes in the picking of glass, colors & layout. After that, it’s assembly & patience.

Writing has no clear steps, and it shouldn’t. It’s a nebulous, always morphing art form. The story can change and usually does at least a few times. The outcome you planned may not be the one you end up with.

And here’s my conundrum. I have several stories planned out. I have a general sense of the stories I want to tell, but the actual  fleshing out has suddenly become problematic. The main problem is I’m a math brained person trying to create art. I keep trying to logic myself out of plot issues when I should be relaxing, visualizing the story and letting it work some of the kinks out. I know there are writers who can do this, I just seem unable right now. I have tried all the usual methods of re-starting a stalled story. Truth is I’m not feeling very inspired right now.  I haven’t been able to concoct something that makes me go “YES! I want to work on that now.”

So, in the interim, I’ve decided to take a brief break and focus on another field I enjoy, photography. I don’t talk about it much, but I’ve been taking photos for as long as I could hold a camera. Not just posed fun shots, but arty nature shots and doing some different types of portraiture. I have a camera but it’s not the quality I need to actually take the kind of photos I want.  So. I’m going to invest in a decent mid-level camera and start taking my photography a little more seriously. Brian wants me to do promo shots of his glass work for his portfolio, so there’s a place to start.

I’m also thinking of starting some freelance non-fiction writing & doing a podcast. Not sure of the topics yet, but I have a few tendrils of ideas that I’m trying to work out.

So. There you have it. 44 and I have made a pact. No worrying about things that aren’t working right now. Go find another outlet until the block is broken. And if it isn’t, that’s okay too.

I have some big ideas, but it’s time I just started pursuing them, rather than make elaborate Gordian Knot shaped plans that ultimately sink under their own weight. Don’t get me wrong, I have no intention to stop writing. I don’t think I can. Maybe it’s just time for me to consider a different kind of writing, or a different way to share my writing with others.

How will it turn out? I don’t know. And that’s kind of okay too.

So, it’s been an elephant’s age since I posted and a lot of mental shakeup has happened.

When last we saw Ms. Heidi, she was lamenting the writer’s block on book #2 and trying to figure out a way to escape Indiana without having to go bankrupt or chewing off an arm .

The first of the year found me and the husbeast in a fiery mood. Contemplative & reflective be damned, we were more of the mind to burn bridges than philosophize on future endeavors.  It’s an interesting mindset to start the year off. We aren’t angry or resentful, merely frustrated at our lack of forward motion and the turning of another calendar year with little to show for the time passed.

So we did the best thing possible: Instead of flailing and blaming the sundry usual scapegoats for our lack of success, we decided that the fastest way to force us to focus on our goals was to remove any and all distractions. So we purged our closets and dressers for clothes, compiling 3 large bags of donations. That felt so cleansing, that we are doing our books & media next.

For myself, I’ve taken the tact that the reason things have gone so pear shaped in past few years is twofold: 1) Making things so complicated that it became impossible to manage, and 2) trying to re-establish a life path that hasn’t been working for me.

So firstly, simplify. Really, there are only 3 things I want to focus on this year. 1: My health. My weight is ridiculously out of control & being 44 in a couple weeks, I can’t justify letting my health get this out of whack.
2: My writing. I need to stop worrying about the extraneous things (getting published, negative feedback, finding an audience, faling behind my friends in their publishing careers) and focus on the stories. Just write the stories. Finish them. Polish them. When you love them, get them out there. Traditional routes may not be for you. And that’s OKAY.
3: My Life Path: You know that definition of insanity? The one where you keep doing the same thing over and over & expecting a different outcome? That’s what I’ve been doing every year for the past 5 years.  I kept telling myself “get back on the path” without taking the time to see that the “path” has been going nowhere. Time to forge a NEW path. With NEW goals, NEW outlooks &  NEW energy.

Ultimately, what has happened is my brain has finally kicked the old ways of doing things out of the mental shack & has brought in some new untried ways of doing things. Most of the people I look up to, who’ve made a decent success of their lives, have bucked the traditional route on a lot of things. I know I’ll get lots of people telling me, but what about this or that benchmark of success? Isn’t that what you’ve been striving for? Recognition? Money? Legitimacy?
The truth is yes, that is what I’d originally made the goal of my pursuits. Lately, though, those things seem less important to me. Would they be nice to have? Sure. But I’m done wasting my time & energy trying to pursue them in absence of a way that makes sense to me. They’ll come. Eventually and maybe not in the ways that most people expect.

Brian’s kind of in the same boat. He’s realizing that the marketing & sale of his niche of product doesn’t fall into the neat business plans of other products.

We’re both kind of in this whole new perspective towards our art. There is a surge in the DIY type of business plan.
It’s not easy.
It’s not going to replace the Traditional way of doing things.
But the truth is there is becoming a need for an alternative way of life & doing business. It lies completely within the commitment & passion of the artists to make it work with any kind of success. There’s no books or plans or websites of how to do this. You can’t get a paint by numbers on how to make it work. You just have to do it and keep adjusting your methods until it starts working for you.

I have the greatest respect for people who make a success of their particular art or business the traditional route. I’m just saying it doesn’t work for me or the husbeast for that matter. We are both rapidly approaching a point where we are going to say, to hell with our current methods of income & throw ourselves into our individual art full time. Will this be a challenge? Oh HELL yes it will.

I’m working on an essay, a writeup I’m calling “No Option B: Living without a Safety Net”. It’s a philosophy I’m beginning to embrace wholeheartedly. If you have no backup, you will be extremely focused on making your chosen path work, right?

Mind you, I’m not saying this plan will work for everyone, nor am I saying it’s a better way of doing things. But it appeals to me because every  time I’ve taken a leap of faith, something good has come of it. I may not have landed on my feet squarely, but at least I’ve moved forward. It’s when I start second guessing my intentions or work that things get hairy.

Some of the best success stories in this world started in bad economic times.  But the people who made leaps in this kind of environment were those who stepped away from the well-worn path, and blazed a trail that to everyone else seemed foolish or just plain crazy. The reason why some fail isn’t the path they’ve taken, it’s their inability to commit to the path once they’ve gotten on it.

So there it is. My New Year’s Resolution, for lack of a better phrase.

I have other friends making similar pacts with themselves. We’re starting to create a network of artists, writers & craftspeople. Sometimes a community of like minded people can motivate you more than the pursuit of material gain. And maybe that’s a hippie-ish artsy kind of way of looking at things, but I really don’t have a problem with those kinds of labels.

Blogging will be more regular this year. I’ll also be cross-posting these to Twitter, Facebook & LJ.

Off to do Day Job work now. But my brain is already formulating ways to replace the mundane with the creative.

So  I’ve been trying to work out the outline for my NaNoWriMo offering for this year and it’s slowly coming together.  Somewhere in the last few weeks, my writing style slipped back to more Urban Fantasy and less Paranormal Romance.  I tend to walk that tightrope of  Visceral Gore/Tragic outcomes  vs. Sexy Sexiness/Happy endings (no pun intended) very carefully. But lately, I think the push to make my writing one or the other has been to the detriment of the work.
I need to get back to just serving the story and not worrying so much about how it will be categorized/marketed when it’s done.

On the totally frivolous TV-watching front, I’ve been totally sucked into Sherlock (a BBC production, being shown on PBS here in the states). I just love what Moffat and Co have done with the series. Setting Sherlock Holmes in the 21st century without altering much of the personalities & story lines? Brill.  I love that Sherlock calls himself  “A highly functioning sociopath”. It fits.  I wish I could write dialogue this clever. It appeals to me on so many levels. So yeah.  Consider me a flaily fangirl.

This season, I’ve kinda quickly dropped new shows, as I often do. I’m still enamored of Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, Sanctuary & Castle. I’ve added The Event & Stargate: Universe to my weekly watch list. That’s pretty much it, with added helpings of Luther & Sherlock on the weekends. (Doctor Who & Being Human are between seasons)  Heavy on the genre shows, I guess. But then, I do like anything that stands in well scripted opposition of Reality Television.
This weekend is my last free bit of time before the madness that is NaNoWriMo kicks in. I’ll be blogging in the duration and posting my word count.  Hopefully I can get the Second book in my trilogy done now. It’s been a while since the words have flowed. Book #1 is done, but I’m tweaking elements to put a little more flow & darker edges on it.  I’ve been inspired reading & listening to a lot of better wordsmiths than myself. Makes me want to strive for better prose that what I’ve been producing.

Off to meet my husbeast at the parking garage to drive home.

BTW– Got the new Abney Park CD and it’s  fantastic! Go to their website to order yourself a copy.