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capri0mni... And then, I shall have lived 4 decades.
... The hardest part about that is 40 is the year the Medical Establishment sets about to officially remind you of your mortality, and recommends all sorts of cancer and blood tests, and such.
But the second best part about all that, is that I have lived 4 decades longer than that same Medical Establishment thought I would when I first showed up, so :-P!
And the best best part, at least for the last few years, is that I "actually have something to show for it!"
It all started, basically, when I decided that my new year's resolution for 1999 was to finally write a Mother Goose Christmas/Yule/Solstice story that had been rattling in my brain for years.... and to make sure I actually did it, I decided to illustrate it, and have Kinkos print and bind it, and give it as a present for my neighbors... I snuck copies of the book into 8 mailboxes on Christmas Eve, that year. Only one neighbor actually gave me thanks out of the blue (everyone else who gave any thanks at all, said, basically: "Oh, yeah. You did that? thanks...."), but I didn't mind (much). It was such a heady feeling to be able to pick up the book from the shelf and say: "I did this. Something new exists in the world because of what I accomplished in 1999."
So I decided that I'd give myself a tangible project for every New Year's resolution.
In 2000, I resolved to collect and redact a collection of traditional fairy tales with the Wiccan/Neo-Pagan Sabbats as a unifying theme, and complete it in time for a fundraising auction for the local Pagan newspaper. That, I also accomplished. (the winning auction bid was $40, if I recall correctly).
In 2001, I resolved to research organize and host a series of storytelling workshops for Pagans, to be held from Samhain through Beltaine. I completed the research and organized my activities, but underestimated what it would take to get people to actually come. I sent an announcement via email lists of local pagan groups, and though I got over a dozen people promising to come, only four people came to the first session. Two people came to the second, and no one came after that. ... that was disappointing. If I ever try that again, I may charge money -- if only a couple of bucks each, to pay for the refreshments. Then, people might realize that it's a "real" thing. I consider that half a success. because I did the reasearch and the organizing, and didn't quit on the project, half-way through, like I so often have done in the past.
In 2002, I resolved 2 things. First, I resolved to submit something to each issue of that aforementioned Pagan newspaper. This, I did, and of the 8 things I submitted, I believe 4 were published... I'll have to go back and look Second, I resolved to create a memorial piece for my uncle, who died before I was born. That was one of the things I submitted to the paper that was not accepted, and its rejection stung more than any of the others. But I posted it to an online forum, to get it "out there," and someone saw it, and asked my permission to read it at a woman's meditative retreat -- I gave that permission. This year, that same someone asked again, and I said yes again. As painful as that initial rejection was, it's likely that more people have heard the piece now than would have read it if it had been published.
This year, I resolved to write fiction every day... I'd been doing a lot of writing, but the last fiction I'd written was back in 1999, and I realized I was losing part of myself because of it. Essays and poems are all very fine, and can be as powerful a work of art as any movie or play or story. But they give the writer the luxury of being able to stand outside her subject, and look at it from at least an arm's distance. Not so with fiction. With fiction, you have to get inside a character's head (or sometimes, if you're really skilled, inside many characters' heads), and experience the drama and trauma of the story firsthand. When that dragon comes roaring out of that cave, breathing flame, you have to be in the mental-meditative state where you can feel the heat, and the sweat on your palms. Even if your authorial self plans to have a happy ending, you have to forget that in the act of writing, itself, and even so, authorial plans oft go awry, and tragedy can surprise even the writer.
In a purely quantitative sense, I failed miserably at that resolution. Days and even weeks have gone by this year without my writing a single word, fiction or otherwise. And yet, in the qualitative sence, I consider this the most successful year yet, because my life turned a corner, and I seem to be on a new path.
Through the winter and early spring, I was writing a story for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alryssa, as the one thing I could do for her, to try and help her through her troubles. I wrote the story around a cluster of visual images that I thought would have meaning for her, and her specific situation. A few months later, the editor of a performing magazine I contribute to, sent me an email out of the blue, asking me to perform that exact same service for her -- for pay, and suggested that this could be the start of a regular thing for everyone. (I posted about this in more detail here).
With this encouragement, I put this service up in an online auction, to see if it would get any bidders. It got three bidders, with the two who didn't win the auction saying they'd be willing to pay the same as the highest bid, if I'd write a story for them, too. I've written 2 of those three stories (the third person hasn't gotten back to me on what she wants from the story... so I'm not certain she is still interested... but we'll see), and the editor who asked me to do this in the first place is eager to announce my service to the audience at the theater...
So, in many ways, this year is more successful than if I had just stuck with my original resolution... Originally, I was planning on just writing snippets and bits, and keeping them in the virtual shoebox under my bed. But as it stands now, I've written 5 stories -- and shared them. I've written with intent, crafting each story especially for an individual too heal, enlighten, entertain. And I've gotten paid for 4 of them.
Which is so much more than I'd first expected for this year. The world is a different place, in some small way, than it was at the beginning of the year because of something I accomplished. That feels good. That feels very good
So -- what shall I do next year?
... The hardest part about that is 40 is the year the Medical Establishment sets about to officially remind you of your mortality, and recommends all sorts of cancer and blood tests, and such.
But the second best part about all that, is that I have lived 4 decades longer than that same Medical Establishment thought I would when I first showed up, so :-P!
And the best best part, at least for the last few years, is that I "actually have something to show for it!"
It all started, basically, when I decided that my new year's resolution for 1999 was to finally write a Mother Goose Christmas/Yule/Solstice story that had been rattling in my brain for years.... and to make sure I actually did it, I decided to illustrate it, and have Kinkos print and bind it, and give it as a present for my neighbors... I snuck copies of the book into 8 mailboxes on Christmas Eve, that year. Only one neighbor actually gave me thanks out of the blue (everyone else who gave any thanks at all, said, basically: "Oh, yeah. You did that? thanks...."), but I didn't mind (much). It was such a heady feeling to be able to pick up the book from the shelf and say: "I did this. Something new exists in the world because of what I accomplished in 1999."
So I decided that I'd give myself a tangible project for every New Year's resolution.
In 2000, I resolved to collect and redact a collection of traditional fairy tales with the Wiccan/Neo-Pagan Sabbats as a unifying theme, and complete it in time for a fundraising auction for the local Pagan newspaper. That, I also accomplished. (the winning auction bid was $40, if I recall correctly).
In 2001, I resolved to research organize and host a series of storytelling workshops for Pagans, to be held from Samhain through Beltaine. I completed the research and organized my activities, but underestimated what it would take to get people to actually come. I sent an announcement via email lists of local pagan groups, and though I got over a dozen people promising to come, only four people came to the first session. Two people came to the second, and no one came after that. ... that was disappointing. If I ever try that again, I may charge money -- if only a couple of bucks each, to pay for the refreshments. Then, people might realize that it's a "real" thing. I consider that half a success. because I did the reasearch and the organizing, and didn't quit on the project, half-way through, like I so often have done in the past.
In 2002, I resolved 2 things. First, I resolved to submit something to each issue of that aforementioned Pagan newspaper. This, I did, and of the 8 things I submitted, I believe 4 were published... I'll have to go back and look Second, I resolved to create a memorial piece for my uncle, who died before I was born. That was one of the things I submitted to the paper that was not accepted, and its rejection stung more than any of the others. But I posted it to an online forum, to get it "out there," and someone saw it, and asked my permission to read it at a woman's meditative retreat -- I gave that permission. This year, that same someone asked again, and I said yes again. As painful as that initial rejection was, it's likely that more people have heard the piece now than would have read it if it had been published.
This year, I resolved to write fiction every day... I'd been doing a lot of writing, but the last fiction I'd written was back in 1999, and I realized I was losing part of myself because of it. Essays and poems are all very fine, and can be as powerful a work of art as any movie or play or story. But they give the writer the luxury of being able to stand outside her subject, and look at it from at least an arm's distance. Not so with fiction. With fiction, you have to get inside a character's head (or sometimes, if you're really skilled, inside many characters' heads), and experience the drama and trauma of the story firsthand. When that dragon comes roaring out of that cave, breathing flame, you have to be in the mental-meditative state where you can feel the heat, and the sweat on your palms. Even if your authorial self plans to have a happy ending, you have to forget that in the act of writing, itself, and even so, authorial plans oft go awry, and tragedy can surprise even the writer.
In a purely quantitative sense, I failed miserably at that resolution. Days and even weeks have gone by this year without my writing a single word, fiction or otherwise. And yet, in the qualitative sence, I consider this the most successful year yet, because my life turned a corner, and I seem to be on a new path.
Through the winter and early spring, I was writing a story for
alryssa, as the one thing I could do for her, to try and help her through her troubles. I wrote the story around a cluster of visual images that I thought would have meaning for her, and her specific situation. A few months later, the editor of a performing magazine I contribute to, sent me an email out of the blue, asking me to perform that exact same service for her -- for pay, and suggested that this could be the start of a regular thing for everyone. (I posted about this in more detail here). With this encouragement, I put this service up in an online auction, to see if it would get any bidders. It got three bidders, with the two who didn't win the auction saying they'd be willing to pay the same as the highest bid, if I'd write a story for them, too. I've written 2 of those three stories (the third person hasn't gotten back to me on what she wants from the story... so I'm not certain she is still interested... but we'll see), and the editor who asked me to do this in the first place is eager to announce my service to the audience at the theater...
So, in many ways, this year is more successful than if I had just stuck with my original resolution... Originally, I was planning on just writing snippets and bits, and keeping them in the virtual shoebox under my bed. But as it stands now, I've written 5 stories -- and shared them. I've written with intent, crafting each story especially for an individual too heal, enlighten, entertain. And I've gotten paid for 4 of them.
Which is so much more than I'd first expected for this year. The world is a different place, in some small way, than it was at the beginning of the year because of something I accomplished. That feels good. That feels very good
So -- what shall I do next year?
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-19 02:57 pm (UTC)A recipe book! (Hey, I never said I was very imaginative...)
heh
Date: 2003-11-19 07:54 pm (UTC)Re: heh
Date: 2003-11-20 04:02 am (UTC)Re: heh
Date: 2003-11-20 07:55 am (UTC)Besides, my passion is storytelling. For me, storytelling borders on a religious act, and sometimes, even crosses the border. ;-)
I suppose I could make up a narrative about how Master Flour fell in love with Mistress Egg, but had a torrid affair with Miss Sugar on the side ... but, I dunno ... that seems like a stretch, even for me...
I'll think about it though...